[discuss] List announcement "robust governance in the digital age"

Wed Feb 12 07:27:23 UTC 2014

"Trust but verify" is indeed a useful concept.  It brings out the facts, and challenges those who take things on faith and would have you do so as well.  Verification leads to making things concrete, factual and explicit.

I hope that, either on this list or on robustgov, will "verify" the premise that there are "significant, well-funded, very smart and quite likely unscrupulous forces looking to insert positions that serve and ensure the dominance of their own corporate/national/institutional interests into whatever emerges from whatever process."  While it might be naïve to assume that all the participants in a multistakeholder process are "benign and selfless actors (stakeholders) whose only interest is in the public good and the well-being of the Internet," assuming the opposite extreme is equally dangerous.  Neither statement should be taken as an "assumption."

So, rather than accepting the assumption of "significant, well-funded, very smart and quite likely unscrupulous forces," this assumption should be tested and verified.  These forces should be identified and discussed with particularity, their methods should be described, their sources of funding should be exposed, and their unscrupulousness brought to light.  If we are going to speak truth to power,  we need to know who we're speaking to.  It is easy to say that these forces live in the shadows, and don't reveal their existence.  Even if these forces can't be "outed" they should be individually classified, rather than lumping it together into some sort of "military-industrial complex."  We at least need a typology.  The Lord of the Rings would have been rather boring if each marauding band was repeatedly described as [dark power], rather than given separate existences as Orcs, Goblins, Wraiths, Balrogs, etc.

Greg Shatan

.

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 6:02 AM
To: 'David Cake'; 'Seth Johnson'
Cc: '1net'
Subject: Re: [discuss] List announcement "robust governance in the digital age"

Well David, if Mr. Snowden has taught us anything it is to reinforce Mr.
Reagan's most interesting assertion--"trust but verify"...

On this list and others particularly in CS, most notably with respect to 1Net, but also concerning MS processes overall--I've seen repeated incantations of the "trust" part of the statement and no assertions, proposals or support for my request for the "verification" part.

Could you perhaps explain this?

M

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of David Cake
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 10:34 AM
To: Seth Johnson
Cc: 1net
Subject: Re: [discuss] List announcement "robust governance in the digital age"

On 10 Feb 2014, at 4:50 pm, Seth Johnson <seth.p.johnson at gmail.com> wrote:

> So -- David would rather it not feed back from a group that has these
> concerns, and volunteers to subscribe in order to interject his
> disagreement with Michael Gurstein's framing.

        I do have significant interest and experience in dealing with transparency and accountability in an Internet governance context (ICANN in particular), and I have a genuine interest in contribution to informed and useful policy discussion wherever it takes place. I personally think that it would be more productive if discussed with the broast range of participants, but I'll participate in discussion of these important issues wherever it takes place.
        I do find Michael's framing of the issue unhelpful, but I remain confident that useful discussion of the issues may take place regardless, as long as focus on the issues of accountability and transparently. I think if the mailing list remains focussed on Michael'c contention that those 'here'
(in which I include those who, like myself, are involved in IG MS policy development processes through ICANN, RIRs, etc) are naive dupes who foolishly believe all MS processes to be populated by well-meaning altruists, and are unaware of the threat of capture, it will be lose what chance it has of making a valuable contribution.

        My primary objection is simply the idea that creating new fora, with separate membership and subscription processes etc, is a productive strategy. I think accountability and transparency are of sufficient importance that they should be of broad interest to anyone interest to most, if not all, of those on this list.

> One thing is, this
> might trigger discussion here or on robustgov.

        I consider the possibility of triggering discussion here less valuable as on outcome than actual policy discussion here.

