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Trump Opposes Plan For US To Hand Over Internet Oversight To a Global Governance (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-of-control dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump opposes a long-planned transition of oversight of the internet's technical management from the U.S. government to a global community of stakeholders, his campaign said in a statement on Wednesday. Congress should block the handover, scheduled to occur on Oct. 1, "or internet freedom will be lost for good, since there will be no way to make it great again once it is lost," Stephen Miller, national policy director for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a former presidential primary foe of Trump's who has refused to endorse the real estate developer, has led a movement in Congress to block the transition, arguing it could cede control of the internet itself to authoritarian regimes like Russia and China and threaten online freedom. Technical experts have said those claims are baseless, and that a delay will backfire by undermining U.S. credibility in future international negotiations over internet standards and security. Publicly proposed in March 2014, the transfer of oversight of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is expected to go forward unless Congress votes to block the move. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton supports the Obama administration's planned transition to a global community of technologists, civil society groups and internet users, according to policy positions available on her campaign website.

27 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When it comes to free speech, I'd still rather them be in charge than just about anyone else.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When it comes to free speech, I'd still rather them be in charge than just about anyone else.

      Indeed. Nowhere else in the world has the robust guarantees of free speech that America has. The Brits have their libel laws, the French have their "religious symbols" bans. Many EU countries outlaw holocaust denial and/or hate speech.

      I finally agree with Donald on something. Has Hillary taken an official stance on this issue.

    2. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Entrope · · Score: 5, Informative

      Her campaign says she "supports the Department of Commerce’s plans to formally transition its oversight role in the management of the Domain Name System to the global community of stakeholders".

    3. Re: The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by pgnas · · Score: 4, Informative

      Are you absolutely out of your mind? Seriously, look at your options, complete censorship vs not. This administration has clearly shown you their roadmap and you still are willing to accept this? I am truly beside myself when I see how easily people are willing to give in to complete control and regulation, how this US administration uses supremacy and somehow convinced you it is tolerance. Do you know why the Internet "blew up"? It was a LACK of regulation. I don't like all of the things that Donald Trump stands for however he is a capitalist, not a socialist, not a communist or a fascist. I think we have had it far too easy for some reason we become completely lazy and prefer to be taken care of rather than getting our hands dirty, sweaty in a little bit and doing some actual work, but I digress. Regulation is control, regulation is not thinking for yourself, regulation is admitting you're not capable and regulation is a way of not taking responsibility for your actions. You may want someone to garner your free speech, but I don't and I think if you realized and thought about it a little bit further than just this election you might feel differently.

    4. Re: The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 5, Funny

      if China or Russia had been in charge?

      Absolutely I do. China and/or Russia would have no problem with people criticizing the U.S. government or its leaders on the internet.

    5. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But if other nations don't like our management of it, they'll fork it, and then we'd lose control anyhow, AND have potentially fractured standards.

      It's not as simple as us controlling it versus "them" controlling it. Unfortunately, the us-vs-them portrayal resonates better as a compact political sound-bite.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    6. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by dnaumov · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but don't you want to let in 600,000 more refugees?

      what's another 60,000 jihadis? Nothing bad will happen letting them in

      but don't you want to let in 600,000 more refugees?

      what's another 60,000 jihadis? Nothing bad will happen letting them in

      Considering that the US started the whole fucking mess and that Germany and Turkey had to take in MILLIONS upon millions of refugees despite being significantly smaller in size and despite not being the ones to initiate the conflict, yes, taking in 6,000,000 refugees (you seem to have misplaced the comma) would be a decent START.

    7. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Z80a · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about just fixing where they live?
      It's a lot cheaper and don't have the whole awful cultural clash.

    8. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about just fixing where they live?

      A good first start would be for America to stop sabotaging every attempt to end the conflict. America has consistently insisted that Assad has to go as a precondition to even talking about ending the war. Of course, Assad controls the most powerful army in Syria, has no reason whatsoever to agree to that, and America has no willpower to get engaged enough to force him out. So the war goes on, and on, and on.

