Posted on 09/08/2016 6:59:41 PM PDT by Freedom56v2
Ted Cruz and other Republicans are barreling toward a September showdown with the White House over its plan to give up oversight of the internet, as the Obama administration tries to rally support from the tech and telecom industries.
GOP lawmakers have long warned that the administration's plan to relinquish its authority over ICANN, the global nonprofit that manages the internet's domain name system, could give authoritarian countries like China and Russia an opening to make an online power grab. Now, as the actual date of the transition approaches — Oct. 1 — Republicans are looking at throwing up new obstacles.
"Today our country faces a threat to the internet as we know it. In 22 short days, if Congress fails to act, the Obama administration intends to give away the internet to an international body akin to the United Nations," Cruz said in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday. "I rise today to discuss the significant, irreparable damage this proposed internet giveaway could wreak not only on our nation but on free speech across the world."
Cruz is pledging to make the issue his primary focus this month. He's already launched a website warning about the dangers of the administration's strategy, complete with a countdown clock against a black background. And he's scheduled a hearing of the Senate Judiciary oversight subcommittee he chairs next week to “investigate the possible dangers” of the plan.
Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said Wednesday that language to delay the transition could be included in the continuing resolution to fund the government past this month. And House Republicans are considering their options in the coming appropriations bill, a GOP aide confirmed this week.
“I don’t think the foundation has been appropriately laid for this,” Thune said in an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I don’t always agree with Cruz but I like him and I’m very grateful he’s taking this action.
So the idiots in DC wait till it is only weeks away. I doubt they will stop this Obama giveaway. It is all for show at this late date.
Soros.
So the idiots in DC wait till it is only weeks away. I doubt they will stop this Obama giveaway. It is all for show at this late date.
Yup, so do nothing...
I don’t always agree with Cruz but I like him and I’m very grateful he’s taking this action.
This needs to be stopped—I rather like being able to go to Free Republic, Drudge, Breitbart, etc.
The internet will not be open and free if this happens...
Came for some Cruz whining. Left satisfied.
As a practical matter nobody “owns” the Internet. Well, ok, there was a window of opportunity back in the late 1980s when it was possible that AOL, MSN or some other gigantic service provider might have bought out everyone else and become the de-facto monopolist on internetworking, but thankfully it never happened.
The UN lost its chance to run the Internet in the late 1980s, when the Europe and the UN via the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) tried to replace the Internet TCP/IP communication protocol standards with something called OSI. Basically it was an attempt by the world PTT (Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone) monopolies to wrest control of the Internet out of the hands of the US government.
But this is all on the dustbin of history. The war is over and decentralization has won. The modern Internet is a concatenation of millions of independent networks that all agree to talk to each other voluntarily (the word “Internet” comes from the term “inter-network”). World connectivity happens through an untold number of independent bi-lateral contractual agreements between peering ISPs.
The only centralization on the Internet is at the root DNS nameservers. These suffer ICANN only by the grace of their respective independent owners scattered across the globe. There is nothing to prevent them or anyone else from bolting and setting up their a new root DNS.
All you need to do is point your computer at an alternate name server. On a Windows server, replace the file C:\Windows\System32\DNS\CACHE.DNS. On a Linux server, replace the file /etc/named.conf.
That’s it.
The pirates and hackers are already using alternate DNS roots to evade the censors. If the UN or the ITU go too far and use the root zone to enforce heavy handed censorship, there will be a worldwide revolt in a matter of months, like when the 90% of Internet sites quickly shifted from HTTP to HTTPS when the NSA’s snooping was revealed. That was a major hassle and expense for millions of web sites, but it shows how quickly the Internet can adapt.
The effort it would take to swap the root zone file in DNS servers is trivial in comparison. (Old zones would remain for access to existing sites, and new ones will appear with new TLDs served by the new alt roots.)
Well, that is optimism...Some things are more difficult to take back than other things...
Perhaps we all do something in the meantime—just in case Trump cannot take it back for a while...
FOR EVERYONE ELSE:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” Ronald Reagan
I am doing this for my grandchildren.
I called Cruz, Cornyn and my congressman today about this.
“...Soros.”
Yes, the radical globalist agenda. This is just a piece of it. But a big one. Congress could have stopped this crap but they did not touch Obama. They have left him in the White House and now this is what we face.
Thank You Congress.
Well then, Mr. Cruz, make yourself useful and stop him.
Otherwise **** you.
I’m not interested in your whining or kabuki theater.
Put up or shut up.
Yada yada. They have the power to stop it but won’t. Paper tiger.
I called Cruz, Cornyn and my congressman today about this.
Thank you for the ping! Yep, this is a big problem. Hopefully it can be halted or reversed in a Trump administration.
Well then, Mr. Cruz, make yourself useful and stop him.
Otherwise **** you.
I’m not interested in your whining or kabuki theater.
Put up or shut up.
We all need to do our part to stop this...
Yawn. Yeah right.
What are YOU doing to stop this?
I can’t stop him.
Either the GOP nuts up and stops him, or they don’t.
Crying about it and making a scene and then letting it happen will mean zero to me.
“Cruz is only against it because he knows it’s in the bag. That’s his track record.”
This is so true. Where the hell was the outrage over the past two years when this was in the works? As usual, the Republicans have been complicit in this sellout all along. Now that its a done deal, they all of a sudden have a problem with it.
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