N.C.S.G. Candidate Statement of Edward Morris
Candidate for the position of N.C.S.G. Representative to the GNSO Council
• Name, declared region of residence, gender and employment:
Edward Morris
Europe
Male
Employment – Independent contractor specializing in event management,
specifically concert management. Intermittent. Clients within the past two
years: JLM, SMG Europe, Live Nation.
Education – postgraduate student, University of Maryland (pursuing a
Master of Science degree in Cybersecurity Policy)
• Any conflicts of interest:
None
• Reasons for willingness to take on the tasks of the particular position:
I don’t want the dream to die.
It’s really that simple. I was a student at the University of Southern
California when Jon and Joyce were ICANN. I didn’t understand all that was
going on back then, but I sensed potential and I felt the atmosphere: one of
openness, one of acceptance. In Kaprielian Hall, it was all good.
We now live in an era of an ICANN of high level committees, five star
hotels, expert working groups, offices seemingly placed only in countries
with highly developed censorship structures, elaborate ceremonies, grand
galas: the dream is dying. Bottom up is being replaced with top down; real
multi-stakeholderism is being replaced by a facade. It is not good.
Two years ago at the ICANN meeting in Toronto one of our most respected
Counselors took the microphone and stated succinctly “The Council does not
work”. I’ve been watching, learning. She was right. It certainly
doesn’t work well. The Council’s relatively poor functioning is used as
an excuse by staff and board to usurp the bottom up model. They make
decisions themselves and create specialist committees to guide them because
they claim the Council can’t do anything in a timely and professional
manner. This is so wrong in so many ways.
In our community the person who recognizes a problem is charged with solving
it. I regret that I can’t fix the problems of the Council by myself. I do
hope, though, that my rather unique skill set, detailed below, would give me
a reasonable chance of being able to do so in concert with others. If we are
to have any chance of saving, restoring and preserving the bottom up
multi-stakeholder model, a model that values expertise rather than self
proclaimed experts, we simply must fix the Council. It’s our best chance
of being able to restrain staff and board from assuming powers they
shouldn’t have. This should be important to us all. Why?
We as a community do not want the dream to die.
• Qualifications for the position:
I present with a fairly unique combination of employment history,
educational credentials and knowledge of ICANN and its processes that I
believe would allow me to provide quality representation to the N.C.S.G.
community.
Employment
I’ve had a rather diverse career path that has provided me with a variety
of experiences that would serve me well as a GNSO Counselor. Broadly
speaking, my employment can be subdivided into the 1) governmental, 2)
political, 3) entertainment and 4) human rights categories.
A native of South Boston, I’ve worked in government as an administrative
assistant to both Senator Edward M. Kennedy and State Senator Allan R.
McKinnon, on both Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill. I’ve spent time trying to
help create a functioning Quality of Work Life program in the City of New
York Department of Sanitation and in 1991 was honored to spend seventeen
months working in France for the state as an industry liaison for Le
Festival International du Film de Cannes.
My true love is not government, though, it’s politics. I worked on my
first campaign at the age of nine, licking envelopes for the next President
of the United States: George McGovern. Well, he won my home state of
Massachusetts. The other forty-nine states made a mistake. Twelve years
later, all grown up, I worked for Senator McGovern in Iowa and New Hampshire
and as the Southern California coordinator for his second Presidential run.
One of my greatest treasures is a transcript of a speech Senator McGovern
gave in Washington, D.C. during which he called me “the kind of person you
depend on to organize a state” if you want to be President of the United
States of America (Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 3, p.343).
If you knew what a decent man Senator McGovern was you’d understand why
those words mean so much to me today. I only wish I could have done a better
job for him.
I’ve worked on over one hundred political campaigns, both paid and unpaid,
doing everything from working canvasses to running states. My more prominent
positions include being coordinator of seven states for Jerry Brown during
his 1992 U.S. presidential run and as county coordinator in six regions,
including key counties in both Iowa and New York, during John Kerry’s 2004
presidential primary effort. I’ve worked professionally for Penn and
Schoen, Research Analysis Inc., Dorr and Sheff and for David Sawyer. I’ve
worked in a paid capacity on campaigns in the United States, United Kingdom,
Sweden, Finland, Norway and Poland.
