Posted on 09/29/2005 10:28:04 AM PDT by JustAnotherOkie
The politically charged question of who will control the Internet in the future is dominating preparatory talks ahead of a global Internet summit.
At the same time, a controversy over the choice of a host nation for the November gathering has focused attention on autocratic regimes' attempts to clamp down on the medium.
The U.N.-organized World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is to be hosted by Tunisia despite campaigners' accusations of press freedom violations in the North African Muslim state.
Rights groups have recorded violations in Tunisia including the blocking of websites and police monitoring of cyber cafes - the very type of behavior that makes them nervous about allowing rights-abusing governments, through the U.N., to have a say in future Internet policy.
Historically, the U.S. has overseen the Internet. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, set up under the U.S. Commerce Department, deals with such matters as assigning top-level and specific domain names and IP addresses.
Washington argues that while improvements in technical efficiency and transparency can be discussed, U.S. management of the Internet has been successful.
"The existing structures have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust and geographically diverse medium that it is today," the State Department's bureau of economic and business affairs said in a recent report. "The security and stability of the Internet must be maintained."
But developing nations, led by Brazil and Iran and supported by China, Cuba and others, are pressing for effective U.N. control.
At preparatory talks currently underway in Geneva, countries are broadly split between Western countries supportive of existing institutions, and developing nations wanting to end U.S. control - a situation the Chinese envoy called "undemocratic, unfair and unreasonable."
The latter group was boosted when the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), a body set up to make proposals ahead of November's summit, stated in a report that "no single government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to international Internet governance."
The group suggested several possible models, including a Global Internet Council "anchored in the United Nations."
Such a body, "consisting of members from governments with appropriate representation from each region ... would take over the functions relating to international Internet governance currently performed by the Department of Commerce of the United States government," said the WGIG report, released in July.
Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who has delved into U.N. corruption, responded at the time by saying that "putting the U.N. in charge of one of the world's most important technological wonders and economic engines is out of the question."
"This proposal would leave the United States with no more say over the future of the Internet than Cuba or China - countries that have little or no commitment to the free flow of information," he said in a statement.
'Beyond comprehension'
Beijing is a leading proponent of U.N. supervision of the Internet. At a WGIG meeting in Geneva last June, the Chinese representative said: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework."
"Where Internet resources now are managed by one government, in future it should be jointly managed by all governments," the envoy said.
But human rights campaigners worry about countries like China being involved in setting future Internet policy.
Reporters Without Frontiers, a media freedom watchdog, says China oversees the most far-reaching system of Internet censorship and email surveillance anywhere, and is also "the world's biggest prison for cyber-dissidents," more than 60 of whom are in jail.
Just this week China announced rules aimed at ensuring that online news sites only carry approved news.
Tunisia is another country where rights groups say press freedoms have deteriorated, and critics see in its choice as host country for the Internet summit an echo of Libya's 2003 selection to chair the U.N. Commission on Human Rights - another reason why the U.N. should not be given oversight of the Internet.
Reporters Without Borders said in a statement the U.N. decision to allow "a country that imprisons people for using the Internet [to host the summit] ... is beyond comprehension."
In a report released this week, a coalition of 14 media NGOs said Tunisia was unfit to hold the summit, accusing the government of taking steps aimed at stifling dissent ahead of the event.
They cited reports of a clampdown on the press and civil society, including the jailing of a human rights lawyer for posting critical comments online. Mohamed Abbou was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment for "incitement of the population to infringe the laws," they said.
Tunisia on Wednesday dismissed the report as "biased and inaccurate."
"Freedom of the Internet is a global challenge, that's why we are concerned about what will happen in November in Tunis," Vincent Brossel of Reporters Without Frontiers told Cybercast News Service from Paris earlier.
"If countries like China manage to get the Internet in their hands it will change absolutely all the rules," he said. "It's quite scary."
Islam itself is threatened by it. It's big lie will be exposed. The sinful acts of defiling the Prophet and Allah will be plain for all to see, yet the defilers (of which I am one) are beyond the reach of the bony hands of the imams and the islamic religious police.
LONG LIVE THE INTERNET!!!
HELL NO. Any other questions today 3rd world parasites? Don't like US control, develop your own Internet.
There it is. This is the same group that likes the idea of the Law of the Sea Treaty, the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, the Moon Treaty. It's all for them, even though they are so far behind they will never benefit by holding the leaders back.
And go get your own if you don't like it. ; )
Let them build it and fund it and compete with it.....oops no economic model there folks
The UN can run its OWN internet if it wants to, it can't have mine. If the UN ever took control of the current internet, private U.S. enterprises would simply build a new private backbone independent of the U.N. control infrastructure, which by it's very own nature, would be run 100x more efficiently and with less beaurocracy than anything the U.N. ever put its hands on.
'nother bookmark
If they're "developing", they should develop their own internet.
Root name servers are controlled by ICANN, which is not a governmental agency of any government. It's a private, non-profit corporation, with representatives from many nations.
All Your Packets Are Belong To US.
How long before some one world socialist democrat is elected POTUS and bows to their request? We need to make sure we get all of the potential candidates in '08 on record regarding this issue.
and developing nations wanting subsidized access to the web...paid for by the U.S.
The longer I live, the more the line between satire and reality becomes indistinguishable.
I can understand why Iran, China, and Cuba would want to get the Internet out of USA control, but what's Brazil's angle?
Here is the website of the UN's group that wants control of the internet if anyone would like to check it out. We give this up, next they will try to dissolve US patent laws. Wait and see....
http://www.wgig.org/
Get this all...
- Mailing Address
United Nations Secretariat of the Working Group on Internet Governance
Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
email: wgig@unog.ch
Tel: +41 22 917 57 68
Fax: +41 22 917 00 92
You thinking what I am thinking????
My e-mail to the UN:
Dear Secretariat,
I just wanted to drop you a line concerning the United Nation's stance on internet governance. Since the United Nations feels it is necessary to try and take control of the internet from the United States, might I offer an alternative. Invent your own internet.
The United States invented, funded, and developed the internet. If you have any issues concerning US control over it, why not invent your own? Countries that have issues with things accessable via the web are able to block them at their will, so I personally do not see the issue here.
Will the US Patent System be next on the list of things that should be under direct control and supervision of the United Nations?
Please feel free to e-mail me with any answers, questions, or viewpoints of your own.
Thank you,
Proud_Yank
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