[Chapter-delegates] [European-chapters] ISOC 2022 Action Plan

['Andrew Sullivan']

Hi,

On Sat, Dec 11, 2021 at 09:35:35AM +0100, Richard Hill wrote:

>Will the membership (and in particular the Chapters) be consulted prior to
>ISOC's engaging in US courts?

There are two ways to interpret that, so let me try to answer both.

If you mean, "Will this go through a formal consultation, like the PDP?" then the answer is no.  This is no different than other similar staff activities, such as the very engagements with both national governments and intergovernmental organizations to which Veni seemed to be drawing a comparison.

If you mean, "Will this be decided by some Internet Society staff person without any conversation with parts of our community?" I hope it is obvious that the answer is no.  We do not get involved in various government or intergovernmental interactions without various discussions (often informal) with the wide and varied expertise in our community.  This effort will, naturally, be similar, though of course it might be different in detail since in this case we are focussed on one jurisdiction and its issues.  (That is also not unusual for the Internet Society.  We don't try to decide what is the right approach for, just to pick an example, an IXP in this or that jurisdiction without consulting those local to the problem.  I hope we all agree that the problems for networkers in this or that place are probably best understood by asking the people who are there.)

> And what sort of budget is foreseen for that
>(I understand that legal fees can be rather high in the US)?

Because it is new and we don't know how it will go, we asked the board for a designated fund to undertake this.  You can see the entry on p 15 of the 2022 Action Plan PDF: it's US$336,000.  Designated funds do not all have to be spent in a given year, because they are not part of the operating budget but are instead an earmarking of monies for a particular purpose.  So we do not know whether we will in fact spend that much on this effort in 2022.

This number is not, I will note, out of line with the cost of specialist expertise we engage from time to time on large-scale interventions in ways the Internet Society has always done (such as intergovernmental cases where, for instance, specialist knowledge about particular treaties or whatever might be needed.  On some occasions I can think of, that expertise has come from our chapters or members, but sometimes we need outside expertise too).

Best regards,

A

>
>Best,
>Richard
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: 'Andrew Sullivan' [mailto:sullivan at isoc.org]
>> Sent: Friday, 10 December 2021 18:26
>> To: Richard Hill
>> Cc: 'ISOC Chapters'; 'European Chapters'
>> Subject: Re: [European-chapters] [Chapter-delegates] ISOC 2022 Action
>> Plan
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 05:26:57PM +0100, Richard Hill wrote:
>> >> number of decisions about how regulations will work in the US.  The
>> US
>> >> is, last I checked, still pretty influential in the way the Internet
>> >> develops,
>> >
>> >That's a pretty US-centric view. As far as I can tell, European
>> decisions
>> >such as the GDPR and the so-called right-to-be-forgotten have had more
>> of
>> an
>> >effect in the way the Internet develops than any recent US decision.
>> >
>> >Not to mention that national decisions (e.g. the great Chinese
>> firewall)
>> >typically have more local effects outside the US than do US decisions.
>>
>> I don't think there's any inconsistency with your claims.  I did not
>> say,
>> "The US is the most influential in the way the Internet develops."  I
>> merely said that it's pretty influential, and so it's one of the
>> jurisdictions where we think some work is appropriate.
>>
>> None of that is to minimize the importance of other countries.  Perhaps
>> the implication is that, if the Internet Society cannot do something in
>> every country it should do it in none of them.  But if that is the rule,
>> then I think we can fold our tent, for there will be nothing truly
>> meaningful we can do everywhere.  I am confident, at least, that we
>> could
>> not do any of what we do in North Korea, just to pick an obvious
>> example.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> A
>>
>> --
>> Andrew Sullivan
>> President & CEO, Internet Society
>> sullivan at isoc.org
>> +1 416 731 1261
>

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
sullivan at isoc.org
+1 416 731 1261