My last paid campaign position was that as a field director for the Arizona
Democratic Party working on the campaign of Representative Gabrielle
Giffords. I love Gabby. She is the most intelligent, courageous,
compassionate and dignified public official I have ever met. I hope, pray
and look forward to the day when she will be able to overcome the effects of
the attempt on her life and once again run for public office. When she does,
I hope to be there to help her.
My first job out of college was as a roadie on Bruce Springsteen’s Born in
the USA tour. I’ve worked on and off for concert promoters, venues and
artists ever since, doing everything from managing the pit, to assembling
the stage, managing the stage to selling merchandise. I’ve worked for two
minor league sports organizations: the Tucson Toros baseball team and the
Worcester Ice Cats hockey team. For brief periods I was actually Tuffy the
Toro and Scratch the Cat. As a student I worked part time for Santa Claus,
composing and sending letters to children throughout the world from
Santa’s world headquarters in Rovaniemi. And, yes, working as an elf for
Santa is definitely the best job in the world!
Professionally, I was employed for three years as an associate in the legal
department at United International Pictures (U.I.P.) at Hammersmith, London,
often fighting against draconian censorship and profit repatriation laws
then in place in both the Iberian peninsula and the Republic of Korea. We
sometimes forget how recently many countries and cultures have come to truly
accept the concept of free speech. And how many still have not.
During the 1990’s I spent a lot of time in the region formally known as
Yugoslavia. I initially worked for Kirkon Ulkomaanapu (FinnChurchAid) but
changed employers as needed during this period. I worked in the field
setting up and helping run refugee camps. I saw mass graves, I saw
incredible acts of kindness, I was bombed, I was shot at. It was a horrible
period of my life, it was the most gratifying period of my life. I’d never
do it again, I wish I hadn’t done it, I’m a better person today because
I did do it. It’s made me appreciate the bounty we all share and how
fragile it is. War sucks. I’d like to think a world interconnected by the
internet is less likely to engage in war. Yet every year I go to Tallinn to
attend NATO’s annual conference on Cyber Conflict, CyCon, and I leave
depressed. Militarization of the internet is a deep concern of mine. It must
be stopped and reversed.
From 1998 through 2003 I was an active participant and researcher in the
Electronic Commerce Legal Platform (ECLIP) project. Initially funded by the
European Commission under the ESPIRIT program, ECLIP’s research was the
basis for a number of E.U. directives that today serve as Europe’s cyber
legal acquis. When discussion at the Council turns to consideration of
issues that impact upon European law, be it in areas of privacy or
e-commerce, I can speak authoritatively because not only was I there when
the relevant directives were written, I was part of the discussions that
inspired the concept of the directives themselves.
I’ve also had a bit of experience in business. For a half decade I was a
board member and corporate secretary of T and J Imports (Companies House:
company number 05145954), a London start up specializing in the import of
food and other goods from Thailand. Frankly, I found it a lot easier to be
reflexively critical of all business before I had been entrusted with the
responsibility of running one! It was a good experience, one that I hope
will help me better understand the views of our commercial partners and to
find some common ground with them.
Similarly I hope that the four years I was a member of the International
Trademark Association (INTA) has given me the ability to better understand
members, many of whom I’ve known for several years, of the Intellectual
Property Constituency and perhaps gives me a chance of diffusing the tension
that sometimes exists between our groups. It is important that we work
together, where possible, for a stronger and more cohesive GNSO.
I believe my multifaceted background has, rather unintentionally, prepared
me quite well for the position as GNSO Counselor. The job requires a bit of
drafting and a bit of bureaucratese, is political in nature, it helps to be
a bit theatrical at times and, most of all, it requires a deep commitment to
the common good. I’d like to think my varied employment background gives
reason to believe I have a bit of ability, understanding and commitment in
these areas.
