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Agree - I like Ed's formulation. <br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/28/2015 1:54 PM, Amr Elsadr wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:1DFC2FFB-18BE-4FDB-B38D-790CDE4EB5CB@egyptig.org"
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<div>Hi,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I very much like Ed’s approach to this, and think it is
definitely something worth bringing up with the board.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Amr</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>On Jan 26, 2015, at 1:50 PM, Edward Morris <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:egmorris1@toast.net">egmorris1@toast.net</a>>
wrote:</div>
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<div dir="ltr">Hi Avri,<br>
<div hspace="streak-pt-mark" style="max-height: 1px;"><img
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Aren't various government and intergovernmental
actions forcing ICANN to take action based on
content.</div>
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<div>In the two instances mentioned, I'm unaware of
any jurisdictionally appropriate court order
"forcing" ICANN to engage in quasi law enforcement
activities. Perhaps I'm wrong but I'm unaware of any
ICANN staff member or official being detained or
physically threatened, a.k.a. "forced", to assist
law enforcement in tracking down<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>alleged</i> criminals.
How is ICANN being forced to do anything? </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"Pressured" might be a better term and, of
course, ICANN is often pressured to do many things.
One of the things I would hope the Board could
clarify for us is how ICANN determines which
pressures to respond to and which pressures not to
respond to. For example, there are jurisdictions
that classify gay and lesbian sexual activity as
being deviant and impermissible behaviour equivalent
to that of adult sex with children. Does ICANN
cooperate with law enforcement authorities in
identifying those responsible for putting online gay
and lesbian content? One mans terrorist is another
mans freedom fighter: is it ICANN's role to assist
law enforcement in identifying those responsible for
websites some may believe aids and abets terrorism
while others believe the same websites assist
"freedom fighters"? Who decides what pressures to
yield to? What is the procedure for making such
decisions? Should there not be transparency in such
processes so that those making the decisions are
held responsible for their judgement and actions?</div>
<div><br>
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Unfortunately we keep saying they have no business
discussing content based issue, yet, others impose
these issues on ICANN. How do we give the Board
and Staff guidance, recommendations and advice on
how to handle the contents tissue imposed on ICANN
without dealing with it?<br>
</div>
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<div><br>
</div>
<div>Pressure goes both ways. If ICANN Board and staff
perceive no blow back from their incursions into
content regulation they will continue to do it. Why
not? At the NCPH meeting Fadi reached out to the
community for guidance: in some ways it could be
seen as a plea to "blow back". If we in the
noncommercial community strongly direct ICANN to
stay out of content regulation it gives Fadi and
others something to point to to justify resisting
pressures to get involved in content control. If we
remain silent in response to Fadi's invitation to
direct ICANN in this matter, then it would
inappropriate to hold ICANN responsible for
decisions made to ban content we actually like.
First it was child pornography, now ICANN is
considering getting involved in intellectual
monopoly violations, what is next? </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Our direction to ICANN should be "just say no".
