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US House Votes 397-0 To Oppose UN Control of the Internet
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. House of Representatives voted 397-0 today on a resolution to oppose U.N. control of the internet. 'The 397-0 vote is meant to send a signal to countries meeting at a U.N. conference on telecommunications this week. Participants are meeting to update an international telecom treaty, but critics warn that many countries' proposals could allow U.N. regulation of the Internet.' The European Parliament passed a similar resolution a couple weeks ago, and the U.N. telecom chief has gone on record saying that freedom on the internet won't be curbed. However, that wasn't enough for U.S. lawmakers, who were quite proud of themselves for actually getting bipartisan support for the resolution (PDF). Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said, 'We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder governance model.'"
*shudder*
What you really mean is that US politicians unanimously voted that they should have absolute control over enacting draconian restrictions on the global internet, and that those "european commies" should have any say involving red blooded american technologies and interests, and that the rhetoric about bottom up, decentralized administration is merely a red herring to keep those watchdogs distracted while they aid the henhouse.
(Spasm)
Sorry. I don't know what came over me there. Have you seen Aldus Huxley anywhere? I think I need my daily opiate injection...
It what it should be, is it what it is though? no...sadly no...
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
An organization with an unlimited power has made a decision to keep that power, rather than parse out and distribute it to others. I've never heard anything so crazy before in my life.
You do understand that the House Democrats also supported this bill? It's not neccessarily just about hating the UN. Although I think the UN mostly sucks.
Everyone knows that the U.S.wants to control everything. I mean, an internet controlled by all nations? Preposterous!
Tinpot dictatorships hate the Internet for the same reasons global superpowers like the US or Russia hate the UN.
The Internet looks decentralized but in practice it works to extend the economic and cultural hegemony of the incumbent operators; The UN looks decentralized but in practice it's really a mechanism for small countries to enjoin and harry large, powerful ones on an equal footing.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I can't see how handing over control of the internet to the UN could in anyway be classified as progress.
If only they would do this for their own attempts to regulate the Internet (think SOPA, PIPA and DMCA), the Internet would be much better off than it is today.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
who were quite proud of themselves for actually getting bipartisan support for the resolution
Our lawmakers should be working together on everything, and the fact that they're proud of themselves for doing the job we pay them to do on a single issue shows just how messed up our system is.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
The Internet has done fine under ICANN.
Look at those who want to take control away from ICANN and look at their histories regarding censorship and ask whether you should by default assume things will get better or worse under the ITU.
Unless controlling the internet lets you shoot lightning bolts from your fingertips, I would not call that unlimited power.
The UN has done nothing to stop 30,000 innocents from being slaughtered in Syria. they can't be trusted to run the net.
We need to send a strong message to the world that the Internet has thrived under a decentralized, bottom-up, multi-stakeholder governance model
Isnt that what the UN is ?
No. The UN is the centralization of power. Decisions made by the UN are enforced on member nations. The UN is top down. It is staffed by elites selected by the excecutive branchs of nations. It is multi-national but it is not multi-stakeholder. It excludes stakeholders that are not goverments.
Really? Last time I've looked I could have sworn that domain names have been seized without proper justification and oversight.
Uh, no. That is not how the UN works. The UN works by majority vote, except that, on the Security Council, the five permanent members have a veto.
On the other hand, it might be the beginning of problems for people who show disrespect to religion. There are some really poorly reasoned attitudes and legislation towards free speech outside the USA. I'm not saying we're perfect, but we are better, at least in that regard.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I assume it will get worse. Look at NAFTA, that royally messed up our import and exporting here.
UN works on consensus. Any country can veto anything.
China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United
States can veto anything, The UN is a place where all countries are equal, but as usual some are more equal than others.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The UN has gotten a really bad reputation lately due to the pandering to groups that outright hate the United States. However, the US is called upon to be the world's police force, ambulance, piggy bank, and shoulder to cry on; but the US is denied the ability to have an appropriate role in the UN in exchange for these services. Instead, we have China and the Sudan on the human rights counsel, we hear about considerable corruption and abuses of UN power. The US brings these injustices up, all of a sudden - the US is reminded of all these back fees and membership dues that they supposedly owe. Never mind that without the US, the UN would have no teeth to accomplish anything. This is not to belittle the good things the UN HAS accomplished - but the United States does get tired of being treated like the scapegoat for all the world's problems.
