All,

I think the nuances of the concerns are being missed. There is something 
much, much more than the mere transition of the US Government out of its 
current role. As Avri pointed out earlier today:  "This was linked to 
improvements in ICANN accountability. We fought for that and got it. 
Upfront we agreed to this process be divided into two parts."

I think everyone agrees with the transition -- Bret certainly said he 
did at the hearing. But it is those improvements of ICANN Accountability 
that people are questioning. Are they fair? Are they balanced? Are they 
understood by all who will be impacted by them?

I have to tell you I am concerned because there seem to be a lot of 
"gotchas" -- meaning every time I hear someone testify about the details 
of the Accountability & Transition plan, someone else (involved with the 
process) says that he/she/it did not understand it that way. There was 
certainly a lot of last minute changes and maneuvering.  There is not, 
frankly, a lot of knowledge or understanding about the details of how 
this restructuring and reorganization is going to work.

Rather than name-calling, or picture discussion, let's talk about the 
details (the devil's always there, right). Can a consensus policy really 
be appealed to an Independent Review Process proceeding by one of the 
multiple stakeholders involved?  Isn't that going to give those 
stakeholders with the most time and resources a third, fourth and fifth 
bite at the policies we are negotiating? Isn't that going to undermine 
our months and years of work in the policy development process and 
working groups?  That's one question that no one has been able to answer 
for me.

Let's talk details - if you help us understand, we'll appreciate it. But 
this is much more than a transition from USG oversight...

Kathy

On 5/26/2016 12:26 PM, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
>
> *From:*David Post [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>
> But that's not the goal, in my eyes. The goal is to create an 
> institution that can manage these resources in a reasonable way, for 
> the next [many] years.
>
> MM: As Avri noted, the goal of the stewardship transition was 
> to…transition, i.e. get the US govt out of its current role. I am 
> flabbergasted by the fact that you do not see the US oversight role as 
> a broken part of the institution.
>
> MM: As someone who has written about early post-revolutionary America, 
> I wonder how you would respond to my argument “all these new 
> democratic government models are new and untested. We don’t really 
> know how well they will work. Why doesn’t the United States retain its 
> status as a British colony under the King for a few years, and let him 
> decide if the experiment has worked?”
>
> All I'm suggesting is that it would hardly seem unreasonable, to me, 
> if the USG took the position that while it is signing off on the 
> transition, it is doing so subject to a kind of probationary period 
> that will enable us all to understand better whether and how it 
> actually works. Perhaps other countries will view that as a terribly 
> untrustworthy move, perhaps they won't - I do think it helps that it 
> is, fundamentally, quite a reasonable position to take.
>
> MM: So you assume that the USG is NOT part of the machine, it is a 
> deus ex machina that we can invoke at any time to insert an entirely 
> rational, undistorted corrective action on whatever happens?
>