Ronda Hauben on Sun, 6 Jun 1999 19:15:36 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Citizenship and netizenship vrs. ICANN |
The following is from a discussion on the IFWP mailing list about the issues of whether there are people who have a social interest, or if it is that people can only have a private self interest. "A.M. Rutkowski" <amr@netmagic.com> wrote: At 01:55 AM 6/5/99 , John B. Reynolds wrote: JBR>>P.S. Tony: the fact that I am an ordinary Internet user and not a hired JBR>>gun does not disqualify me from commenting on matters of Internet policy. AMR>You missed my point. I'm speaking favorably AMR>about your participation in discussions - AMR>just wondering why you (and for that matter AMR>other people who passionately argue a particular AMR>point or attempt to speak authoritatively) care. Tony you asked me a similar question in 1992 when I got on the com-priv list and tried to explain that there was a public interest involved in what was to happen with the Internet *not* merely the interest of those trying to get their cut of the pie that was being put up for grabs. I wonder why you don't recognize that there might be people who have some public interests, that there are indeed citizens and netizens. There have been human beings who recognize that the French Revolution and the U.S. revolution marked a significant change in society from where the King ruled all and had sovereignty to where the people became the sovereigns. And the Internet has followed in this tradition as it is not a set of wires and cables, but a relationship between users and computers and networks which is fundamentally dependent on users having sovereignty. The Interent has been built by the open interface and interactive computing concepts where the users were recognized as having to be active in designing their own end of the interface. That is why the Internet makes possible the cooperation of people and networks and computers around the world. It is fundamentally based on that cooperation and your private power grabbing is the challenge to the Internet and the netizens and more and more are recognizing the challenge. AMR>In my own case, I've been analyzing and writing AMR>about similar public policy, legal developments It doesn't seem that you are in fact writing about "public policy" as I haven't seen anything you write recognize that anything "public" exists. And I don't understand how you can claim that you have been analyzing so called "similar" "legal" developments for 25 years, as what you are proposing is fundamentally unconstitutional and thus illegal. To try to disenfranchise the citizen or the Netizen has no legal foundation, despite your claims to the contrary. You do indeed write about effort to "privatize" what is public policy, but that doesn't qualify what you write to be regarded as public policy, only the effort to sidetrack the discussion so the real issue, the public issues are never discussed. AMR>for the past 25 years. None of what is now AMR>occurring domestically and internationally is AMR>particularly new. What you find typically with AMR>these developments, is that there are multiple AMR>different potential outcomes that evolve with AMR>time, and no intrinsically right or authoritative AMR>answer - just directions.. How strange for you to say this. I sat in the U.S. Congress and heard people say that the effort to create ICANN is setting a fundamentally new model for which will serve as a precedent to be copied. And even in some of your writing you propose things like creating something like the ITU without governments involved (or openly involved that is). Also the history and development of the Internet shows that the creation of ICANN is fundamentally unsound and "new". As the Internet is the result of an interface between the computer science community and government/s which led to the decisions being made on a criteria that were sound and also made possible the needed scaling so the Internet could grow and flourish. All that is happening now with ICANN trying to replace both the computer science community and the government/s role of support for that community with a set of people operating behind the scenes in a very vicious power grab is a serious departure from what is appropriate to happen. It flies in the face of open government processes as the U.S. government is manipulating behind the scenes what is happening here in a way that makes impossible the kind of accountable or legitimate activity that is needed to provide for the present future direction of the Internet. And this corrupt activity of ICANN flies in the face of any regard for the need for the computer science community to be involved in the administration and scaling of the Internet. Thus it is flies in the face of the history and development of the Internet and of the history and development of science and government as they have evolved since the earliest days in the U.S. However, there is something that seems a much more serious falsification in what you write. In another post you claimed that it is impossible to have multiple countries involved in the administration of the Internet and that is why one has to put up with the deceit and conflict of interest crooked activity of ICANN. According to your view of history the Internet never developed. You fail to understand or at least pretend you don't understand that it is through the cooperative efforts of computer scientists in a number of different countries, often supported directly or working for their governments, that the Internet evolved so successfully. You want to throw out all that actual experience of what serves Internet development and substitute a fantasy theory you are proposing of how the Internet can be run by behind the scenes governments and private interests -- as a so called "private" ICANN. Your theories don't substitute for reality however. A few days ago, during the Berlin meetings you did a post that seemed to acknowledge the problems that ICANN has demonstrated is its essence. At that time I wondered if even you were admitting the corruption that is the ICANN model. But I see by your posts today that you continue to promote this corrupt model by trying to question anyone who recognizes there is a public interest and a public purpose for society or for the Internet. Despite your misrepresentations there are indeed citizens and netizens and none of your words or deeds or protestations that such don't exist, can change that. >--tony Ronda ronda@panix.com --------- See " Cone of Silence: ICANN or Internet democracy is failing" by John Horvath URL: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/2837/1.html And see Amateur Computerist vol 9-1 http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN9-1.txt --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl