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UN Pushes Plan To Assume Internet Governance Role
no0b writes with an Op-Ed by the FCC Commissioner on a UN plan to gain more control over Internet regulation. From the article: "On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish 'international control over the Internet' through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices. "
BoingBoing offers a slightly different perspective; The Register offers a quite different perspective.
The idea would be to have *better* regulation of the Internet, which won't happen with the UN/ITU. Adding culture clashes to the present political clashes and putting countries that actively censor content at the table is just asking for trouble.
Two bad choices:
1) Led by the US = megacorps have purchased both political parties so its basically megacorp-net. Expect lots of censorship and control focused around maximizing profits.
2) Led by the UN = most of the UN members are crooks, dictators, religious extremists, military leaders who killed the civilian leaders to gain control, basically the scum of the non-business society so its basically dictator-net. Expect lots of censorship and control around killing all dissenters and forcing one lunatic religions beliefs upon people of other lunatic religious beliefs (or non-beliefs)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The register seems to have it quite spot on, somebody is being a drama queen and AT&T+friends probably paid for the drama because they want to increase roaming charges.
Putin wants to make sure that there is no way for Russian dissidents to post information about the election fraud. He is angry that people can put videos of fraud online somewhere else, not in Russia and others can view that video.
Putin's party in Russia would NOT win in real elections, but the way it's done, he is getting the votes he needs, because of all the fraud.
You can't handle the truth.
Oh, you think the U.S. is giving that up just because you say so? Or sign some treaty just because you threaten them with...what?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is a very clear indication that we are inching closer and closer to one world order regardless of the fact it will never work. Until governments and religious groups of the world drop fanatical, hysterical, authoritarian rule, this planet will not see the kind of societal framework necessary to exist under one world government. Very scary notion of the UN controlling something so important to free expression as the net is. Distributed responsibility works best. Lets hope we see something like the SOPA incident to prevent this from happening. If not, I am staying home, canceling anything internet and making like a hole in the wall. Sad really. But then again, I will save boat loads of money...
I think the whole thing is a misnomer. Neither the US nor the UN *can* control the internet. The more any entity tries to squeeze the internet, the more virtual darknets will appear on it, outside the reach of those entities. That being said, they cannot achieve any of the goals that prevent bad behavior on the internet... The argument is parallel to the one regarding making guns or drugs or other substances illegal. You cannot stop criminals from getting access to these things, you can only stop honest people from getting access to them. You cannot stop criminal use of the internet, only honest use of it.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Right now, in the short game, everybody wants the ability to govern the internet, with the assumption that they'll do it right for their constituents/country/special interests, and with the flawed assumption that they'll be on top forever. The problem is that by attempting to run the internet your way and lock everybody into that _right now_, you're making it easier for somebody else who you disagree with more to take your place, leaving them controlling your internet in a way you may not want. You can't build an elaborate censorship, surveillance and control system on the internet and not expect it to be used against you the next time the torch is passed. In the long game, though, what everybody _should_ be wanting is the hardening of the internet against governance, tracking and regulation, by anybody, and de-centralize it enough that it doesn't matter who thinks they're running things. Only then can you ensure that your use-case is still functional, no matter who's "in charge".
Holy crap! If China and Russia are in favor of this, it simply can't be allowed to happen.
I can only imagine how badly the internet would be broken by every piss-pot government bureaucrat around the world decides the internet should (or shouldn't) be allowed to work in a given way.
Criticize the government? Banned. Point out that a politician is a philandering, lying bastard? Banned.
There's already actions in the UN to make it a crime to say mean things about religion ... this will only make it worse, and then some. It's my legal right to say that your imaginary friend can mind his own damned business and that I don't wish to be bound by your scripture.
Go with a central control over the internet, and you're in a race to the bottom to appease the most backwards of governments, and pretty much do whatever the copyright lobby wants out of it.
Keep your hands off my fucking internet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The answer to the question "Who believes UN governance will result in improvement?" will give a lot of insight into the motives behind transferring control to a UN agency. My immediate suspicions include: the copyright cartels, repressive governments, and telecoms/tier 1's seeking to create international monopolies.
Sure there are technical improvements that arguably can be made at various layers, but does anyone think that the UN can or will do any better at managing them than the current system?
I can see the fnords!
The UN fancies itself as a nascent world government. I don't know about the rest of the world, but the US isn't going to go along with putting the Internet in the hands of the same people that made Qaddafi's Libya chair of the Human Rights Commission.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The average Slashdotter wants global governance of meatspace
Huh? Care to elaborate? In my experience, if you pick a random Slashdotter, he is most likely to be an economic socialist/social libertarian. I really don't get a "global government" vibe here.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
The UN is totally dysfunctional in way that makes Washington DC look like a Bastian of efficiency, honesty, and virtue. The problem with the UN is there is also the matter that the UN is made up of members that have little to no respect for basic human freedoms, and that includes places like Western Europe where its say illegal to question certain historic view points. That same organization than has the gal to berate us here in the USA on human rights for say executing adult criminals (18 years old), while they would classify all kinds of behavior as criminal which we would never criminalize in the first place.
No I am not a fan of government but when it comes to Internet governance I would much much rather have the USA (who is entitled to by the way as we build the thing) with its still relatively strong Constitutional protections running the Net, than some international body.
