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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

-- 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:

 

 

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.