[2358] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The Membership of FNC Advisory Committee - Minutes Available yet?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sean mclinden)
Wed Feb 19 13:53:16 1992
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 92 13:48:45 -0500
From: sean@dsl.pitt.edu (sean mclinden)
To: rma@tsar.cc.rochester.edu, sean@dsl.pitt.edu
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, cook@tmn.com
"The Committee is the FNAC and its members are chosen based on their
ability to advise FNC on policy, not their technical ability or
knowledge of networks."
OK, so how do you determine "their ability to advise FNC"? It`s a fair
question. I elect people to Government, they appoint and hire other
people who appoint and hire other people and so on, and at some point,
those "other people" become advisors that help to shape public policy.
But those "other people" are not accountable to me or the voters or
the taxpayers. So, how does one determine "their ability to advise FNC"?
My question is quite serious. I have seen a great number of advisory
committees constituted, in part, by people who *because of their name
or reputation or connections or whatever* are assumed to be reprsentatives
of an industry or interest group but who, frequently, represent their
own personal opinion. This newsgroup is full of them, myself included.
But this newsgroup is a semi-open process in which people are free
to assert opinion and be rebuked or supported. I say "semi-open" because
penetration is absent in some key areas. And given that we have such
tools as this, is this not a better medium, the open consensus process,
than getting a small group behind doors where accountability is
quenstionable?
Note that I am not attempting to assert "conspiracy" or even suggesting
that bad motives are at stake. Rather, I am suggesting that we have a
tool for openness and personal participation in government and even
if we do choose to use a representative process, we should be able to
do a better job of guaranteeing representation than the private selection
of an advisory panel.
Sean