There may be times ICANN is commanded through legal
processes to do certain things. When those things
involve content ICANN should resist to the fullest
extent permitted by applicable laws. ICANN's
response needs to be uniformly "we don't do
content". Period.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Yet if ICANN is going to do content, something
beyond it's mission statement and appearing nowhere
in it's Bylaws, there need to be procedures
developed so content regulation no longer continues
to be done on an ad hoc basis. There should be
procedures in place, the community needs to be
involved, standards need to be promulgated and
publicised. I, as a noncommercial user without
extravagant resources, should have the same ability
to "force" ICANN to delete content I find
objectionable as the i.p. industry does to "force"
ICANN to chase after Bulgarians whose content they
find objectionable. Personally, I find the
militarisation of the internet to be far more
objectionable and dangerous than websites offering
allegedly "stolen" telenovelas. I believe certain
online actions by governments contravene
international humanitarian law. I know ICANN has the
technical capability to stop some of these illegal
actions. Should I not be able to "force" ICANN to
act to prevent these illegal actions? I hope the
answer is 'no' because ICANN does not do content,
but if it does...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Once ICANN gets involved in content it's a
slippery slope with a final destination I presume
many of us would find unappealing. One only has to
look at the United Kingdom for an indication as to
what might happen. Here in the U.K. filters
initially designed to ban child pornography are now
used to ban many types of material some find
objectionable. One of the latest sites to run afoul
of the censors was the Chaos Computer Club ( <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2014/ccc-censored-in-uk">http://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2014/ccc-censored-in-uk</a><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>). As bad as
national filters are they pale in terms of what
ICANN has the capability of doing.. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So, Avri, the direction to ICANN should be to
stay out of content regulation. Period. However, if
they are determined to have a California public
benefits corporation engage in censorship with
global effect it needs to be done in an open,
transparent manner with defined conditions and
standards available to all with community
participation. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Ed</div>
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<div> </div>
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avri<br>
<br>
<div>On 25-Jan-15 20:33, Edward Morris wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi Rafik,</p>
<div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder">
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<p class="MsoNormal">I’d like to suggest a
topic that has not had high visibility in
our stakeholder group in recent years, yet
is a big part of the NCSG DNA: the belief
that ICANN should not be involved in content
control. It’s part of our belief in free
expression and it’s something that very
slowly ICANN is getting involved in fairly
blatantly. I think it would be productive
for us to raise the flag in this area to get
word to the Board that we’re noticing this
and that we do not approve of this mission
creep.</p>
<div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">ICANN has always been
involved in content to some degree. The most
visible activity in this area came during
the .XXX battles where contractual language
specified forms of prohibited content.
Obviously the new gTLD programme involves,
in many ways, content classification. But
recently…</p>
<div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">This autumn we learned
that ICANN had employees going through
corporate records of firms in Panama to help
law enforcement track down an alleged child
pornography ring. (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://domainincite.com/14842-icann-helps-bust-russian-child-porn-ring"
target="_blank">http://domainincite.com/14842-icann-helps-bust-russian-child-porn-ring</a><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>).
Now Fadi tells us they are attempting to
figure out what to do with the case of a
Bulgarian man with servers in Costa Rica who
is allegedly putting i.p. ingringing content
online ( NCSG – CEO meeting, NCPH
intersessional transcript, p. 19-20). This
is certainly a long way from names and
numbers.</p>
<div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">We know Fadi’s
perspective. According to Mr. Chehade, ICANN
is under pressure. It’s one of the reasons
ICANN is supposedly getting involved in the
NMI. Yet during the interessional meeting
Fadi also stated several times that ICANN
needed community input to help determine
“how far does ICANN want to go?” on matters
like these (intersessional transcript, p.
10). We need to tell him that ICANN has no
role to play in policing content online.</p>
<div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder">
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although we know Fadi’s
position (both revelations mentioned above
came as a result of Fadi speaking
extemporaneously) and expressed confusion on
these matters we haven’t really heard from
the Board about situations like these. On
the one hand we’re told during the
transition that ICANN has a limited remit
and is going to stick to it. On the other
hand we have ICANN employees searching
through Central American corporate records
to assist authorities in policing content. I
think it would be appropriate for us to
express concern about ICANN’s incursions,
both actual and contemplated, into content
and to try to get clarification as to the
Board’s views and intentions on the matter.</p>
<div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder">
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<p class="MsoNormal">Ed </p>
<div><img moz-do-not-send="true">ᐧ</div>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 25, 2015
at 10:23 PM, Rafik Dammak<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:rafik.dammak@gmail.com"
target="_blank">rafik.dammak@gmail.com</a>></span><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote">
<p dir="ltr">Hi everyone,</p>
<p dir="ltr">We need to get 3 topics to
discuss with the ICANN board at
singapore meeting.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Best, </p>
<p dir="ltr">Rafik</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 20, 2015
10:32 AM, "Rafik Dammak" <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:rafik.dammak@gmail.com"
target="_blank">rafik.dammak@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">Hi everyone,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>like every time in preparation
for ICANN meeting, we have to
discuss what kind of topics/issues
we want to raise with ICANN board
members when we meet them.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>we will try to get 3 topics and
send them 1 week prior to the
session. </div>
<div>please propose topics and
suggest short descriptions . we
will conduct later a polling to
pick-up the 3 topics among the
proposals.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best Regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Rafik</div>
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