Education
I have the virtue / vice of being overeducated. Fortunately much of my
formal education has been in areas of importance to our stakeholder group.
I’m currently completing a Master of Science degree, part time, in
Cybersecurity Policy at the University of Maryland. I’ve previously earned
a LLM in intellectual property law from the University of London (Queen
Mary), a Master of Comparative Law degree from the University of Lapland and
a year long qualification in social science, the IGS diploma, from Stockholm
University. My base degree, a Bachelors of Arts diploma in political science
and history, was earned, summa cum laude, from the institution that birthed
ICANN, the University of Southern California.
I’ve also greatly benefited from lesser courses of study, with durations
ranging from an intensive single week to six months, in fields directly
related to topics that often come before the GNSO Council.
I am a graduate of the Internet Law Program, class of 2004, at Harvard Law
School. This past spring I completed a beta course, online, in copyright law
at the same institution. I am a proud graduate, class of 2011, of
Wolfgang’s European Summer School of Internet Governance. I’ve completed
a postgraduate certificate in Cyberspace marketing at the Swedish School of
Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki and possess a postgraduate
Diploma in e-commerce law from the University of the Balearic Islands.
My human rights education was largely developed at the wonderful Institute
of Human Rights at Åbo Akademi in Turku, Finland, where I earned
postgraduate Diplomas in both International Human Rights Law and
International Humanitarian Law. I am a graduate of the International
Criminal Court Summer School at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI
Galway. I have also done work yielding postgraduate qualifications in
International Trade Law from two institutions: the University of Turku and
the American University of Paris. I’m fluent in both French and Swedish,
as well as in English.
Three fellowships of note: 1) Fellow of the Center for the Study of the
Presidency, one year as Fellow and two years as a Counselor to the
Fellowship program, 2) Nordic Council Fellowship, used in residence at
King’s College, University of Cambridge, researching Nordic economic union
and 3) Fellow of the Nordic Institute of International Affairs. Three years
of on site exposure to internal White House operations, combined with
research in international legal integration, would serve me well as a
N.C.S.G. representative on the Council.
Although certainly not an academic, in recent years I have occasionally
played the part. I’ve presented and had published papers largely on the
juxtaposition between intellectual property and internet governance at
conferences hosted by universities in Turku (Finland), Salzburg (Austria),
Brno (Czech Republic), Vienna (Austria) and Akureyri (Iceland). In November
I’ll be presenting at a conference at Magdalen College, University of
Oxford, on the ‘Ethics of war in space: outer and cyber’. I’ve also
been employed as an occasional guest lecturer at the University of Lapland
(Finland), NUI Galway (Ireland), and Kim Il Sung University (DPRK).
My most recent publication was a book chapter I co-wrote with Ms. Sarah
Clayton titled “Social Media Marks”, published in Wekstrom, K. (2013)
Governing Innovation and Expression (Turku: Hansaprint, pp. 131-181). In
exploring the quasi-judicial procedures established by leading social media
companies to govern their communities, particularly in relation to user
identity, Sarah and I wrote that despite favorable internal regulations
“too often, companies have acted in their own best interests in preference
to considering obligations towards their users”. Sadly, the same holds
true of ICANN. I’d like to do my part to try to help change that.
I believe studies in internet law, intellectual property law, the law of
human rights and comparative law gives me subject knowledge that will
greatly help me on the Council should I be selected to serve. I believe that
I am the only candidate for this position to have both studied and practiced
law. While I wouldn’t want six lawyers representing us on Council, I do
believe, given the nature of the job, it would be wise to have at least one
or two.
ICANN
I’m a relative newcomer to ICANN, having attended my first meeting in
Prague in 2011. I say relative because after the battles I’ve been
involved in during the past few years I already feel like a grizzled
veteran. The issues are so motivating and so important, though, I feel like
I’ve only just begun to fight for those principles we all share.
