Hi I strongly disagree that a delay will not help anyone. It will very much help the governments of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, et al to convince some of the vast number of developing and transitional country governments that have been on the fence that the whole multistakeholder enterprise is just window dressing for US hegemony and that they now must urgently explore every national and multilateral option to strengthen their ‘cybersovereignty’ and insulation from the dreaded GAFA etc. The transition fails, we will be dealing with massive ripple effects across multiple issue spaces for years to come. There are geopolitical reasons NCUC members have advocated the US giving up its role since at least a decade ago in the WSIS meetings. The hope was to 'remove the target' so governments could maybe focus instead on ways to deal with real issues that impact access to and use of the Internet. The ‘delay’ makes the target much much bigger, and if somehow the US political process manages to make Il Donald the president, the target will grow by orders of magnitude and fragmentation will become an ever more relevant concern. I guess I shouldn’t complain since I live in Geneva and might get to attend lots more bitterly divided UN meetings etc, so can keep as busy as a Beltway Bandit. Anyway, here’s the link to the letter from Rubio and four other Republican senators saying that the US should retain control until after the election. http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=files.serve&File_id=96B86CF4-58BE-4E5A-A20A-C9D3D9A0A7CE Cheers, Bill > On May 25, 2016, at 08:33, James Gannon <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > I agree delay is not going to help anyone, ‘testing’ the plan will bring us nowhere as the very powers that people have concerns over and wish to test will likely not be used in any reasonable testing period. We will likely not have to spill the board, file community IRPs against ICANN or take recourse to the California courts, and to insinuate otherwise is playing to the people who like to hear the media spin reels around the transition. > > Our proposal is sound, is based in strong governance and law, and is ready to be executed. We either believe in the ability of the community to build design and execute or we don’t. > > I do. > > -James > > > > > On 25/05/2016, 06:55, "NCSG-Discuss on behalf of Dorothy K. Gordon" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> There will always be issues that can be used to avoid the transition. Delay is really not going to help in this case. I believe delay will kill this, and we will look back with regret if it does not go forward now. >> best regards >> DG >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Ron Wickersham" <[log in to unmask]> >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2016 5:11:00 AM >> Subject: Re: great opening statement by Brett >> >> i'm not convinced that going slow is any kind of attempt to kill the >> transistion. i share the concerns Ed and Kathy have enumerated, and >> am extremely uncomfortable with the important items that were shuffled >> off into workstream 2 just to get these contentious and very important >> issues off the table. dividing the work up is ok, but get the whole >> work stream parts 1 and parts 2 and if need be parts 3 and 4 resolved >> before the actual transition. >> >> as both a NCUC and NCSG member as well as a USA citizen, i don't see >> how my representatives can approve a half-finished plan where the >> stakeholders have not resolved important issues -- the only thing >> the stakeholders have addressed is how to divide the work into two >> streams and agreed on the first part only. >> >> not every one who shares these same concerns is a USA citizen, these >> concerns are not US centric at all. and with the change in leadership >> of ICANN in the middle of the process affects the continuity of the >> deliberations and adds additional uncertinty. >> >> i'm on the side of proceeding more slowly. a finished good plan that >> is agreed (really a compromise) between all stakeholders will stand on >> its own merit and will succeed. >> >> by overloading with too many separate, sometimes overlapping, groups >> makes it impossible for Non-commercial volunteers to participate in >> all the important steps. still we can recognize if the final plan >> is insufficient to address our valid interests, so we have to see the >> end product to adequately judge our position. >> >> -ron ************************************************************* William J. Drake International Fellow & Lecturer Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ University of Zurich, Switzerland [log in to unmask] (direct), [log in to unmask] (lists), www.williamdrake.org The Working Group on Internet Governance - 10th Anniversary Reflections New book at http://amzn.to/22hWZxC *************************************************************