Instead it will likely also enable the Chinese Ministry of State Security and other such organizations to seize domains and information on users as well. Things would not improve but instead take a sudden nose dive into oppression.
I'm as anti-jingoistic as the next rational American, but my rule of thumb is that if China approves of a UN internet referendum, it's probably a bad thing.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Yes this is true, however countries such as Iran, China, etc. shut off entire parts of the internet 'without justification'.
Do you really want to have an internet controlled by entities which care more about power than freedom? I understand you could argue the same about the U.S. however history has proven those arguments to be false.
So you are saying that because it's not perfect under the current system, it couldn't get worse? The US at least trys/pretends to respect free speech, human rights, rule of law, etc. Some of these countries don't even bother to do that.
How?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The "Do Nothing" Congress did something by asking the ITU meeting to do nothing. I think they found their niche.
No, they can't veto anything. Only on matters related to world security. The UN General Assembly has passed thousands of resolutions and majority of them were never debated by UN Security Council.
Do you really want to have an internet controlled by entities which care more about power than freedom? I understand you could argue the same about the U.S. however history has proven those arguments to be false.
No, it hasn't. Remember Kim Dotcom? And please stop with the freedom bullshit. You could argue some countries defend freedom, but the US is not one of them.
An UN-controlled Internet has the advantage of anything proposed by China being opposed by the US, anything proposed by the US being opposed by China. With any luck nobody will be able to do too much damage.
Ah yes, China and Sudan are bad but US allies like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan would be so much better! Not trying to be advocate for the former two countries, but saying UN is unjust because it tolerates human rights violation is kinda hypocrisy.
All four are bad. Try taking a laptop to China and you'll learn what both censorship and government spying really mean.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
MSNBC reports that Republicans are blocking UN, and Democrats support Freedom!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Check out the ITU's plan for a unified deep packet inspection standard. This should convince anyone that the ITU is the last group that should get their hands on the control of the Internet.
I do not want an Internet controlled by anyone with a history of repressing freedom of speech. Sure you can make an argument that the US has restricted Free speech in the past. I can make a much MUCH stronger argument that places like China, or most Muslim countries should not be allowed a say in what goes on.
You give those guys control, and half the Internet would be gone. So my answer is "No" and if you do not like it, feel free to create your own Internet. It is our ball, and as far as I am concerned we can stop playing with you and take our ball home. What the other choice? Let you guys destroy the ball cause it said something about your prophet?
Nov. 23, Slashdot largely approves when the EU makes a similar statement opposing ITU control.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/23/0122212/eu-passes-resolution-against-itu-asserting-control-over-internet
Two days ago, a submission points out differences in the words and actions of the ITU and its Secretary General (including a plan to try to undercut any opposition via flooding social media) and most who reply are quite skeptical of the ITU.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/03/2120250/internet-freedom-wont-be-controlled-says-un-telcom-chief
Today, the House votes unanimously to say largely the same thing as the EU. The reaction on slashdot? Outrage at the horrible undercutting of freedom, the ITU and the UN in particular.
Truly who says something counts far more here than what is said.
This is hysterical.
Im not sure why but its a big thing for them to bash on and hate the UN...
Let me illuminate you
1. Republicans oppose big government... and the UN is a big bloated unaccountable layer of government
2. Republicans see the Constitution as the supreme law of the land... and the UN pretends to be above and superior to the Constitution (as any global govt would be)
3. The UN is not accountable to the people. Each country has one vote there (generally cast by an appointed bureaucrat, NOT an elected person) and most of the nations there are run by kings/queens/dictators etc. The entity pretends to be a form of global democratic government, but it is actually a club of appointees of mostly evil corrupt tyrants. You do realize the place was being run by an actual Hitler-saluting NAZI from 1972 to 1981 right? right?
4. The US taxpayer has been required to fund the damn thing, but its most common function has been to denounce the US or its allies and demand more money from the US while filing "reports" about how bad the US is... Oh, and its schemers are always trying to come up with "global taxes", carbon trading schemes, etc to try to pry money directly from the wallets of the taxpayers of places like the US, Canada, England, etc in order to avoid ever having to account to elected legislatures again. (currently, the UN as to at least pretend to behave and be transparent and accountable because it must get its funds from governments and a couple of those governments have been known to ask too many inconvenient questions...)
