IP: . Call for comments -- Wired: Congress to Enter ICANN Fray

[David Farber <dfarber@earthlink.net>]

Please cc me o any comments to Lyman. Tnks. Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: Lyman Chapin <lyman@nexthop.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 18:05:22 
To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Re: IP: Wired: Congress to Enter ICANN Fray

>I will be writing an IP Editorial (rare events) this weekend giving my views
>on the current situation with ICANN. As a early participant in the planning
>for an organization , as an advisor to Jon Postel, I will try to put some
>context to the current mess and suggest some rational ways out.

Dave,

I have a particular interest in your views on ICANN, as I'm one of 
the five members of the "restructuring" committee - and I would also 
be interested to hear from any other IPers who feel strongly about 
"what should be done about ICANN." So far the most concisely 
clear-headed commentary I've seen has come from Harald Alvestrand, 
the current IETF chair ( 
http://www.alvestrand.no/icann/icann_reform.html). There is of course 
no shortage of less carefully reasoned comments!

With respect to Rick Forno's conspiracy theory - needless to say, 
ICANN's meeting in Ghana (the home of one of the directors recently 
elected At-Large) was scheduled long before there was a 
"controversial Lynn Plan."

- Lyman

>------ Forwarded Message
>From: Richard Forno <rforno@infowarrior.org>
>Organization: www.infowarrior.org
>Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 09:37:39 -0500
>To: <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>Subject: Wired: Congress to Enter ICANN Fray
>
>
>(Wired article exerpt follows)
>
>All I can say, is it's about time we got some fresh air and sunlight into
>the secretive bedchambers of the runaway frieght train known as ICANN.
>Congress needs to take a good, hard, and objective look at ICANN's past
>actions, policies, and questionable practices, lest it become a miniature
>Enron-in-the-making.
>
>I was talking to a few folks last week....does anyone else  wonder why they
>picked Ghana - a very, very remote place on Earth - to have their Board
>Meeting.....to discuss the controversial Lynn Plan? Could it be ICANN didn't
>want much "interested media" coverage or public attendance at this
>monumental meeting?  (The feeds from the meeting go up and down like a yo
>yo, by the way, further muddying the waters.) Conspiracy theories
>abound.....
>
>ICANN, in its current (or proposed) form  - except for a small number of
>folks on their Board - appears to be a corrupt, unqualified, one-sided
>"Bannana Republic" model of governance that is stereotypically equated to
>small, tropical dictatorships in the Caribbean.
>
>rick
>infowarrior.org

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