[CCWG-ACCT] Speech by Larry Strickling

[Barrack Otieno]

Great speech.

Regards

On 7/15/16, Chris Disspain <chris at disspain.id.au> wrote:
> All,
>
> FYI below the text of a speech Assistant Secretary Strickling just gave at
> the IGF-USA.
>
> Video at https://www.igf-usa.org/igf-usa-2106-live-video/
> <https://www.igf-usa.org/igf-usa-2106-live-video/>
>
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
>
> Remarks of Lawrence E. Strickling
> Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information
> The Internet Governance Forum USA
> Washington, D.C.
> July 14, 2016
> --As Prepared for Delivery--
> I come here today to speak out for freedom. Specifically, Internet freedom.
> I come here to speak out for free speech and civil liberties. I come here to
> speak out in favor of the transition of the U.S. government’s stewardship of
> the domain name system to the global multistakeholder community. And I come
> here to speak out against what former NTIA Administrator John Kneuer has so
> aptly called the “hyperventilating hyperbole” that has emerged since ICANN
> transmitted the consensus transition plan to us last March.
> Protecting Internet freedom and openness has been a key criterion for the
> IANA transition from the day we announced it in March 2014. The best way to
> preserve Internet freedom is to depend on the community of stakeholders who
> own and operate, transact business and exchange information over the myriad
> of networks that comprise the Internet. Free expression is protected by the
> open, decentralized nature of the Internet, the neutral manner in which the
> technical aspects of the Internet are managed and the commitment of
> stakeholders to maintain openness. Freedom House reported that “Internet
> freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year ...”
> Its prescription for defending Internet freedom is to encourage the U.S.
> government to “complet[e] the transition to a fully privatized Domain Name
> System.”
> What will not be effective to protect Internet freedom is to continue the
> IANA functions contract. That contract is too limited in scope to be a tool
> for protecting Internet freedom. It simply designates ICANN to perform the
> technical IANA functions of managing the database of protocol parameters,
> allocating IP numbers and processing changes to the root zone file. It does
> not grant NTIA any authority over ICANN’s day-to-day operations or the
> organization’s accountability to the stakeholder community. The transition
> plan goes beyond any authority that NTIA or the U.S. government has today by
> enhancing the power of stakeholders to ensure ICANN’s accountability. For
> example, the U.S. government has no ability to reject an ICANN budget or to
> remove an ICANN board member—two of the new enumerated community powers.
> Extending the contract, as some have asked us to do, could actually lead to
> the loss of Internet freedom we all want to maintain. The potential for
> serious consequences from extending the contract beyond the time necessary
> for ICANN to complete implementation of the transition plan is very real and
> has implications for ICANN, the multistakeholder model and the credibility
> of the United States in the global community.
> Privatizing the domain name system has been a goal of Democratic and
> Republican administrations since 1997. Prior to our 2014 announcement to
> complete the privatization, some governments used NTIA’s continued
> stewardship of the IANA functions to justify their demands that the United
> Nations, the International Telecommunication Union or some other body of
> governments take control over the domain name system. Failing to follow
> through on the transition or unilaterally extending the contract will only
> embolden authoritarian regimes to intensify their advocacy for
> government-led or intergovernmental management of the Internet via the
> United Nations.
> Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and retired Vice
> Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright recently noted in
> Politico that rejecting or even delaying the transition would be a gift to
> those governments threatened by a free and open Internet. The Global
> Commission on Internet Governance, a group of leading experts from around
> the world, echoed this message by recently calling on the U.S. Government to
> adopt the proposal and to meet the September 2016 target date for the
> transition of the IANA functions. Failure to do so, the Commission said,
> would “send the wrong message to the international community, increase
> distrust, and will likely encourage some governments to pursue their own
> national or even regional Internets.”
> Over the past two years, the global Internet community, comprised of
> businesses, technical experts, public interest groups and governments, has
> engaged in one of the most compelling demonstrations of a multistakeholder
> process ever undertaken. The transition plan is a thoughtful proposal that
> was developed through consensus over two years by hundreds of stakeholders
> around the world. Stakeholders spent more than 26,000 working hours on the
> proposal, exchanged more than 33,000 messages on mailing lists, held more
