Thanks to Bill for weighing in against this.  I was surprised by the strong reaction of the IPC member who threatens to NOT vote unless she can vote in secret.

Now a Commercial Constituency member wants to keep all non-counselors silent during the weekend sessions in Seoul.
   http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg07642.html

Our members have not yet had an opportunity to dialogue on many of these issues: - they are new, Seoul will be their first meeting, etc.   The idea that we must be kept silent and can only watch the counsel would be a terrible precedent to set for the new "reformed" GNSO.   These meetings have been open and allowed for participation from any member of the GNSO before now, so I hope we don't move in the direction of silencing the community who is traveling to Seoul (most on their own dime) to work on these issues.

Robin


On Oct 15, 2009, at 9:02 AM, Robin Gross wrote:

I noticed that on the GNSO Council email list, the IP Constituency is calling for secret ballots for the chair/vice-chair positions on council.

That is really surprising to me considering how ICANN claims to be "open and transparent" in its activities.   And it is a bit disturbing that elected representatives in a governance organization are afraid the public will know how they vote on an issue.   I thought when a person is elected to represent a group of people on policy issues, those people have a right to know how their elected representatives are voting and handling that representation given to them by the public.

What part of open and transparent public governance does the IPC not understand?

Best,
Robin


IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
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IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: [log in to unmask]