[Chapter-delegates] Appointment of former MPAA CTO Paul Brigner as North American Regional Director of Internet Society

[Eduardo Diaz]

Paul's appointment by ISOC has to do more with the message being sent to
the chapters than its credentials (I do not know Paul or his background
until now) .

David's email rings a bell in all of us after the SOPA/PIPA hurricane. I
read Paul's blog - http://blog.mpaa.org/BlogOS/author/Paul-Brigner.aspx -
and it gives me the impression that he was defending PIPA. The following
statement taken from his blog: *“**Here's the bottom line: We rely on the
Internet to do too much and be too much to let it decay into a lawless Wild
West...” ** *is contrary to the *“promote the open use of the
Internet”** *in ISOC
mission.

In the same blog, he is very explicit by indicating that he does not agree
that PIPA *“...**will affect developing security standards”** *referring to
DNSSEC. Again, this is contrary to the statement issued by the ISOC Board
of Trustees published on 12 December 2011 -
http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-joins-opposition-stop-online-piracy-act-sopa–
which clearly indicates the following:

"*From a security perspective, DNS filtering is incompatible with an
important security technology called DNSSEC. In fact, DNSSEC would be
weakened by these proposals. This means that the DNS filtering proposals in
SOPA and PIPA could ultimately reduce global Internet security, introduce
new vulnerabilities, and put individual users at risk”*

In any case, time will tell. Paul is already hired and appointed. David's
email cast a credible shadow of doubt on Paul's position.

-ed

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Lynn St.Amour <st.amour at isoc.org> wrote:

>
> On Mar 21, 2012, at 11:26 AM, Livingood, Jason wrote:
>
> >> I am profoundly disturbed by the appointment of Paul Brigner as North
> >> American Regional Director of the Internet Society.
> >>
> >> In his previous position as Chief Technology Officer at the Motion
> >> Picture Association of America (MPAA) he worked for the passage of PIPA
> >> and SOPA.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >> The effective endorsement of MPAA policy positions by the Internet
> >> Society with the appointment of Brigner threatens to poison those
> >> relationships and severely damage the good name of the Internet Society.
> >>
> >> I respectfully request that you reconsider the appointment of Paul
> >> Brigner as North American Regional Director of the Internet Society.
> >
> > I really hope you give Paul a chance to show you what he can do. He
> worked
> > for the MPAA for just one year. COICA, SOPA, and PIPA were in the works
> > for significantly longer than that so I seriously doubt Paul had any hand
> > in crafting those policy positions. Working on issues of copyright and
> > blocking is important to ISOC and having someone with close knowledge of
> > that seems to me to be valuable.
> >
> > His full CV is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbrigner which says to
> me
> > there is a lot he brings to the table.
> >
> > - Jason
> >
>
> Jason,
>
> Indeed and thank you.  And David, thank you for your obvious concern for
> ISOC and our MIssion.  I won't jump in now as much of what I would say has
> already been said, but I am confident Paul will be a great asset and an
> ally.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Lynn
>
> _______________________________________________
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> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
>



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