[Poll] reminder: Topics for discussion: NCSG - ICANN Board meeting Tuesday 9th February
Matthew Shears
mshears at CDT.ORG
Wed Jan 28 08:53:29 EET 2015
Agree - I like Ed's formulation.
On 1/28/2015 1:54 PM, Amr Elsadr wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I very much like Ed’s approach to this, and think it is definitely
> something worth bringing up with the board.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Jan 26, 2015, at 1:50 PM, Edward Morris <egmorris1 at toast.net
> <mailto:egmorris1 at toast.net>> wrote:
>
>> Hi Avri,
>> ᐧ
>>
>>
>> Aren't various government and intergovernmental actions forcing
>> ICANN to take action based on content.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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/alleged/ criminals. How is ICANN being forced to do anything?
>>
>> "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?
>>
>> 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?
>>
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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...
>>
>> 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 (
>> http://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2014/ccc-censored-in-uk). As bad as
>> national filters are they pale in terms of what ICANN has the
>> capability of doing..
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> Ed
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> avri
>>
>> On 25-Jan-15 20:33, Edward Morris wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Rafik,
>>>
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>> 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…
>>>
>>>
>>> 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.
>>> (http://domainincite.com/14842-icann-helps-bust-russian-child-porn-ring).
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>> Ed
>>>
>>> ᐧ
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 10:23 PM, Rafik
>>> Dammak<rafik.dammak at gmail.com <mailto:rafik.dammak at gmail.com>>wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> We need to get 3 topics to discuss with the ICANN board at
>>> singapore meeting.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Rafik
>>>
>>> On Jan 20, 2015 10:32 AM, "Rafik Dammak"
>>> <rafik.dammak at gmail.com <mailto:rafik.dammak at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> we will try to get 3 topics and send them 1 week prior
>>> to the session.
>>> please propose topics and suggest short descriptions .
>>> we will conduct later a polling to pick-up the 3 topics
>>> among the proposals.
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>>
>>> Rafik
>>>
>
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