[arin-discuss] Good Governance

On Sat, 31 May 2008, Steve Bertrand wrote:

> > I am once again having to respond to irrelevant personal attacks just to
> > set the record straight.
> 
> Although I'm a relative newbie here, I'm curious to know that if what is
> said you consider irrelevant, why bother responding at all...?
> 
> What I mean is, if they are irrelevant to you, then they more than likely
> will be irrelevant to others. Why not just let the record straighten
> itself?

A rational argument consists of facts and logic and proceed by deduction
or analogy.  Rules and laws are facts. In a rational argument, there is
no grammatical personal object for the concept of relevance---it is
senseless to say 'irrelevant _to_a_person_'.  In rational argument,
relevance is significant to the argument, not to the person. An argument
is analyzed by identifying facts, their truth or falsity, and
eliminating facts that are irrelevant to the argument.  This is the
essential process of government.

A related concept is 'personal attack'. A personal attack is _not_
something that is merely negative about the person. A personal attack
must be:  1. /irrelevant to the argument/ and 2. /personal/. If the
argument is about pricing corn for export to China, we can probably see
that John Doe's overweight condition is both irrelevant and personal.  
But if the argument is whether McDonald's burgers contain too much
saturated fat that creates weight gain and associated health problems,
then John Doe's weight is relevant.  And to be specific, if we talk
about mismanagement of the corporation, then the personal conflicts of
interest and disregard the rules by the management staff are also
relevant.  Recall that Dreger, before falling off into irrelevant
claims, asserts that my criticisms of ARIN management for disregarding
the rules is somehow an ad hominem attack.

> I would think that responding to 'irrelevant' comments would just
> instigate further 'irrelevant' comments...no?

The actual relevance of an asserted fact to an argument is an important
consideration.  Indeed, relevance or irrelevance is sometimes THE most
important consideration.  Also, the persons who frequently make claims
without a basis in fact are discredited as being unreliable. Reliable
people make limited, qualified statements that have a basis in fact. And
it is also necessary to discredit false claims in order to obtain honest
government.

The objective of irrelevant comments is sometimes to make false,
misleading, sometimes defamatory, claims. Those claims need to be
corrected or else a misleading impression is created by those who
continue to repeat false claims. In this case, Dreger misrepresents my
position and past statements in a fabrication intended to discredit me
as somehow having irrational positions.  This is very similar to what
ARIN CEO Plzak did previously---it is a sly attempt to continue Plzak's
fictitious attack which disrupted my membership rights.  I think it is
no coincidence that Dreger and Plzak are associated through NANOG. Many
of the people making fabrications against me are associated through
NANOG.  Indeed, I see Steve Bertrand is also participating recently in
NANOG.

NANOG is a very small organization and only a small fraction of ARIN
members participate in NANOG.  Yet somehow, all of the ARIN Board
Members and the ARIN CEO are associated with this small organization,
and are doing things with ARIN money that the ARIN membership doesn't do
and probably wouldn't do.  Board members are supposed to act in the
membership's interest, not in their own interest.  ARIN is also a trade
association under 501(c6) of the IRS rules. The IRS rules prohibit a
trade association from doing things that don't benefit all of the
members.  Since so few ARIN members participate in NANOG, it is hard to
see that large transfers to NANOG (described below) benefit all of the
ARIN members and not just the NANOG members.

Since you are new, you may not know that all of the ARIN Board Members
and CEO Ray Plzak are associated with NANOG, and all have a conflict of
interest. One board member, Scott Bradner has refused to respond to
queries about his apparent conflicts of interest in NANOG.

You may not know that ARIN is sending large amounts of money to NANOG,
even though only a small fraction of ARIN members participate in NANOG.  
ARIN provides one third of NANOG's budget in large donations that seem
to violate the 501(c6) rules on spending that doesn't benefit all the
members.  There is no objection to ARIN sending paid speakers to NANOG
or anywhere else that will pay for an ARIN speaker. But instead ARIN is
paying NANOG. ARIN management is paying NANOG by sending a large number
of ARIN employees to NANOG:  employees such as the executive secretary,
whose jobs have nothing whatsoever to do with network operations;  
employees including Resource Analysts who decide allocation decisions
and who could be ethically compromised by personal relationships with
network operations persons who make allocation requests to ARIN. We have
also discovered anomalies in the allocation of IP Address blocks:  Some
persons have received allocations in as little as 2 hours. Of two
persons who reported these short times, one is associated with NANOG.  
The other says he is not associated with NANOG, but didn't identify the
company receiving the allocation in 2 hours. ARIN has not released any
information on the allocation times, and ARIN management stonewalls
investigation.

You also may not know that the ARIN Board members were "elected" in
elections that didn't have a proper quorum of 10% of the ARIN
membership. These elections violated the ARIN charter and bylaws and
were contrary to the specific requirements of the Virginia Non-profit
Corporation Act.  ARIN has asserted that the Notices of meeting fulfill
the quorum requirements. I have responded that Notices are required
under the Virgina Act, and that ARIN's interpretation makes the Act's
quorum requirements meaningless. It is a principle of law that any
interpretation of law that makes a part of the law meaningless is not a
correct interpretation.  As others have said:

  "It seems to me that the officers elected in the disputed
   election should be ladies and gentleman and should resign for the
   benefit of the organization they represent.  Then we should take a 
   new vote.  Prior non-participants (like me) will probably vote this
   time."

ARIN board members continue their unseemly clinging to powers, even
though most were elected with only about 2% of the ARIN membership
voting for them. They and don't appear to represent the membership in
any demographic except the NANOG group.

Myself and other ARIN members have also been trying to investigate these
issues, but have been stonewalled by ARIN management.  Myself and other
ARIN members also oppose the taking of Legacy IP Address Space under the
false pretense of "protection" from the unjustified removal of IN-ADDR
and WHOIS services.  Before ARIN took this controversial action (without
the approval of the membership), members asked ARIN to get a formal
legal opinion on its right to do this. ARIN did not get a formal legal
opinion as requested, and does not appear to have seriously investigated
the legal issue.  We assert that ARIN has no right to remove essential
government services from Legacies who do not transfer their property to
ARIN, and thus no right the threaten such removal or offer "protection"  
from such removal. Indeed, ARIN has not given Legacies _any_ indication
of their property rights in the matter, nor any indication that Legacies
have a right to the government functions performed by ARIN in the
maintenance of Legacy registration records, IN-ADDR services, and WHOIS
services. Legacies understandably feel threatened by the prospect of
losing these services and ARIN has no right to remove these services. We
believe that ARIN should be investigated for violation of the Hobbs Act
in these activities.

I hope that clears things up.

		--Dean

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