5. Leftists in the US are continually trying to use the UN to get around the regular US Constitutional processes and impose their policies in the US; they go to the UN for gun control, to try to interfere in education and healthcare (by pushing treaties on things like "childrens rights" or "arms trafficking" which get loaded with innocent-sounding policies that are designed to conflict with certain local laws and regulations within the US) and other such things. When they think they might lose an election, they call-in UN election inspectors with the idea that they will be able to complain that it was rigged and the presumption that leftists from the UN will add legitimacy to the claims.
6. The UN has a demonstrated history of corruption and fraud.
7. The UN has a long history of political correctness that results in extreme moral blindness; it condemns violence against women, but looks away as the entire muslim world wages war against women and girls and its own blue helmet so-called "peace keepers" form rape gangs in Africa. It pretends to stand for human rights, and then packs its human rights committees and agencies with people from despotic places like Cuba, Libya, Iran, and North Korea, rather than the US, Canada, France, Britain, Japan, etc.
8. It is an utter failure on the primary thing it was setup for. In the aftermath of WWII, the UN was setup with the words "never again" echoing in everybody's ears. Part of the phrase "never again" was that the world would never again allow a holocaust. By allowing tyrants to be members of the UN, however, there are now many non-democratic Muslim nations (each with a vote) and only one Jewish nation (democratic, but only one vote) ... so the UN says and does nothing as year-after-year Muslims commit war crimes against the Jews (firing rockets aimed at Jewish civilians, and hiding the launchers amongst civilians) ... but it votes many times per year to condemn Israel and lends support to people who have pledged to finish the holocaust Hitler started
9. The security Council was established to be composed of the nations who had demonstrated their worthiness by being on the "right side" in winning the war, but it has caved to geopolitical pressure and replaced the "good" Chinese who were on the right side in WWII (who were driven off in the communist revolution, and formed Taiwan) with the "bad" Chinese (the Communists who run the mainland). This helped for
The UN didn't develop the internet, the United States of America's DARPA, research colleges, and major corporations did. The UN doesn't support the vast majority of research and development of future technologies aimed at bettering the internet. Like it or not, the United States of America is one of, if not the most, open societies in the world. Few if any other nations protect free speech to the degree that we do. The internet is open and generally unregulated and that is the way it should, has to, stay this way or we end up like iran or another totalitarian state like north korea. The UN thinks that they have a mandate to regulate everything under the sun, they don't. When they pay for their own version of their very own internet then they can. But until that time, FUCK OFF UNITED NATIONS AND ALL YOU COCK KNOCKERS THAT THINK THEY SHOULD!!!
Wrong. The purpose of the UN is to give countries a place to talk so they might not war on one another.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
So you don't remember the US seizing all those domains right before Black Friday? Not just this year, but last year too.
Sounds great until the U.S. and China agree on the singular premise "fuck the people" and then they point the fingers at each other while sticking it in you.
"His name was James Damore."
Oh, you can relax. PBS Newshour is blogging that this is all a big fear mongering campaign supported by massive corporations google, shadowy "internet activists" and special interests.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/12/the-future-of-internet-governance.html
The truth is likely somewhere in between. The ITU really wants influence and a slice of the bureaucratic power (and budget) that would come from an increased role in the net.
They've consistently come across as ham handed, at best, in the lead up to this, and have done little to show that they are interested in an open net (or open proceedings).
They've also managed to get a surprisingly wide set of disparate groups saying that they are precisely the wrong body to receive increased control of the net.
Ugh. Giving those countries a legitimate pulpit to shout for additional repressive controls that would only exist in addition to existing international law is not going to make things better than they are today. It's the ticket to more government tampering, regulation, and censorship, not less.
In the future, if you find yourself at complete odds with Vint Cerf on subjects of Internet governance, stop and rethink your position for a minute. Well, unless you're in Iran and someone will stone you for it.
I think there are a lot of reasons why "the U.S." opposes it; the one you gave is certainly an example. I'm sure that numerous congresscritters voted against it for just the reason you've stated. I'm sure others voted against it for other reasons.
