It's about 600 lines long, and won't take too long to read. Here are
the concluding paragraphs. Please let me know what you think:
The Green Paper as currently constituted is a stealth document. It
speaks of privatization, but ignores the most prominent private effort
already dealing with the same problems. It speaks of less government
regulation, but sets the stage for extensive government regulation at
a later date. It speaks of internationalization, but in fact firmly
entrenches the center point of the internet infrastructure in the
United States. It speaks of competition, but in fact continues the
NSI monopoly, and seeks to establish new monopolies. It is vague when
it comes to important matters, like how regulation will actually be
done; and it is very specific where it shouldn't be, as in the
specification of technical standards.
The Green Paper has already sown the seeds of international distrust,
and started us down the road of endless intergovernmental bickering
over who controls what in the Internet. Without very substantive
changes, then, the inevitable result will be a substantial delay in
enacting any policy whatsoever, and the ultimate failure of the NTIA
effort.
Therefore, the best course of action is for the GP to narrow its
focus; to concentrate on the problem of how NSI can best be
transitioned from a privileged government sanctioned monopoly to one
player in a field of many; to work with POC and CORE and IANA with a
spirit of cooperation instead of a spirit of dictatorship; and to
succeed as a helpful follower instead of failing as an incompetent
leader.
-- Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html