> I however freely participate on either list and don't have this
> quixotic view opposing the very notion of an independently established
> list for discussion among people who have a common concern!  :-)

        Some say quixotic, some just call it trying to optimise the value of our discussion.
        Cheers

                David

>
>
> Seth
>
> On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 2:18 AM, David Cake <dave at difference.com.au>
wrote:
>>        While I've subscribed to this list as its creation seems a
>> fait
accompli, I have absolutely no idea why this topic was considered apparently off-topic for this (or other IG focussed) list(s), and I think the idea of narrowly focussed mailing lists for particular policy issues to be an extremely poor choice of strategy for facilitating effective and inclusive policy discussion. At best it runs the danger of limiting discussion to a small number of particularly engaged participants, removing the participation of those who might have significant contributions to make but are not sufficiently focussed on that issue to join a new mailing list. At worst, it focusses discussion on a self-selected group of participants who agree with the initial framing on the issue.
>>        FWIW, I'm joining this list particularly because I disagree
>> with
the framing presented by Michael Gurstein presented below, and believe that a discussion consisting only of those who agreed with that framing, but that could be plausibly presented as an outcome of the 1net community, would be counter-productive.
>>        Regards
>>
>>                David
>>
>>
>> On 10 Feb 2014, at 3:38 am, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> hereby I to announce the creation of a new public discussion mailing
>>> list on the topic of how to make Internet governance structures (and
>>> also governance structures for other global concerns) robust against
>>> capture and other forms of undue influence by special interests.
>>>
>>> http://digital-age.info/mailman/listinfo/robustgov
>>>
>>> This is going to be a topically narrow mailing list, and I'm going
>>> to actively manage it to ensure that it stays that way and that it
>>> has an excellent signal to noise ratio.
>>>
>>> The creation of this list was inspired significantly by a posting by
>>> Michael Gurstein on the IGC and BestBits mailing lists (quoted in
>>> full
>>> below) in which he observes that in many discussions of Internet
>>> governance structures, there is a naïve and dangerous implicit
>>> assumption denying the possibility of "significant, well-funded,
>>> very smart and quite likely unscrupulous forces looking to ...
>>> ensure the dominance of their own corporate/national/institutional
interests".
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>> Norbert
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 9:05 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>   I'm strongly in agreement with Michael that we absolutely need for
>>>>   the design and discussion of governance mechanisms to strongly
>>>> take these realities of particular interests (which are often in
>>>> conflict with the public interest) explicitly into consideration.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As I'm reading the various messages and suggestions concerning
>>>>> Brazil and following the discussion on this list and others I'm
>>>>> struck by one overwhelming observation...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Folks here seem to be assuming that whatever develops with respect
>>>>> to Internet Governance (and their own interventions) are taking
>>>>> place in a world of benign and selfless actors
>>>>> (stakeholders) whose only interest is in the public good and the
>>>>> well-being of the Internet.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thus proposals for this type of "decentralized" governance
>>>>> structure and that proposal for the "management of decision making
>>>>> through MSism" all are making the completely unwarranted and dare
>>>>> I say, naïve and even dangerous assumption that there are not
>>>>> significant, well-funded, very smart and quite likely unscrupulous
>>>>> forces looking to insert positions that serve and ensure the
>>>>> dominance of their own corporate/national/institutional interests
>>>>> into whatever emerges from whatever process.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It really is hard to take any of this discussion very seriously
>>>>> unless there is an attendant discussion on what measures can/will
>>>>> be taken to ensure that these forces do not prevail...
>>>>> that these processes are not captured and subverted... i.e. what
>>>>> are the defensive strategies and institutional mechanisms that
>>>>> "we" (CS) are advocating as part of whatever package we are
>>>>> promoting.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Is no one in these CS discussions taking into consideration the
>>>>> overwhelming resources of wealth and power that will be impacted
>>>>> by whatever might emerge from these discussions and the similarly
>>>>> overwhelming temptation (even in some cases the
>>>>> responsibility) to do whatever it takes to twist the result to
>>>>> support one's own narrow (corporate/national/institutional )
>>>>> interests and what the significance of this observation has to be
>>>>> for these discussions and their outputs.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This isn't paranoia or USA or whatever bashing.  This is simple
>>>>> common sense.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Has no one here heard of Mr. Snowden and what he has been telling
>>>>> us?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> M
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> discuss mailing list
>>> discuss at 1net.org
>>> http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at 1net.org
>> http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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