Slashdot Mirror
United States Cedes Control of the Internet
greenechidna writes "The Register is reporting that the U.S. is relinquishing control of ICANN. The story states:
'In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.
Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organization ICANN, making the organization a more international body.'"
For years man has divided earth into political boundaries. Many of these boundaries have sub boundaries. And even more divisions among them and more beyond them and so forth based on belonging to a gregarious portion of the human race.
Disclaimer: I am an American. One thing I find myself asking not only myself but other Americans is what is their primary citizenship. What I mean by that term is which political boundary (if any) supercedes all?
Are you a citizen of the United States first? A citizen of Texas? A citizen of Chicago? A citizen of the Bronx? A citizen of North America? A citizen of yourself? At what point do you consider yourself a member of a community that will look out for other members?
Occasionally, we catch ourselves engaging in activities that would indicate we are world citizens first and citizens of the United States second. I know it's a tough concept to comprehend but we do send aid to foreign countries, we do attempt to help other countries no matter how much we fsck it up or act in our best interest. So there's some amount of talk about the United States actually being a part of the world. This act of ceding internet control to an international organization is a step in that direction.
Is it a good step or bad step remains to be seen and can be easily debated. One thing is clear, it sends a message to the rest of the world that the United States government is conscious of the rights of other governments. And this isn't a case of we need to help their economy because if it tanks, so will ours. On the surface this actually appears to be a gift of some little amount of power. This is not a historically common occurrence for a country such as the United States. Are we becoming more aware of the world political climate? I certainly hope so.
My work here is dung.
If you RTFA, it's not clear what actually changed ... and in the text, it says "However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net's root zone file - at least in the medium-term."
Tried and tested method: First, remove teeth from animal. Second, set it free...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In the status quo Internet traffic is not very censored or controlled by the US and things just plain work. I think this is a very good arrangement.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Register is the Enquirer of the IT world. It posts all sorts of vague and misleading titles of stories. Try reading the articles and you'll see what I mean.
"The UN is so corrupt, incompetent, and inept that it make the U. S. Govt look brilliant!"
;-)
Maybe that was the plan of the USA all along?
Seriously though, many problems of the UN stem from problems its members make (e.g. sovereign nations). It's only as strong (or inept) as those countries that make up the UN and have to decide when to act and when not. Some countries actively undermine the UN, and thus, obviously, this has its repercusions on the UN as a whole.
The USA shouldn't shout to loud in this regard, since it's often *they* that contribute in a major way to make the UN inept and incompetent, using its veto arbitrarily and destroying a united policy.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Sigs cause cancer.