Shortly after joining the N.C.S.G., I was elected to the N.C.U.C. Executive
Committee. It was an important learning experience. It was there I started
to realize the world of ICANN was a bit different than the world I was used
to.
Along with a few of my colleagues, I fought tooth and nail for structures
those of us coming from outside the IG field took for granted: regular
meetings, posted agendas, transparent finances. We wanted to create an
organizational structure where all could feel comfortable, where social
friendship, although nice, was not a prerequisite for involvement in and
contribution to our Constituency. I’m happy to see that this years
Executive Committee is functioning in a more regularized manner. This
greater transparency should help in the long term both to give the
organization greater stability and to help recruit new members.
Although I certainly developed many skills and became more knowledgeable
about ICANN as a member of the N.C.U.C. E.C., it is my work on
accountability and transparency that has defined my time as an active
participant of the N.C.S.G .community. I very much intend and would like to
carry on with this advocacy should you select me to represent you on the
Council.
We should all be proud of the work our SG did last year on the Trademark +50
issue. The focus we were able to bring to the issues of accountability and
transparency elevated the salience of these issues within ICANN and has
fundamentally changed the ongoing discourse. It was a great group effort. My
most substantial contribution within the group came as I worked with others
to try to make ICANN’s current accountability and transparency systems
function as they should.
I made the initial suggestion that the N.C.S.G. attempt a Reconsideration
Request (N.C.S.G. list, 26 March 2013). I then proceeded to write the first
drafts of our initial Request for Reconsideration (RR 13-3)
(https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/request-ncsg-19apr13-en.pdf ),
our Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (DIDP) Request (DIDP
2013-0724-1) (
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/ncsg-request-24jul13-en.pdf ),
and our second Request for Reconsideration (RR 13-11)
(https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/request-ncsg-08sep13-en.pdf).
It was a great education for me, although not necessarily a positive one.
Our stakeholder group efforts culminated in two Cooperative Engagement
Process (CEP) calls during which my N.C.S.G. colleague’s brilliant
rhetorical ability had ICANN’s chief legal counsel completely flummoxed,
dropping his coffee and muttering into muted phones. He was understandably
nervous – we had a winning case and he knew it. It didn’t matter. We won
the argument but we were never going to get ICANN to act as a responsible,
transparent and accountable organization. At least not then, not without the
ability to afford an Independent Review that could force ICANN corporate to
act properly.
A year ago I was quoted in a blog as saying “We should have expected the
type of response we received from ICANN. It is what the organization does
and what it has become”
(http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/09/14/meltdown-iii-how-top-down-implementation-replaced-bottom-up-policymaking/)
. That was sadly true, and still is; yet what our work on accountability and
transparency accomplished was and is of great importance. Indeed, our group
efforts awoke a nascent desire within the entire ICANN community for an
organization that truly is transparent and accountable. The numbers don’t
lie:
In 2011 and 2012, two years combined, there were two Requests for
Reconsideration filed with ICANN. In the sixteen months since we filed our
initial Reconsideration Request there have been fifty-seven Requests filed.
I have no doubt that our widely publicized battle against the staff and
Board’s blatant attack on the bottom up policy making process is largely
responsible for this increase in Requests.
Our fight may not have resulted in victory in the short term on the TM+50
issue, but it has started a community wide movement that we can all hope
will someday result in a truly transparent and accountable ICANN. I’d like
to continue to fight this battle both, with your support, on the Council
and, as well, anywhere else the possibility for progress may be found. The
legitimacy of ICANN and the multi-stakeholder model depends upon our success
in this endeavor.
• Statement of availability for the time the position requires:
By accepting the nomination for this position I am committing to making this
job the highest priority, save family, in my life, for the duration of the
term. Money has never been a prime motivator for me; it still isn’t.
Please note that I’m not involved in any other internet governance
institution. I consider that an asset. ICANN is my entire focus. I’m
making this commitment after speaking to my fiancé and other family
members. They know how important this is to me and are supportive of what
I’d like to try to do.
