[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] international law enforcement association resolution regarding domain registration data

[Gomes, Chuck]

I definitely agree with Andrew that we need to look at arguments, regardless of the source.  When I review the comments submitted in our poles, I look at the arguments made without looking at who submitted them.  I usually only look at the source if I need to follow-up with whoever made the comment.

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org [mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2017 11:21 AM
To: gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] international law enforcement association resolution regarding domain registration data

On Mon, Mar 06, 2017 at 04:33:02PM +0100, Volker Greimann wrote:
> the source. If we were to receive a statement from cybercriminals and
> torrent site operators, our reception of the arguments and content of
> the message would be colored by the source as well, wouldn't it?
>
> I am not asing to discount the message, I am just saying do not
> seperate the message from the sender.

I'm extremely uncomfortable with the above premise, and I think it's important to make clear why.

One model of ICANN policy making is that it simply balances among interests.  The interests are (1) those that show up and (2) those that we somehow decide are "legitimate".  The problem with this model is that it is deeply political.  The interests who "show up" are the ones who can get funding, and there is incentive to try to delegitimize some other interest.  There is a basis for interpreting ICANN's approach this way, because of the constituency model and the way that people identify as part of this or that group.  In this model, there is no reason for a given stakeholder or stakeholder group should in any way acknowledge or argue for positions outside their parochial concern, because if someone else wants that issue to be considered he or she should similarly attempt to participate.  One advantage of this model is that it is familiar from other kinds of political environments: it emphasises the "stakeholder" part of multi-stakeholder.

A second model of ICANN policy making is that it attempts to bring in as many different kinds of stakeholders as possible, not because these are somehow representative of a position (the legitimacy of which is to be determined), but because "more eyeballs make all bugs shallow".
That is, a diversity of views allows maximal exposure of the issues with respect to a give policy problem, and so it is better to have multiple kinds of viewpoints.  Under this view, everyone should strive to ensure that different viewpoints are taken into account, even if it is only so as to say that a given view was taken into account but the arguments for it were on balance not as strong as alternatives.
Constituencies under this view are a useful and convenient way to do some early filtering, so that people with common sets of interests can explore those common interests in depth without everyone in the world needing to participate in every discussion.  It is by definition not possible to delegitimize a particular interest, though it is possible to show that the arguments for that interest are on balance to be rejected.  An advantage of this model is that it discourages political maneuvers in favour of greater discursive policy discussion: it emphasises the "multi" part of multi-stakeholder.

Now, I don't really think that these are either mutually exclusive options; neither do I think that we ever get out of either stance completely.  But the suggestion that we have to take the source into consideration with the argument bothers me greatly.  If the New National-Socialist Stalinist Maoist Khmer Rouge and Social Credit Party of Canada[1] came along and made an argument that certain kinds of personally-identifying information in the RDS had negative effects, I would expect us to take that argument seriously regardless of the odiousness of the political stripe we found in their ideology.

The position of the Chiefs of Police interest group was that the current prevailing policy regime should remain in place, because it is convenient for them.  Some of the convenience struck me as possibly compelling and some of it less so.  There was literally no new information in their statement, however: every single one of those arguments is already exposed in the materials we have amassed.  And no, I do not think that we should take the position more or less seriously because it comes from a law enforcement lobby group -- any more than I'd think that if it came from the FBI, the EFF, the Regiment of Trademark Fencibles, or the Anti-Sony Collective of Evil Genius File Sharers[2].  I'd prefer instead that we look at the arguments, not their sources.

Best regards,

A

[1] Not an actual political party in Canada.
[2] Not all of these lobbies are real.
--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
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