[CPWG] [ECAdmin] Correspondence

[Greg Shatan]

All,

This appears to be a completely accurate interpretation of the inspection
right in Section 22.7 of the ICANN Bylaws.

I don’t want to say I told you so, but I brought up the overbreadth issue
on our CPWG call just this morning.  I assume those who have responded were
not on the call....   The other issues brought up in the letter are also
well grounded in 22.7.

I’m very happy to criticize ICANN Org when they get it wrong (and they
have, and I have, numerous times).  In this case, they got it right.  There
was absolutely no reason to expect a different result.  Indeed, there’s no
basis for a different result, like it or not.  (And I don’t particularly
like it.). One might quibble about tone or phrasing, but the substance
seems correct.

It may be fair to criticize the Inspection right, and it may be something
to revisit as a potential change to the ICANN Bylaws.  One would have to go
back to CCWG Accountability, look at the purpose for which it was created
and decide whether It was fit for (that) purpose.  (My recollection is that
the Inspection right was narrowly scoped, in order to give Decisional
Participants the same rights granted to analogous stakeholders under
California law.) But this is what it is.

I don’t see a different way to interpret 22.7, for better or worse.  Does
anybody have another way to interpret it?  I’d be curious to know that, or
more generally understand the criticisms of the ICANN letter as a response
to Bylaws-defined request.

That said, the lack of transparency here is still painful and frustrating
and wrong.  (This was just not the tool to get what was requested.)  Even
though there has now been more disclosure than would be typical in a
corporate transaction, that seems to have come largely as a result of
community pressure, and still leaves a lot to be desired.

As for the Empowered Community, it’s unfortunate that there wasn’t more
thought and analysis afforded to this request before it was made.  It
doesn’t put the community in the best light.  I don’t think there’s any
damage, but it’s the kind of error that shouldn’t be repeated if we want
the Empowered Community to be taken seriously.  As Olivier pointed out on
this morning’s call, this is the only EC-related right that can be
exercised by a single Decisional Participant.  That helps see it more like
a glitch, and not a blot on the Empowered Community as a whole.

Best regards,

Greg

On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 3:48 PM Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:

>
>
> > On Feb 5, 2020, at 9:29 PM, Roberto Gaetano <
> mail.roberto.gaetano at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The irony is that we have spent years of heavy work by the whole
> community to free ICANN up from the ties with US government and replace
> this supervision by a multi-stakeholder body just to find out that the only
> body that can force disclosure by ICANN about discussions hidden from the
> community is a US court.
> >
> > Sad, very sad.
>
> Indeed, it is very sad and very frustrating.  The US government seems to
> have truly gotten over its desire to manage the Internet, and now we’ve got
> ICANN pulling them back in through this sort of childish behavior.
>
>                                 -Bill
>
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-- 
-------------------------------------
Greg Shatan
greg at isoc-ny.org
President, ISOC-NY
*"The Internet is for everyone"*
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