      If you want to get something (in this case, peace), you have to give something up (Assad stays on in at least the Alawi Shia rump of Syria). That is the way negotiations work. You can't just demand everything you want, up-front, as a precondition to talking.

    9. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about they fix their own goddam house?

      Because the people with power don't want the war to end.

      Who wants the war to end:
      The refugees (obviously), but they have no power.
      The EU, but they are too politically impotent to do anything.

      Who wants the war to continue:
      The Russians, because they benefit from the chaos.
      America, because an end to the war would mean politically unpopular compromise.
      The Turks, because they can use it as leverage to get what they want from the EU.
      The Kurds, because they can keep their autonomy while the war sputters on.
      ISIS, because the war is their only reason for existing.
      Israel, because it divides and weakens the Arabs.
      Iran, because the war gives them influence.
      Assad, because he is winning.

      I would bet on the war continuing for a long time.

    10. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by quantaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but don't you want to let in 600,000 more refugees?

      what's another 60,000 jihadis? Nothing bad will happen letting them in

      60,000? Were you planning to set up a recruiting booth inside a Daesh training camp? Daesh might not even have 60,000 fighters world-wide.

      Let in 600,000 refugees and you might get a handful who turn jihadi.

      You'll get another handful who commit murder, some others who steal cars, start businesses, become political pundits, stand up comics, teachers, professors, drug addicts, you'll even get a few Trump supporters!

      It's 600,000 people, you're likely to get a bit of everything, good and bad.

      And frankly lets be honest, you don't actually give a crap about terrorism.

      Anyone who gives it a moments thought realizes the US already has a lot of Muslims, and the easiest way to get a bunch of Muslim terrorists in the US is to elect Trump and essentially declare Muslims to be the enemy.

      So no, I don't think you're that stupid, I don't think you would have the same reaction if these were western European white Christians.

      Rather it's about race and culture, the US with an additional 600K Arab Muslims is a smidgen less like the US as you envision it.

      And if that's your true motivation then it's the argument we should be having.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    11. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So who else is left who even stands a CHANCE of preserving any semblance of free speech on the internet?

      A country that seizes domains registered in foreign countries at the request of corporations?

      Sorry I'd rather live with anti-hate speech laws, than do whatever the hell a corporation decides to allow you to do laws.

    12. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Informative

      The fact you think 10% of refugees are terrorists speaks volumes. The actual number is 0.00038%. So the chance of a terrorist coming in with refugees is three orders of magnitude lower than the chance that you'll be murdered in Chicago by an American.

    13. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I really have no idea what Kerry is trying to accomplish in Syria. Not sure he knows, either.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    14. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Pretty good racket determining what is and what is not hate speech. "How much money to appease your gods?" and all that.

    15. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      but don't you want to let in 600,000 more refugees?

      Yes. Look at Detroit. The population there has collapsed from 1.8M in 1950, to less than 700k today. There are vast tracts of empty houses, and abandoned strip malls. An influx of 600,000 Syrians, who tend to be educated and hard-working, would do wonders for Detroit's economy, and would almost certainly be an improvement over the type of people living there now. Just require them to stay put in Detroit for 5 years. By the end of that time, there would be thriving Syrian neighborhoods and shopping centers, and they will be happy to stay.

      The mayor of Baltimore, another city in decline, has said she would welcome Syrian refugees.

      Disclaimer: I live in San Jose, California, which has an extremely high percentage of immigrants. There are several muslim families in my neighborhood. They are just normal people going about their lives.

    16. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by schnell · · Score: 5, Interesting

      How about just fixing where they live?

      Because the law of unintended consequences is nowhere stronger, more visible or more impactful than it is in foreign relations.

