Dear new individual members of the NCUC (the new NCSG does not yet exist) who wrote recently, "Ralph D. Clifford" <[log in to unmask]> "Jon Garon" <[log in to unmask]> "Kim, Nancy" <[log in to unmask]> May I first introduce myself: Norbert Klein, since 1990 in Cambodia, working since 1994 in non-commercial organizations – in 1994 I created the first Internet system in the country, in 1996 the country address .kh, and in 1999 I joined the “non-commercials” in ICANN – at that time it had a different name. During the last three years I was sent by the NCUC as a councillor into the GNSO. Since November 2008, I am a member of the ICANN Nomination Committee. Though my working day – though a Sunday – went beyond midnight, I want to write to you and our community, because I am concerned about what you write – my mail is still basically a letter of welcome. I may not respond to all of your concern and questions in a way you may expect – but I do so on the basis of many hours during many years of a struggle to get our voice - the Non Commercial Users Constituency – heard, as it developed over the years, and in the context of ICANN. We found ourselves often in a difficult position - others with business, intellectual property, and technical mandates had often better institutional support structures. While I understand your hope, saying to “add that simplicity is also valuable,... ... without adding significant complexity to the proposal” - I can only plead to spend quite some more time working through the complexity of the ICANN website: http://www.icann.org Surely you have done it – but I admit, after so many years, that I am still struggling to be oriented – not only about the structures – but about the dynamics and time lines, which exist and to which we have to adapt ourselves, if we want to have our voice heard, according to the right procedure, at the right place, and at the right time. One sentence makes me concerned: “The bottom line is that ICANN is not perceived to be an open organization, nor one that is willing to provide a voice to new users of the Internet and Web.” Perceived by whom? A complex network of cooperating organizations and institutions with their different interests cannot be called to be “not open” for having worked out, changed, further developed, and revised again, certain rules and procedures. The discussions and outside consultancies and preparations towards the present GNSO restructuring process have been going on for several years – and as it is a process where quite different institutional actors are involved, not all of our concerns have been received with the same “openness” which we would have hoped for. But I cannot easily accept to say that ICANN is “not willing to provide a voice to new users of the Internet and Web.” In 1999, and for some years to follow, there was an effort going on to create an “individual membership constituency” - which did not lead anywhere, because it was basically an effort by ONE person trying to decide what has to happen, and there was no support for this kind of approach in ICANN. We, in the NCUC, received since that time the clear mandate to be a membership organization of organizations, though we were concerned that this excluded the possibility for quite a number of individual persons who would have liked to bring their contribution into our fellowship. Now, when we finally have taken the initiative to remove the institutional constraints for individuals – and have received the agreement within the ICANN-GNSO restructuring to accept also individual members into the NCUC (on the way into the NCSG) - I see no reason to say that ICANN is “not willing to provide a voice to new users of the Internet and Web.” You are among the first coming into this door we have worked to open. I cannot comment much on the alternatives proposed by Prof. Cheryl Preston – presented at a point in time publicly known to have been too late to be integrated and sent to the ICANN board – after a draft had been discussed in different stages in the constituency, and we finally had a text which had received wide consensus and was sent on. Let me close with some content concern, and not only with structures. But it is again a very complex, not a simple situation we face. Freedom, justice, and openness have been extremely important elements for my work in Cambodia – in a context where the technological, economic, and political situation is VERY different from the one in most of the north-Atlantic countries. It was for me personally always important to have – in the NCUC fellowship – a group of people from where I could get support and inspiration for our situation here – even when we were in ICANN encountering challenges which were not only encouraging for our efforts in Cambodia (I am editing, since more than 10 years, a review of the Cambodian language press in English). The media – not only the printed press – is in an unending struggle to find ways to communicate freely without intervention. The discussions about freedom of expression – in ICANN, including in the domain name system - provide always a context for me here, as they have for the society in the USA. I just read, before writing to you, the following article, a kind of homework for the GNSO Councillors from the NCUC – and this work is being done, of course, on the basis of discussion in the constituency. Therefore I hope for some extensive comments back: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all Whatever the time is at your end when you get this – here it is now 02:50. But I wrote now because of a deep concern. Norbert -- Norbert Klein Phnom Penh/Cambodia PGP key-id 0x0016D0A9 If you want to know what is going on in Cambodia, please visit us regularly - you can find something new every day: http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com (English) http://kanhchoksangkum.wordpress.com (Khmer)