• The nominee’s statement may also include any other information the
candidate believes in relevant:
The position:
For some, the role of an N.C.S.G. Counselor involves simply attending
meetings, online and off, voting yes or no, and being active and involved in
Council affairs. That’s certainly part of the job, a big part, but I
reject the notion that’s all there is to it. To wit:
- N.C.S.G. Policy Committee (PC): All elected Counselors are automatically
members of the N.C.S.G. PC. It is my view that our PC is, or at least should
be, the heart of our stakeholder group. Doing policy is the reason we exist.
While both Executive Committees are important, the Policy Committee is
absolutely essential if we are to fulfill our mission within ICANN.
I note recent attempts to upgrade the visibility of the PC. These efforts
are most welcome and those involved deserve our thanks and appreciation. The
job, though, is incomplete. More still needs to be done.
As a N.C.S.G. member without portfolio I’ve personally found it very
difficult at times to participate in helping to draft comments, give input
or otherwise participate in the policy process. Often processes will begin
in the open and then disappear behind the opaque doors of the P.C. At other
times I don’t learn about them at all until the comments were completed or
nearly so. That is not acceptable. At all times there is a rush to deadline,
a rush that could be avoided by simple advanced planning. We need to better
harness readily available technology to create timely drafting processes
that involve all of our members in as transparent a manner as possible.
We also need to expand the remit of the PC. In the increasingly volatile
world of internet governance, much of what defines and limits what we as a
Stakeholder Group can do is being debated and settled in venues outside of
ICANN. We need to be involved in these discussions. Towards that end, I
suggest that the PC needs to be engaged in the following activities:
1. Government testimony – As ICANN transitions away from NTIA oversight
it’s important we have a presence in the ongoing discussions on Capitol
Hill. I’ve already begun the process, and will continue regardless of the
results of this election, of trying to position some of our senior leaders
to be asked to give Congressional testimony on the transition. No other
group has the expertise on internet governance that we do, and the
perspectives of our more senior members I think would be quite valuable for
the Congressional Committees and Subcommittees to hear.
Further, as things progress, our P.C. should be submitting testimony for
consideration by the various Congressional organs. Some of the contracted
parties and our friends in the commercial community already do this, either
themselves or through their lobbyists. To effectively represent our Members,
most of who do not have the resources our commercial colleagues possess, we
need to fully participate in the process.
2. Amicus Curiae briefs – Litigation concerning domain names is on the
rise. More lawsuits have been filed against ICANN this year than have been
filed against the corporation in the entire previous history of ICANN.
Lawsuits involving parties other than ICANN, but involving the domain line,
are regularly filed. The No-IP case is one recent matter that comes to mind.
We need to take an active interest in this sort of litigation if we’re to
preserve our ability and the ability of ICANN’s bottom up
multi-stakeholder community to properly govern within our space.
One of the problems in many of these cases is that the judges involved often
lack familiarity with computing and internet governance basics. We can help
– amicus briefs are also sometimes called “Friends of the Court”
briefs. In our role as an interested third party we really can be a good
friend of the court by helping to educate it. I should note that amicus
briefs are often used to good use in the United States by the parent and
affiliated organizations of some of our member NGO’s, the Electronic
Frontier Foundation comes to mind, and is quite common in proceedings before
the European Court of Human Rights and other inter-European judicial bodies.
I should point out that we don’t have the resources to do many of these.
In fact, years may go by when we don’t do a single one. We should,
however, have processes in place to participate in legal actions in this way
when it makes sense for us to do so. If we’re proactive we may not even
have to do the hard work ourselves – there are several cyber law clinics
in both Europe and the United States, and I hope elsewhere, whom we may be
able to interest in helping us out.
Good ideas are mere hallucinations without execution. It might seem a bit
ambitious to embark upon these two new projects when at times our PC is
understandably stressed trying to meet its current commitments and
challenges. Yet I believe both initiatives are absolutely necessary if we
are to truly meet our obligations to the billions of noncommercial users
throughout the world whom we are charged to represent.