> than 600 meetings and calls and incurred millions of dollars of legal fees.
> Given the intensive level of effort that went into constructing the
> transition plan and obtaining support for it from all parts of the ICANN
> community, it is no surprise that the community supports the transition and
> wants to see the United States follow through on its long-standing,
> bipartisan commitment to privatize the domain name system.
> I realize that the transition raises many important questions. None are more
> important than the ones we asked in March 2014 when we laid out the criteria
> for the transition. We said then that the plan must:
> support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet governance;
> maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS;
> meet the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the
> IANA services; and
> maintain the openness of the Internet.
> In addition, we said we would not accept a plan that replaced NTIA’s role
> with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.
> Upon the community’s completion of the plan, NTIA led an intensive
> interagency review to ensure the plan met these criteria. On June 9, we
> found that the plan satisfied each and every one of our criteria. We also
> evaluated the proposal against relevant internal control principles, as
> recommended by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). We
> separately engaged a panel of corporate governance experts to review the
> ICANN accountability proposal. The experts concluded that the proposal is
> consistent with sound principles of good governance.
> Despite the open and transparent two-year process that developed the plan,
> the many pages of documentation provided by the community to describe and
> support the plan, and the exhaustive review we conducted, misperceptions and
> outright misrepresentations about the plan continue to circulate. I will use
> the remainder of my time to correct the record on many of these claims.
> Among the most persistent misconceptions is that we are giving away the
> Internet. First off, we do not control the Internet. It is simply not true,
> and people who really understand the Internet know it is not true. No one
> controls the Internet. The Internet is a network of networks that operates
> with the cooperation of stakeholders around the world. The most significant
> operational change required by the transition is to end the largely clerical
> role NTIA plays in reviewing updates to the root zone file.
> Even more extreme (and wrong) is the claim that we are giving the Internet
> away to Russia, China, and other authoritarian governments that want to
> censor content on the Internet. No one has set forth even a plausible
> scenario as to how that could happen, and the fact is it simply will not
> happen as a result of completing the transition.
> Within ICANN, the transition proposal does not expand the role of
> governments vis-à-vis other stakeholders. The bylaws retain the prohibition
> on government officials serving as voting board members. The role of
> governments in ICANN policymaking remains advisory. Under the proposal,
> governments will continue through the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)
> to provide input to the Board in the normal course of business. As is
> currently the case, the Board is free to reject GAC advice.
> Today, the Board does give special consideration to consensus GAC advice.
> The transition proposal codifies current practice through a bylaw change
> that defines consensus as agreement to which no one formally objects. Now it
> is true that under the proposal, the threshold for rejecting such GAC
> consensus advice does increase from 50 percent to 60 percent. However, given
> the codification of “consensus” in the bylaws, this standard only applies to
> advice from governments to which no government, including the United States,
> has objected.
> The GAC has the potential to participate in the Empowered Community, but
> only at a level commensurate with other stakeholders. Notably, the GAC
> cannot unilaterally exercise the community powers. Moreover, the bylaws
> expressly prohibit the GAC from participating in the community powers when
> the issue in contention is a Board action on GAC advice.
> Some argue that authoritarian countries are not going to give up their goal
> of having governments control the domain name system and that the United
> States is daft for thinking that this transition will change those
> countries. We would be silly if we thought that, but that has never been our
> goal. We have never thought we would persuade authoritarian regimes that our
> view of the Internet is the best approach, but what matters is what the rest
> of the world thinks. There we have made great progress over the last few
> years.
> At the ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai
> in 2012, 89 countries joined in a resolution to expand the authority of the
> ITU relative to Internet issues. The United States was in the minority that
> day. However, since then, we have worked hard with countries in the
> developing world to build support for the multistakeholder model of Internet