One good reason? The ITU's *first* document out of the current meeting—the one they considered *most* important—was a HOWTO on deep packet inspection for repressive and privacy-violating governments. I'm bracing myself for the encore...
*cough*CERN*cough*
I don't want any nations to control the internet at all. Which is what the UN is: a group of nations.
Now the PEOPLE in those countries, that is where it belongs...
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Right now its a comparative exercise. If every country does the same thing uniformly because its all under one umbrella, then there is no longer anything to compare it to other than "the good old days."
"His name was James Damore."
Ideally it shouldn't be controlled by anyone, but I'll take the US over an organization with a membership that includes such icons of online freedom as Iran and china.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Say the UN didn't let Chavez to stand up and and insult the US for a few minutes, would that make him a nice guy? Probably not, more likely he'll just become more isolated, and a bunch of Americans will forget that there's countries like his that really don't like the US. Think of the UN General Assembly as the worlds cafeteria, there's a lot of nonsense going on (like the human rights council), but it gives you a decent overview of how everyone gets along and what they're thinking.
Well no one actually asked the US to be the world's police force, you just sort of... volunteered. BTW, what would you consider an appropriate role? You already have a seat on the security council and an absurd amount of influence.
So here's the deal with the US military. It's really, really, big (about half the world's total budget). It's not really required for UN peacekeeping, other western nations have strong militaries, but the US has such a big military they might as well use it.
Now you'll make the argument that we should all be thankful that the US spends so much to keep the rest of the civilized world safe and let us spend less on our own militaries, and that might have been true at the height of the cold war, but not so much anymore.
You don't spend so much on your military to protect us, you do it so you can exercise your power unilaterally. So you can invade Afghanistan in response to 9/11 and everyone jumps on board. So you can invade Iraq and even though everyone else knows it's a bad idea and we don't want it to happen, we can't really stop it (how many other nations could pull that off?).
We'd actually prefer you cut your military budget a bunch, let us pick up the slack if there was any, and you cab think a little longer before going to war.
I stole this Sig
Which is why we need a decentralised, secure DNS model. 5 years ago.
I would like to see ICANN lose control as they've proven utterly untrustworthy, incompetent & are now just money-grubbing in general.
Though I wouldn't want the Urinated Nations from seizing control, at least until that term means something. Far better to deal with poisoned DNS entries & hash tables than continue this way. The Internet may have started with the US military as the 'wild west', but it's now gone backwards to being a politician's bitch, and more gubments having control over it is actually a huge leap backwards for mankind.
</soapbox>
So, you would be happy with, say, Canada, or the UK, or France, having control of DNS...? :)
you do realize most muslim countries want an internet law that says if you blaspheme against their god they can cross country borders for punishment right?
Russia and china would both agree to such a thing and the majority would overall anyone else.
Think about it while the USA is horrible they are a million times better okay maybe just a hundred. times better than everyone else. Very few countries uphold things like hate speech as freedom of expression. Most readily change what that hate speech is. If we keep it under US control then by default all is open, and what isn't can be overturned in the glacial courts.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I think he's saying we should give inet/DNS control over to the Red Cross.
Me, I'd be happy with the RSPCA here down under. <BFG>
If we're going to be honest, let's be brutal: the US goes where the Big Oil & Big War big bucks are, whenever there is a 'humanitarian' crisis anywhere in the world, and almost always to protect its own political and resource interests, first and foremost, with real humanitarian aid, or anything altruistic being a distant second. Just look at what they didn't do for Rwanda or Yugoslavia, for example, in recent years, while 100s of thousands were slaughtered in massive ethnic cleansings, not to mention so man other countries where their policies are sucking the marrow & life out of those nations, through various means.
Not sure why you think you're actually wanted in most place in the world as the 'world police', or how with your national debt you think you are the world's piggy bank but I guess patriotism, like love, really is blind lol.
Just to clarify. I'm not saying I support any control or plans by the UN (That would probably just legitimize censorship). Just pointing out how the freedom works only when we don't move and notice the shackles.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
You mean the ones that were selling physical counterfeit merchandise? How very evil of them.
i_dont_have_a_problem_with_this.jpg
Your thesis is irrelevant. Do you think it would get better if China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia were given a hand in the matter?
