[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: PICISOC re JPA

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 14/02/2008, at 3:33 PM, William Favre Slater, III wrote:

> Leslie:
>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> There should be no control (oversight) by the US government or any  
> other
> single or group of governments and the GAC can continue to provide the
> necessary participatory process.
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> Nope.  I am going to respectfully and publicly disagree with your  
> assertion.
>
> Do a little research on Internet History and discover for yourself WHO
> invented the enabling technologies, and WHOSE tax dollars paid for  
> this
> effort.  Let me know if you need any assistance in your research.  I  
> have
> a wealth of information I would be happy to e-mail you.

That probably came across as more condescending than you intended, as  
I don't read Leslie as denying the US government's historical role in  
the establishment of the Internet (though I'm sure you'll accept that  
others have also made important contributions, eg. that of Tim Berners- 
Lee when he invented the World Wide Web while at CERN).

Rather than making any assertion of historical fact, he was simply  
repeating a very commonly expressed view (with which I agree) that it  
is inappropriate for oversight of Internet governance processes to  
fall to governments (still less one particular government) alone.   
Perhaps this is a discussion that could move to the ISOC-PP list, but  
there are a number of views of who should exercise such oversight.

One view is that it should be a neutral multi-stakeholder body, viz.  
the Internet Governance Forum: see the Internet Governance Project's  
paper on this (which also forms the subject of its submission on the  
mid-term review of the JPA) at http://www.internetgovernance.org/.  Of  
course ISOC will probably disagree, but my point is that I don't think  
PICISOC's position can be treated so dismissively.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'