      I think the Obama administration's foreign policy in the Middle East has been feckless at best. But it's earnestly debatable whether that is worse than nothing at all.

      Think about it - the George W. Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an attempt to "fix where they live." For some people, it made their lives better. For most others, it made it far worse. I think arguments that "how" it was done made the difference are largely specious - to quote the apocryphal Colin Powell "Pottery Barn Rule," we (the US) broke it and we bought it. We took on all the problems of a region divided by sectarian religious and ethnic divisions more than a millennium old that make the US Republican/Democrat divide look like an intramural volleyball game. There was just not going to be a happy ending there.

      So we go and get involved in Libya. Did that help or hurt? Probably hurt. So we don't really get involved in Syria. Did that help or hurt? Probably hurt.

      That's the thing, there is no unambiguously good or right answer to getting involved in areas where the fundamental tension is too big, too old and/or too "foreign" for you to solve. Was the Republican approach in 2003 bad? Yes. Was the Democratic approach in 2011 bad? Yes. There is no clear right approach and the end result is more dependent on luck and externalities than anything else.

      And by the way, this is no endorsement of Trump - rather the opposite. I think the above is proof that anyone who thinks there are simple answers to questions that thousands of smart and informed people have struggled for decades to solve is an idiot. Easy answers sound good, but in situations like these there is simply no such thing as any easy answer. Anything you do will almost invariably have unintended consequences. Getting involved has them, as does not getting involved. Dealing with toxic areas of the world has only "least bad options" at best. "And when you sup with the devil, you should bring a long spoon."

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    17. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Jack9 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > Syrians, who tend to be educated and hard-working, would do wonders for Detroit's economy

      The Detroit economy needs jobs, not hard workers. When the auto industry started shutting down factories, Detroit fell. Importing more labor, won't fix the problem.

      --

      Often wrong but never in doubt.
      I am Jack9.
      Everyone knows me.
    18. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > Rather it's about race and culture, the US with an additional 600K Arab Muslims is a smidgen less like the US as you envision it.

      The US received a far higher ratio of terrorists to total harmless migrants when they let Irish people over in the latter half of the last century, they were merely fortunate that those terrorists had ambitions against the UK rather than the US.

      They did however engage in vast amounts of organised crime in the US, and as part of that killed way more people than ISIS have in the US.

      You're absolutely right, I see no Trump supporters making any complaints about the amount of white Irish Catholic terrorists they let in in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s who went on to murder way more Americans than ISIS ever have managed. When Trump supporters talk about this thing it's pretty obvious to anyone with even remotely any objectivity to see it's about racism on their behalf because otherwise their entire argument makes no sense as race is the only differentiating factor between what they're purportedly complaining about and many other examples of actual incidents of what they're purportedly complaining about.

      I don't understand why when Trump supporters complain about over the top political correctness they're so evasive themselves at calling a spade a spade, I'd have more respect for them if they just admitted they're mostly all racist, and many show a penchant of support for the Nazi ideology. They bitch about "liberals" not allowing them to call a spade a spade, but when someone does exactly that by objectively demonstrating why their view is racist or comparable to Nazism then suddenly they're not so keen on the idea of shouting down political correctness and speaking the blunt truth. Suddenly political correctness is their best friend, and we must moderate our description of them because they find it offensive.

      Boo fucking hoo, what a bunch of cowardly cry babies if they can't even stand up for what they believe in - that's why they wont give you the argument we should be having, because they wholeheartedly support political correctness, just only when it shuts down conversation and questions about their true views.

    19. Re: The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Namarrgon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just to pick the first three:

      John Jacob Astor: bribed officials & politicians to ensure his monopoly, exploited natives with liquor.
      Andrew Carnegie: insider trading, exploited workers, murderous strike-breaking.
      William A. Clarke: inspired the Corrupt Practices Act 1912, but not in a good way.

