Slashdot Mirror
Senator Wants to Keep U.N. Away From the Internet
Martin Boleman writes "ZDNet reports that Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month. "The Internet is likely to face a grave threat, If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on." he said in a statement."
they mean isolating themselves?
that some of our politicians have OUR best interest in mind. Its worth noting that as usual, its a republican, while I'm sure Ted Kennedy will be pushing for UN take over... typical and not surprising.
The only real questions that remain to be answered is will Bush back down, and does the EU have the testicular fortitude to follow through with their threat (good luck with France).
Honestly, I wouldn't trust the US (the monolith), to look after my dog - and I don't even own one.
;)
It has always struck me as odd that the internet, which is meant to be the ultimate without-borders, decentralised network.. Is operated by just one country.
But, IAAE
fortune -o
The both did WRONGLY invade and take over independant and sovereign nations. Just because he's not gasing 6 million people of one religion doesn't mean he isn't a complete asshole who hasn't set back US/foreign relations 50 years.
By every account, foreign relations, civil liberties, environmental law, deficit spending, job creation, he's the worst President we have ever had. Nobody except for 3rd world hating zealots and Christian zealots can objectivly say he's done anything right. No Christian I know including myself think's the things he has done are what "Jesus would want" or is the proper way for a Christian to even behave. Warmongering, telling americans CONSTANTLY that they are about to be attacked, literally giving polluters carte blanche to destory the enviornment, and holding people without cause or trial are NOT Christian and more importantly to most people NOT American values. Don't even get me started on his nation ruining spending habits.
So is Bush = Hitler? No, don't be stupid and don't try to deflect what he is doing by making such a ridiculous statement.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
He is a up and rising star in the RNC. Keep a eye on him, he will be running for president sooner or later.
I also hear he moonlights as an airplane mechanic.
Someone once observed that the reason there was no German Bill Gates was that "The Ministry of You Can't Do That" is running the country. The garage tech startup would have to get special government permits allowing the use of lightbulbs to illuminate an area used for business purposes, etc., etc. There was a Wall St. Journal article a few days ago about German regulations concerning what name you can call yourself. Hyphens are not allowed. Can you imagine what a country like that would to with a domain names registry?
Should the US move its root servers? Any other country and set up it's own. The only reason they don't is... I don't know why. They're just stupid I guess. If they did that then I'm sure corperate/user pressure would force them to peer with eachother.
I vote bomb the next UN meeting. Fuck the world, they don't want us, we don't need them.
It's a good thing I'm not president. Be thankful you pansies.
I bet you £100 that here in the UK we have more freedom than the US. Except, you aren't allowed to gamble. Freedom, as long as it's Christian, right? Just don't swear or show sex on TV right? Name one freedom, other than firearms (which we don't want) that you have that we don't. Chirst, have you ever been to Amsterdam? Do you even know what freedom and tolerance mean?
"by definition"? You are a complete moron of the highest order if you think the form of ecconomic government has ANY bearing on freedom. Your leaders have brainwashed you with propaganda since the 60s on this subject, to make you associate oppression and totalitainism with socialism. So, the wonderful "free" America has most of it's citizens intentionally kept in the dark about competing ecconomic systems. Your hypocracy is astounding. Having freedom of opinion is worthless when you are spoon-fed bad info. Witness 60% of Americans believing Saddam was involved in 9-11.
You are free. Free to do what you are told.
Stupid fuck, "jealous of the freedoms and accomplishments of the United States." I LIVE in the United States, was probably here before you, and we HAVE HAD NO FREEDOM OR ACOMPLISHMENTS IN 50 years!
This controversy is about who controls the root servers. However, i think it's absurd. Nothing stops UN, national governments, or Joe Average from setting up new root servers, but you'd need to convince others to use those servers, and that is unlikely to be possible in anywhere but the worst of dictatorships. US has no control over DNS, beyond that everyone voluntarily agree that the US-run root servers are authoritative.
Your understanding is incomplete. The actual, physical root servers are primarily located outside the U.S. and paid for by foreign companies and organizations. Most major U.N nations, EU, China, Russia, etc. have agreed that the U.S. should no longer control those servers. There is no need to get people to switch, they can keep using the same root server, it just won't be administered by the U.S. anymore. The problem comes when those servers disagree with servers in the U.S. and when the U.S. wants to be paid for registering names in the U.S. and the U.N. wants to be paid for registering names outside the U.S. It leads to differences between what the U.S. sees and what the world sees. The U.N. nations voted and agreed the U.S. should not solely collect the money and should not be authoritative and the U.S. disagrees. The U.S. is hoping to use threats of ignoring the U.N. system and the potential disruption to bully the world into letting it have the money and the ability to shut of critical infrastructure around the world. That is not democratic and is opposed to the concept of equal representation for all. This is also the same type of nationalism, arrogance, and isolationism that has crumbled many an empire. Sorry but in the battle of the U.S. versus the world, the U.S. still loses, big time.
Referring to a system with equal votes between elected representatives of democracies and kleptocratic representatives of dictatorships as "democracy on a world scale" is so mind-bogglingly stupid it could only come from someone with a .ca address.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Thank /. for the meta-moderation system, so we can make sure that somebody who wants to mod other peoples comments down without a good reason does not mod again soon.
And by the way, you don't know at all if the poster of the parent is a foreigner or not, so please shut up.