As such, if I’m selected for this position and my colleagues on the P.C.
agree these are good ideas, I’ll commit here and now to my willingness to
take the lead on both initiatives and do everything I can working with
others, inside and outside the N.C.S.G., to make them a reality.
- Monthly N.C.S.G. policy telephone calls – I believe participation in
these calls is an integral part of the Counselor position. I note that
attendance the past year by Counselors seems to have lagged at about 50%.
Although I can’t guarantee perfect attendance, no one can, I will do my
best to schedule my life so that I will be regularly available for these
calls and certainly expect my attendance to exceed the 50% benchmark.
Values and Priorities:
-- My belief is that most of us who volunteer in this community do so out of
a sense of public service. I also know that in politics perception often is
more important than reality. I’m concerned about the reputation of ICANN
Meetings as being nothing more than “Club Med for Geeks”. This
reputation may attract some people to our group, but I can state with
certainty that it drives a number of serious minded professionals away from
joining us.
I do not believe that this reputation is wholly deserved. I have attended
three ICANN Meetings; I have been funded for one. During that Meeting, in
Beijing, I rarely left the hotel. I was in my room writing, in lobbies
conferring or in meetings participating. Most of our representatives act in
the exact same way.
That said, I find the opulence and ceremony at ICANN meetings to be
completely unnecessary. We’re there to do the people’s work, and the
people’s work does not require luxury hotels, open bars and gift packs. I
can’t change the culture, but here’s what I can do as an individual:
Grand Gala’s and corporate receptions – I won’t be attending many of
these. When I do, if selected for this position, it will be for a specific
reason related to performing the job of Councilor. Fireworks, palaces, free
alcohol and food are not essential to ICANN’s core function of managing
names and addresses. I don’t believe registrants’ fees should be used
for such extravagances and I personally would not be comfortable as a
Councilor partaking of the largess of corporate interests. Under no
circumstance will I ever accept free food, drink or gifts paid for, in full
or in part, by a for profit corporation. I know others see things
differently, and I fully respect their views, as I hope they do mine.
Stipends - ICANN provides stipends to supported Meeting attendees. To me,
it’s a fairly substantial sum and often, although not always, is far above
what I personally need to meet expenses. Fortunately I’m still healthy
enough to be able to take public transit, I have relatively cheap tastes in
food, and rarely drink. I do not want to profit in any way from my volunteer
position in ICANN. As such, I will do my best to keep track of my actual
expenses related to ICANN Meeting attendance. Any amount given to me by
ICANN as a stipend in excess of my actual expenses will either be: 1) given
as a gift in the name of the N.C.S.G. to a children’s charity in the
Meeting’s host country or 2) given to either / both of our Constituency
treasuries or to that of the N.C.S.G.
-- One of the remarkable things about our Stakeholder Group is the
remarkable cohesion we have on most policy issues. In the 2+ years I have
been a member of the N.C.S.G. I’ve never disagreed with a consensus policy
position. On the rare occasion where we’ve been split, such as on open /
closed generics, I usually find myself internally split between both views.
I assume our cohesion as a group will continue, and we’ll present a
unified front on policy on the Council.
That said, I do have two areas of specific interest that are outside the
specific gambit of Council work, both of which may be considered “pie in
the sky” objectives, but in fairness I felt that I should make everyone
aware of these interests before asking for your vote:
1. Corporate structure – I believe that the fundamental root of ICANN’s
problems with accountability and responsiveness lay in its corporate
structure. ICANN’s current organizational framework insulates Board
members from any meaningful obligation to consult or consider or respond to
any interests beyond those of fellow Board members or that of ICANN staff.
This is compounded by the erroneous belief of some Board members that their
fiduciary obligation to ICANN under §5231 of the California Corporations
Code necessarily limits their ranges of action only to those that benefit
ICANN corporate in the short term. Although this arguably may have been true
in the past it is not now. In 2012 California created a new class of
corporation known as Benefit Corporations that allow for-profit corporate
directors of this corporate class to consider certain public goods in
addition to profit maximization in carrying out their fiduciary duties.
