[Chapter-delegates] 3 proposals worth adopting at the Chapters' Committee meeting

[Dave Burstein]

Avri, committee members and other folk

I brought these up at the board meeting and some people were very
encouraging, live and in private notes after.

The Chapter Committee Charter asks for proposals to be discussed in
advance, so I want to get this moving.  Avri, if there's a better way to
discuss what the board should be doing, do let me know.

Please do comment, especially if you disagree. Improvements welcome. I'm
just in this to improve Internet policy, which is where this is coming from.

Everybody in ISOC, I believe including Kathy Brown, wants a
multistakeholder organization. Brown has done a good job letting people
express opinions, but power remains centralized in the staff.

I think it's time to move, with these or similar measures.

1) That ISOC reallocate a relatively modest amount, say 3% of the budget,
for the chapters to allocate at their discretion.

*The guideline would be to spend the money as ISOC is currently spending
funds on chapter support: events, expenses to F2F events, web sites,
necessary fees for non-profit status, ... This would probably actually save
money. A third of the chapter money goes to overhead.*


*It should be accompanied by serious but easy to follow rules
on accountability.  *

*No disrespect to Raul or Joyce, but it's demeaning to have to ask
headquarters for every small expense. It also slows things up. I'm
disappointed we haven't heard from Kathy Brown on how to do this, given the
sentiment at the board.*

2) That staff discuss with the relevant chapters any major policy move or
alliance, *before the policy is decided.* (Unless time is very short.)

*This is inspired by several incidents in Latin America and Africa where
the chapters complained that ISOC was talking to their government and they
were never informed. That isn't the way a democratic, multi-stakeholder
organization should work.*

*This could be as simple as a note to the list about what's up and
follow-up to responses. It's not burdensome. I carefully said "discuss," so
as not to raise the issue of who makes decisions in ISOC. I wanted
something easy to agree to.*

3) That ISOC encourage *experienced* members to help represent ISOC at
international events, including accepting the ITU Secretary-General's
invitation to our CEO to send many of our members to ITU events.

*We have numerous former board members and world class engineers who would
be very valuable bringing the public interest to the forefront. I
underlined experienced to make clear this is not an open invitation to
everyone.*

*Currently, ISOC is not represented at the majority of meetings that
determine the future nature of the Internet. We don't have enough staff to
cover even most of the ITU events, much less the even more important fora
where the future design of wireless networks is mostly determined. *

*3GPP, where hundreds of companies come together to set wireless standards,
has essentially no public representation. Big decisions are made, like
whether telephone companies take over half the WiFi spectrum. (LTE-U, LAA) *

*Other decisions at 3GPP determine things like the level of royalties on
cellphones. That's crucial, because inexpensive cellphones are what will
connect the next three billion. Royalties can now be more expensive than
the total cost of building the phone. Almost no one from Africa, South Asia
or poor countries has much of a voice at 3GPP. *

*Vint Cerf, one of our founders, said at Columbia that 3GPP should become
multi-stakeholder. Let's make that so. Also important are groups that set
the WiFi standards and many others.*

*As Secretary-General Toure said at the plenipot, ISOC is a member and can
send as many people as we choose. We're not usually represented at the ITU
standards sessions, where most of the important decisions are made. Current
in ITU working groups are issues of security (several), child online
protection, the design of next generation networks, whether countries can
require all data to be stored locally and many more. We should be there and
we never could afford to send many paid staff. *

*The big, controversial ITU WCIT would have been very different if ISOC had
done what the U.S. gov did and brought 104 people dedicated to the public
interest. (Even the U.S. government couldn't afford to send that many. Most
members of the delegation were private, mostly corporate.) The 104
Americans systematically connected with the 150 participating countries,
keeping them constantly informed of the U.S. position and reporting back to
the U.S. delegation what they learned.*

*Sally Wentworth is a good lobbyist and did what she could, but ISOC could
have accomplished much more with many members attending. In particular, our
members from the developing world could connect with their own nation's
delegation. *

*Supporting the IETF and IGF is good, but we could multiply our impact with
a broader representation.*
*------------------------------*

All the above is about making ISOC the "bottons-up multistakeholder"
organization we want to be. My particular suggestions may or may not be
right but I think almost all of us agree on the general ideas.

Frankly, I think are paid staff should be leading the effort to live up to
our principles. Unfortunately, it's very hard for any bureaucracy to share
power.  So the chapters have to take the lead.

The Internet Society can make a real difference and is worth fighting for.

Dave




*(Many members, including the U.S., send dozens.) *

*Brown and Wentworth are fine lobbyists  *







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