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US Offers New Plans 1 Month Before UN Meeting To Regulate Web
Velcroman1 writes "Slashdotters have been reading for months about the upcoming ITU conference next month in Dubai, which will propose new regulations and restrictions for the Internet that critics say could censor free speech, levy tariffs on e-commerce, and even force companies to clean up their 'e-waste' and make gadgets that are better for the environment. Concerns about the closed-door event have sparked a Wikileaks-style info-leaking site, and led the State Department on Wednesday to file a series of new proposals or tranches seeking to ensure 'competition and commercial agreements — and not regulation' as the meeting's main message. Terry Kramer, the chief U.S. envoy to the conference, says the United States is against sanctions. '[Doing nothing] would not be a terrible outcome at all,' Kramer said recently."
is going to be bad for the rest of us.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
What is going to happen to me if I write blogs calling for a new government in Dubai? The US might have its problems but they pale in insignificance compared to the UN. It's like having Pat Robertson control the internet.
ain't it?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Tell the UN to go stuff itself. The US isn't perfect, but it is less imperfect than any other solution I've seen proposed.
is the fact that countries won't ever agree on how to regulate it.
Just like they can't agree on war and peace at the UN.
And thats a Good Thing (tm)
is going to be REAL bad for the rest of us....
----
there fixed it fer ya , i will add what is bad for the usa usually is great for the rest of earth these days.
all this law is going to is create things much much worst then the internet we have right now, im sure most of us have seen free-net imagine that 100x bigger because crap laws like this force people to move there
is exactly what they should do. It is evident that everyone wants more control, and not in the consumers/citizens best interest.
Proof again... nothing new is under the SUN... people keep voting in or supporting, or ignoring the people causing all the problems.
If your elected official says, "We can't just do nothing!", then its time for a replacement.
It is the collective wishes of the world's governments, most of which are run by crooks, corrupt politicians, and dictators. It is about representative of the people of this world as the Supreme Soviet was representative of the will of the people unfortunate enough to live in the USSR.
The UN was never intended to be a representative or democratic government. It is a body of international diplomacy in which even the worst of the worst have a voice, for the purely practical reason that those people also have guns and bombs.
The Internet, since DARPA handed it over to the general public, has been developed by private corporations, not governments, who are the Johnny-come-latelys to this game. If the U.N. gets too uppity about wanting to control/censor/ruin the internet, what's going to stop the core companies from just pulling out and starting an entirely different Internet? Without all the companies that provide the backbone bandwidth all the way down to the last-mile ISP's, there wouldn't BE an internet.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
And some of them will say...how the US is doing such a good job of things.
Citation needed. The argument isn't that the US is doing such a good job, the argument is that the UN would do an even worse job. I'm not saying which side of that argument is correct, I just want you to argue about the correct thing instead of setting up a straw man.
OK, some people are merely arguing that the US is doing a better job than the UN could do. It doesn't detract from my point that the US is a doing an awful job (from the point of view of a person who actually cares about communication between people, but doesn't care about the rights of corporations or governments) and that a decentralized system would be far better.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
NREN's, such as JANET, AARNet and many others existed. The Internet could easily have formed without the US portion. Yes much of the tech and standards came from the USA, but it is easily replaceable.
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
I have to disagree. Japan and the US have pretty awesome population control. We make our citizens wealthy, educate them, and give them lots of distractions and increase their life expectancies and they willingly choose to practice population control themselves.
In the US, we only have population growth because of immigration. In Japan, their population is declining at a rather frightening pace.
I think the OP was right: Stop concentrating on feeding these people, unless you can also teach them how to feed themselves.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
You're right of course. But instead they've learned to speak English.
Are you entirely sure that's what you want to base your argument on?
So I have a crystal ball that tells me how the rest of this conversation will go. I will introduce many facts detailing exactly how awful US hegemony has been for most of the world. You will bring up the few times this has been positive, but largely rely on nationalistic fervor. The conflation of monologues will end with sentiment to the effect of "Love it or leave it." and other such vaguely ad hominem remarks. We will each leave convinced we have carried the day, and some day far in the future, you or your progeny will be ashamed that, when confronted with evidence of heinous acts, you chose to serve your own tribe and not humanity.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I know this is repeated a lot here on /., but don't confuse incompetence with malice. The sad thing is that many of those law enforcement types actually think they're doing the right thing. When they engage in unconstitutional wiretapping, when they detain people indefinitely, and even when they bust some hapless stoner; more often than not they're acting under the delusion that they're taking the morally correct course of action.
The evil fucks who know what they're doing is wrong and do it anyway: the lobbyists who are paid to get these draconian laws passed and the people who pay them - they're the ones who really write our legislation. Congress and law enforcement - for the most part I just see incompetence.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
What the freak is e-waste? Do I have some one bits dribbling out the back of my computer? Is this stuff toxic? Is there some zero bits floating in my drinking water?
You're absolutely right. That evil evil internet that came out of the US is REAL bad for everyone not in the US.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
> You know, there are a lot of idiots (and otherwise smart people) going on
> about how the ITU is terrible and the UN will ruin everything, and such.
> You know, like how the ITU really ruined international phone calls,
> and the UPU (IPU) has totally fucked up handling of international mail.
The ITU is an international body of PTTs (Postal, Telephone, and Telegraph authorities). These outfits see the internet (VOIP and email and IM) as a threat to their communication monopolies. And they do what they can to fight it in their jurisdictions... https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2006/05/05/blocking-voip/
> we noted in our study on Internet filtering in the United Arab Emirates,
> for example, that two people who used VoIP to bypass the state telecom
> company's monopoly were imprisoned. Now, it turns out that the UAE
> blocks Skype's Web site as well (to protect Etisalat's position).
> Who blocks VoIP? Belize (which held a hearing), Mexico, Israel, China
> (with help from Narus), Qatar, Oman, Guatemala, Saudi Arabia... It
> even happens here in the States, although the FCC cracks down on this.
The ITU membership would dearly love to kill VOIP. Putting the ITU in charge of regulating the net is like putting the horse+buggy industry in charge of regulating cars. They would attempt to destroy the net.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
I don't take credit for this idea, and I realize that this proposition would face enormous political and legal hurdles, but wouldn't it be nice if the UN could somehow be convinced to recognize the Internet as a sovereign nation, with all the rights and obligations that accompany such a status. There would be enough ripple effect to drive a trilogy of science fiction novels.
FYI, on this side of the pond think means FAT not STUPID.
Err, THICK not THINK (sheesh, now who looks THICK!) BUT I'm BIG BONED!!
I get your point. But I'm pretty sure that the people who are worried about the "OMG UN" are not worried because the ITU members don't like VoIP, but more because they just are a bit, well, paranoid (and in all the wrong ways).
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!