> governance. Due in part to our transition announcement and due in part to
> focused diplomacy of the U.S. government coordinated by the State
> Department, we have made a lot of progress, as represented by the fact that
> almost 30 of those 89 countries have now demonstrated their support for
> multistakeholder governance of the domain name system by joining in the
> Governmental Advisory Committee’s consensus position to move the transition
> proposal forward.
> Another claim now making the rounds is that the transition plan is a radical
> proposal that is being rushed through by the Obama Administration. How can
> anyone call a longstanding bipartisan policy to privatize the Internet
> radical? The direction to privatize the domain name system goes back nearly
> twenty years. The community spent two years to develop its plan. No one
> rushed the community effort. To the contrary, we extended the contract for a
> year when the community said it needed more time to complete its work.
> Nothing is being rushed here and to suggest otherwise is to ignore the
> facts.
> Another false claim is the fear that ICANN will move its headquarters abroad
> once the transition is complete and “flee” the reach of U.S. law. However,
> this ignores the fact that the stakeholder community has spent the last two
> years building an accountability regime for ICANN that at its core relies on
> California law and on ICANN to remain a California corporation.
> ICANN’s own bylaws confirm that “the principal office for the transaction of
> the business of ICANN shall be in the County of Los Angeles, State of
> California, United States of America.” ICANN’s Board cannot change this
> bylaw over the objection of the stakeholder community.  Additionally,
> ICANN’s Articles of Incorporation already state that ICANN “is organized
> under California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law.” Changes to the
> Articles of Incorporation now require support of a 75 percent majority of
> the empowered community. ICANN is a California corporation and will remain
> so.
> Other claims keep popping up and I do not have time today to correct every
> misstatement being made about the transition. For example, after living for
> two years under an appropriations restriction that prohibits us from using
> appropriated funds to relinquish our responsibility for the domain name
> system, it is now asserted that this restriction prevents us even from
> reviewing the transition plan. Yet this claim ignores the fact that at the
> same time Congress approved the restriction, it also directed NTIA "to
> conduct a thorough review and analysis of any proposed transition" and to
> provide quarterly reports on the process to Congress.
> In the last couple of weeks, I have heard new concerns about the possible
> antitrust liability of a post-transition ICANN. However, this concern
> ignores the fact that ICANN in its policymaking activities has always been
> and will continue to be subject to antitrust laws.
> I could go on but let me close with some observations on the
> multistakeholder process. There is no question that within ICANN, the last
> two years have strengthened the multistakeholder model as it is practiced
> there. Moreover, the accomplishments of the process at ICANN are serving as
> a powerful example to governments and other stakeholders of how to use the
> process to reach consensus on the solutions to complex and difficult issues.
> However, as we work toward completing the transition, we must recognize that
> the multistakeholder model will continue to face challenges. It is important
> that we remain dedicated to demonstrating our support and respect for the
> multistakeholder approach in all the venues where it is used.
> We do not show respect for the multistakeholder process when we wait until
> the process is over and the community has reached consensus and then propose
> a two-year trial of the plan without ever asking the community to consider
> such an option. We do not show respect for the multistakeholder process when
> we do not participate for two years and then afterwards say we preferred an
> option that the community considered and rejected.
> Closer to home, here at the IGF-USA, we need to respect the process by
> working to expand participation beyond the Beltway and to support the
> inclusion of new stakeholders on a nationwide basis in an open, transparent,
> and inclusive manner. This kind of growth requires a strong foundation,
> which is why NTIA supports the work of the IGF-USA’s new Sustainability
> Working Group. This group is working to develop a governance structure to
> guide the organizational process and to ensure that there is diverse,
> inclusive and multistakeholder engagement.
> In closing, thanks to all of you for your interest and involvement in
> IGF-USA and in the IANA transition. I want to particularly thank those of
> you here today who actually contributed your time, effort, and creativity to
> reaching consensus on the IANA transition plan. Your hard work and
> dedication has been truly inspiring.
> Thank you for listening.
>


-- 
Barrack O. Otieno
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