During the process creating this new corporate type the legislative staff
opined that PBC directors, such as those of ICANN, already had the
discretion to act in the greater public interest if they so wished and thus
new legislation was not needed to extend the explicit public interest
fiduciary option to non-profits. Some ICANN directors appear currently to be
operating under a misguided understanding of their own fiduciary obligation
to the corporation.
I will, of course, participate to the greatest degree possible in ICANN’s
accountability processes. I have volunteered to be a member of the Cross
Community Working Group on Accountability and encourage all with interest to
do so. Sadly, I have no great belief that this staff and Board dominated
effort will lead to anything more than marginal change, if that.
True change would likely only be accomplished by a corporate reorganization
that makes the Board responsive to the community much as the board of a
publicly traded corporation is responsive to its shareholders. This could be
accomplished very simply by creating a membership category in ICANN per
§5310 - §5313 of the California Corporations Code. This is not a new idea;
indeed Karl Auerbach made it a central component of his successful campaign
for ICANN Board Membership in 2000. It was a good idea then, it is a good
idea now, and perhaps is the only one that could bring truly accountable
bottom up governance back to ICANN.
2. Arbitration – It is an absolute travesty that there has not been any
meaningful review of the UDRP since its inception. Many members of the
N.C.S.G. and its predecessor have worked hard without success to try to make
it happen. It may be an impossible dream but it is one I would like to work
on with great passion if the opportunity ever presented itself.
In the interim, it’s appropriate and perhaps a bit more realistic to focus
on getting ICANN to step up its support of individuals whose registrations
are being challenged. I note ICANN has been very active in outreach designed
to help firms to protect their trademarks online. I’d like to see ICANN
equally active in outreach designed to educate individuals and small firms
on how to protect their domain names from improper or capricious
registration challenges. This is an achievable goal and one I’d like to
try to work with others to achieve.
Thank you for reading this Statement. I know it’s a bit long; it also is
the best opportunity I’m given to let those of you I’ve never met to get
to know me and for me to be able to tell you what I’d like to do on your
behalf if you select me for this position. Elections set the tone for that
which can be accomplished. Yours is an important vote; in terms of impact,
your vote for N.C.S.G. Council, because of its relative strength, probably
impacts public policy more than any vote you may ever make for a national
political office.
It is with deep humility that I ask you for one of your four votes for
Council. I can’t promise results, no one can, but I can promise that if
given the opportunity I’ll prioritize this position in my own life and
will work as hard and as long as I can to try to help achieve the policy
goals we all believe in. This stuff is important.
I’d like to conclude with a bit of creativity, a bit of philosophy. I’d
like to introduce a N.C.S.G. first: a campaign song, courtesy of Mr. Bruce
Springsteen:
Well this internet
Carries saints and sinners
This internet
Carries losers and winners
This internet
Carries whores and gamblers
This internet
Carries lost souls
This internet
Dreams will not be thwarted
This internet
Faith will be rewarded
This internet
Hear the steel wheels singing
This internet
Bells of freedom ringing
The song quoted actually uses the word ‘train’ instead of ‘internet’
but the principle is the same: a vehicle for all, a vehicle for freedom, our
train, our internet, one train, one internet, one world, for all, by all.
Allow me to present “Land of Hopes and Dreams”, a campaign song, a
philosophy, a destination, our destination. Bruce Springsteen and the E
Street Band, from the back of my pit, last summer in Kilkenny, in my native
Republic of Ireland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsWXiB06zVE
Enjoy and, I hope, be inspired, as I was and am. I realize it is a bit of
‘outside the box’ thinking to put a song in a candidate statement, but
if we’re going to start achieving a few more victories on Council and
beyond I’d suggest that ‘outside the box’ is the type of thinking we
collectively need to do a bit more of.
Peace everyone.
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