Personally if the rest of the world thinks they should govern the Net I say let them build their own, but as soon as packet touches one of our Edge routers, OUR RULES APPLY.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Those of you who are panicked and/or outraged might want to read the Register article, which strongly suggests that none of this is actually happening. In particular, these paragraphs:
Visit the
Darknets 2.0 plz hurry.
In the absence of peering agreements between the major service providers, how are the darknets going to communicate? Using dark energy or what? Are the "internet dark users" going to take over and run the fiber/satellite infrastructure?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The court ruled in American Library Association v. U.S. Department of Justice and Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union that "speech on the Internet is entitled to the highest level of First Amendment protection, similar to the protection the Court gives to books and newspapers." Notice how television and radio are not included in that list. This is because with every new technology that emerges, the government wants to regulate it because of the powers it holds. The Internet is a very powerful tool for freedom, I hope we can keep it this way. Let's not let what happened to radio and television happen to the Internet.
One thing people often forget is that individual citizens are NOT constituents of the UN. The UN does not represent you, your rights, or your interests.
The UN represents GOVERNMENTS, whose interests are often at odds with, or diametrically opposed to, the interests of the people they govern. Indeed, the UN only represents people's intrests when they happen to coincide with the interests of a sufficient number of sufficiently powerful governments, which is quite rare (WHO and the Human Rights folks notwithstanding). Moving authority from a democratically elected government (however dysfunctional, however provincial) to an unelected body that represents government interests over human interests is not a change for the better.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Here's one situation where the fractured political parties in the United States can actually be of one mind on something. The Left will block it because they balk at the idea of handing control of the internet over people who are easily swayed by governments with records of human rights abuses, and Right will block it because they hate the UN and will see this as another step in the creation of the New World Order. The US will back out of the ITU before this happens.
How often do some people say "oh you should let the UN take care of that" or "did you ask the UN?" or "what was the consensus of the international community"...
But offer that same august body control over the internet and everyone won't trust anywhere near it.
Exactly. And that's why it's hard to interact with the UN in all those other circumstances. It's a mess, corrupt, and highly incompetent. Count on it and it will drop you baby on the head every time... repeatedly... possibly on purpose.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This is all a load of crock. It's not as if US is controlling the Internet today. If they were, then there would be no great firewall of China, no filtering of tweets in India and probably no net neutrality. Also, what is "US" that controls the Internet according to this - the government or the military or the people or what? Because I did not see any changes in the Internet when the US government changed. The packets didn't start flowing in different ways just because there was a new guy in the Oval Office.
Today the Internet is "controled" (and I use this word loosely) by technocrats and bureaucrats and civil servants. If tomorrow UN/ITU took "control" of the Internet NOTHING would change, as it would continue to be controlled by another group of technocrats and bureaucrats and civil servants. And one thing they are good at is maintaining the status quo.
With all these dictators as USians see them, "controlling" the UN, what of your rights was ever trampled in the 67 years of existance of UN? What ideology was rammed down people's throats? Now how do you think that those pesky russkies or chineeze will stop YOU from talking about things they don't like? By passing a UN resolution? First they don't have enough votes on their side, second the UN resolutions are sooooo well respected by everyone.
If the "control" was passed tomorrow from ICAAN to ITU, a couple of feel-good resolutions would be passed in the vein of "everyone should have the access to the Internet", some more non-latin cTLDs would be created (like you care for the ones that exist already), and NOTHING ELSE WOULD CHANGE. The China would still operate the great firewall withing their cyber-borders, Australia would still pass the laws requiering the ISPs there to filter traffic for terrorists, criminals and IP violators, and US would still discuss the SOPAs, PIPAs, ACTAs and Net Neutrality laws. Unless they create the Internet police with their blue berets that US can send to China to arrest people torrenting the latest films and vice versa that China can send to US for discussing Tiananmen. Don't be silly.
What do you think the chances are that this "one world government" will place your rights (the individual) over the rights these people (who are also merely individuals) have assigned to themselves?
None at all. Case in point, Article 29 of the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights":
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
There is some hope of changing what the (corrupt) US government does, but none of changing what the coalition of evil known as the United Nations does.
That's the flaw in attempts at "world government", which in reality means loss of sovereignty and that is all.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This has really nothing to do with the right or the left. All governments, without a single exception fear loss of control over those governed more than anything else. In order to control people, governments have traditionally passed various laws concerning weapons and communications.
When the printing press was invented, some governments immediately passed laws to assert their control over this new communications medium. Because printing presses and later broadcasting stations are really expensive, governments only had to exert their controls over the relatively few owners of these technologies.
With the Internet all this changed dramatically. Now anyone who can afford to buy a computer and subscribe to an Internet connection, is able to bring their ideas to the entire world. Some of those ideas have been or will be dangerous to those who wish to be or remain in control. Therefore, governments will attempt to and probably eventually succeed in stifling the free communication between ordinary people. This move to have the UN take over the Internet, is just another attempt at total control. The effort of the US to do this with SOPA and PIPA failed for now, but this is only a temporary setback for those who want to stifle free communications between ordinary people.
Copyrights and ACTA are readily available tools for all governmental and/or corporate control freaks to use, whether on the left or the right. The US government has become particularly adept at using copyright as a weapon on behalf of large media corporations to shut down websites not only located in the US, but it seems almost anywhere else on the globe.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.