      We all agree that economic activity needs to follow basic laws, but I'm mostly referring to regulations that limit corporate exploitation of things that aren't illegal, yet can be clearly damaging to society. Pollution and dumping of waste is an obvious one (incidentally, benefits of EPA regulations outweigh costs by 10 to 1). Worker health & safety is another. Price-fixing, false advertising, leveraged monopolies, offloading of external costs onto the general public etc - all things that benefit the corporation at the cost of others, often in hard-to-quantify but very real ways.

      Regulations are a burden on the economy - but kept reasonable, they prevent excesses that can be much worse.

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    20. Re: The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by Gussington · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He doesn't appear to understand the meaning of the word free trade because support for free trade were words out of his mouth after talking about implementing tariffs, though.

      He has no idea what he is doing. And just because you are upset with your plumber, you don't get your Real Estate agent to do the job because he has a nice smile.
      Hillary may not be ideal, but at least she's a plumber.

    21. Re:The U.S. ain't perfect, but... by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bullshit.

      A more or less open, liberal internet. If China, or Russia, or whomever doesn't like it, they'll fork it? And how does handing control to an organization even more prone to bribery, compulsion, and control by inimical governments in any way ensure that the system remains open? If they "don't like it" that much, they'd fork it anyway. All your proposal does is allow them the opportunity to control the whole thing, not their fork.
      Simply, that's bullshit.

      If someone doesn't like something, you don't GIVE THEM THE OPTION TO CONTROL IT in order to preserve it. That's colossally dumb.

      --
      -Styopa
  2. Sort of amazed by ramriot · · Score: 4, Informative

    I accept a few posters going off the deep end, not reading the copy or just plain not understanding the issues, but practically every post with a score missed the point entirely.

    This whole issue is just a boring technical matter. The only reason it is news is that politicians with an axe to grind want to make it so.

    ICANN has been running successfully as an international corporation with multinational stakeholders for much more than a decade now. Its one remaining tie to the US is the contract that it has with the Department Of Commerce to manage internet names and numbers. That contract will lapse unless renewed at the end of September and ICANN will then carry on exactly as it has been, except without the theoretical DOC control, the US then becomes a stakeholder like everyone else.

  3. Re: Does anyone care what Trump thinks? by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Meanwhile, former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had “told me in person” that Obama was born in Kenya.". I don't really care, though.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  4. Re:Are you smarter than a Trump supporter? by Boronx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can you explain how someone could huff and puff about insults and yet support Trump? I think your feeling of offense is feigned.

    How's the birther business working out for Donald? First he goes after Obama without any evidence of wrong doing, gets in front of every camera he can find. He never acknowledges the simple fact that even if Obama was born outside the US he would still have been a citizen. He runs with it clear until the after the convention *this year*, still without a shred of evidence, and then when faced with a general public who rightly understand that birtherism is a merely a ploy to gin up the racists, he flip flops. There's no new evidence, he just decided to switch sides.

    He peddled a horrible lie for eight years, dropped it when convenient, then he lied about the lie!

    This move follows the same template as all of Donald's moves. It doesn't take a fact checking website to figure out he's the worst liar to take the national stage in decades. All you need is to think a little bit, and remember longer than five seconds.

    There are a lot of people who get excited about Trump even though they understand his fundamental dishonesty. For some reason they have faith that on that one issue that's important to them, he speaks from the heart. Why they would believe this from someone who pretty much never speaks from the heart is beyond me.

    --
    Play Command HQ online
  5. Re:Don't be afraid of this! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Informative

    Conservatives have tried many times to censor the internet, mostly because they fear the pornography it makes so easily accessible. They have failed in their attempts, but not for lack of trying.

  6. Re:Does anyone care what Trump thinks? by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Compare http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ and http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/. Hillary has around 15% of her statements as False or Pants on Fire, while Trump has over half his statements as False or Pants on fire. Facts matter more than you how you feel. Hillary isn't the most honest politician, but compared to Trump she's a paragon.