US House Votes 397-0 To Oppose UN Control of the Internet 297
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.'"
(cynicism overload.. can't fight snarkyness...) (Score:3, Insightful)
*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...
What a shock! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:3, Insightful)
If only they were consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:(cynicism overload.. can't fight snarkyness...) (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. There is nothing to be done about china being stupid with regard to the internet, and that is as it should be. The free internet will just ignore china.
However, any appeals made by OUR congress critters concerning "free, open, decentralized control" is really just doubletalk for "controlled by our hedgemony of media and telecom interests, with no oversight."
Really, "free and decentralized", in regard to the way the internet was concieved, is that there is no distincton between clients and servers, and that ISPs are mere dumb pipes.
That is *NOT* what these lieing dirtbags have in mind.
Free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:If only they were consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
"... it is essential that the Internet remain stable, secure, and free from government control" -- 112th United States Congress.
Lets see if they abide by this once the next round of Internet-specific legislation comes along.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Meanwhile, drones have been spotted . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
. . . flying over the ITU meeting in Dubai.
That'll show 'em!
The ITU failed at their own attempt at creating an Internet, with ISO OSI and X.400 crap, so I can't think of anyone more qualified to totally screw up the Internet.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:multi-stakeholder (Score:5, Insightful)
How?
Re:This should NOT be the case. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bonus: they didn't actually do anything. This is a "resolution", not a law. It has no effect. It doesn't even give any official directions to the US representative to the ITU, who (duh) had absolutely no intention of voting for any such thing anyway.
Whenever you get universal support for anything in Congress, it's because it isn't anything. Bipartisan support for doing nothing is very popular. So is bipartisan support for empty gestures. Eking out even so much as a bare majority along anything other than party lines, for some measure that actually does something, is a herculean task.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:0, Insightful)
Let me see, your problem is the UN is not powerful and effective enough, that it needs to be more interventionist?
Mmkay.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Hypocrisy, thy name is slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [slashdot.org]
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 [slashdot.org]
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:2, Insightful)
So you don't remember the US seizing all those domains right before Black Friday? Not just this year, but last year too.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Hypocrisy, thy name is slashdot. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup. When farmers and hens both vote against the fox guarding the henhouse, they have very different reasons.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:2, Insightful)
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>
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
i_dont_have_a_problem_with_this.jpg
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Republicans hate the UN (Score:4, Insightful)
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.