And I must also point out that this is part of the irritating "I have absolutely no idea what so ever how good I have it in the US and how bad it is in a lot of other places, but I'm going to point out every failure of the US as proof of how horrible it is" horse-shit that gets pureed into a fine mist and coats everything in these kinds of threads. That attitude is what makes it so pitiably easy for a lot of people to dismiss otherwise legitimate left leaning arguments as "hating America" because that's exactly what it sounds like when you bend over backwards to point out that America is exactly equally as bad as $OTHER_BADDIE.
The incident with Kim Dotcom can happen regardless of who ICANN/IANA answer to, UN or otherwise. It mainly happened due to treaty and trade agreements as well as strong arm tactics that preceded the internet, and don't require its existence to work.
Other countries seize domain names as well, not just the US. He had a .com TLD, the US government controls those. The US can seize those just as any other country can seize its own TLD registrations, again regardless of who controls ICANN. Notice how thepiratebay.org moved to .se. The US doesn't have any authority to seize those.
As for his physical equipment and the police raids, those happened through diplomatic arrangements and agreements, not through the authority of ICANN or any domain registration authority.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
It's not neccessarily just about hating the UN.
Correct. It's about setting up a negotiating position externally, and creating and "us vs them" solidarity for the domestic punter, if there's no internal political debate the talking heads are silent on the subject except to state they are in agreement. In practical terms the internet would not exist if nations did not co-operate under some sort of treaty all the other crap is political theater. Such political games ensure that significant changes to the status quo on a global scale take generations to implement and are not understood by the public, that's a reasonable way to handle short term self interest but I doubt it's a good thing in the long run.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Do you really want to have an internet controlled by entities which care more about power than freedom?
Putting this stuff under the UN is no more about giving China control than it is about giving the US control. China is part of the internet, what they do with their national network is ultimately their own business, what they or anyone else do to a global communications network is everyone's business, sattelites will always ensure no national blackout is ever 100% effective.
I understand you could argue the same about the U.S. however history has proven those arguments to be false.
Yes, however sInce WW2 most of the good deeds that the US lays is rightly proud of were achived through international cooperation and leading by example, not unilateral action. A lot of people don't like the direction the US Republican's have been trying to lead the world over the last decade, it's clear from the outside that the lunatics are now in charge of Ronald Reagan's party. What's not so clear is why people still vote for them. And no, this isn't an endorsment of the Democrats, it's a call for reason and moderation in domestic US politics because the (historically) recent un-reason is adversly affecting the rest of us.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The "good old days" when there were no property rights and you got what you wanted by bashing whoever had it, those "good old days"? The internet (indeed civilization)cannot exist without some level of cooperation, nor is it healthy in the long run to put global infrastructure under the control of any single government. If you want to reduce the influence of regimes such as N. Korea simply bribe them to cooperate on global infrastructure then use it against them. You can't have a planet that generally adhears to democratic principles if you simply dismiss over a billion people out of hand because their government is a bit dodgy.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This. And the distinction is very important here.
The World Wide Web, which is what was created at CERN, is only governed inasmuch as it is part of the Internet, and while the Internet wouldn't be the same without it, the Internet could exist without it. If the point of mentioning CERN was to imply that the UN has demonstrated it can handle governing the Internet, I'd suggest that it does no such thing, since there's a vast difference between developing a technology (the Web) for a platform that is entirely out of your control (the Internet) and actually governing that platform. It'd be like saying that Zynga (maker of Farmville) is qualified to take over Facebook or Rovio (maker of Angry Birds) is qualified to take over Android and iOS.
Or, to shoehorn in a car analogy and look at a different aspect of this, suggesting that CERN is responsible for developing the Internet would be roughly equivalent to suggesting that Ford was responsible for inventing the vehicle. What he actually did was popularize one particular form of transportation by making it more accessible to the masses, which is quite similar to what we saw take place with the Web (kinda...if you squint and tilt your head...I said I was shoehorning this in, so give me some leeway). But just as vehicles predated Ford's cars and come in a wider variety than what he made (e.g. planes, trains, and automobiles), so too did the Internet predate the Web and encompass much more. And it's what's at stake here.
You mean the ones that were seized without regard for due process? That is evil because it sets a precedent for abuse.
Oh, wait ... they've already abused it.
That wouldn't stop just because the UN had control.