At the time of writing there are about 24 hours left in the CIRA Board elections, voting closes tomorrow (September 26) at noon EST.
What is interesting this year is that renowned privacy advocate Michael Geist has once again been nominated on the members’ slate and if successful would be back on the CIRA Board. This would be a good thing, because….
Geist was on the Board back when I was, 2002 – 2005 and we were both elected from the members’ slate. He was a great presence on the Board and he tirelessly looked out for the interests of all stakeholders.
The reason I bring this up now is because this year the CIRA Board attempted to eliminate the members slate entirely. The proposal being that going forward all future candidates in CIRA elections would be supplied by the CIRA Nominations Committee – itself appointed by …. the CIRA Board.
When I was on the Board (and Geist was there as well) – we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to structure ways to avoid what we called “Board capture” by any particular group (the bogeyman back then was us filthy profit-seeking registrars). The initiative culminated in the year after I left in a special members’ meeting in Toronto which implemented the recommendations that eliminated the “agency voting” – where one person could end up voting hundreds or thousands of votes. (For example a registrar voting on behalf of a large chunk of its own registrants).
When the CIRA Board came out with the Stalinist idea to eliminate the members slate I remarked privately “After all that crap to eliminate Board capture, the CIRA Board has finally been captured….by the CIRA Board”.
It looks like that idea has been back-burnered for awhile, but with somebody like Michael Geist back on the Board it will be much harder to revive it.
So vote for Michael Geist and somebody like Daniel Kligerman on the members slate ….. otherwise you may never get another chance.
Obtain your CIRA members password here, and then vote over here.
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