Imagine A UN-Run Internet 860
Damon Dimmick writes "Small countries in the United Nations have been arguing to put the Internet under the control of the UN so that countries can more easily monitor (read: control) Internet content. It's on hold for now, but this could become a very real censorship problem, very soon. Some nations have gone so far as to suggest "monitoring boards" for internet content. Here is the link to the Financial Times article. It briefly describes the current situation. Just something to keep an eye on."
Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
PS:I am not saying that what China is doing is correct, all I am saying is that they are monitoring their nation's internet from their nation, the way it should be.
Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Re:UN Effect (Score:2, Informative)
Since USA is just a dominate force in the UN, would this really affect us? Yes... it may decrease our freedom of press!
I don't think it would, at least not as the world stands now.
I liken this to the International Criminal Court. (I believe that is the name, but am not sure; whatever it is called, it is basically international law's version of the US Supreme Court.) Basically, the US refuses to recognize it because it is our legal belief that the US Supreme Court is the "highest law in the land," and we don't believe any other court elsewhere has the authority to compel or overrule decisions made by or reserved to the USSC.
Now, what can the UN do if we defy an International Court order? They pass the greivance on to the UN's enforcement arm: The UN Security Council. The UNSC can then impose sanctions on the US... which the US would veto dead before the possibility escaped their lips. The matter is dead. They can complain and issue statements and pass resololutions in the UN General Assembly decrying us but once they're thwarted in their enforcement arm, all they can do is talk.
All in all, I'm more worried about the trampling of my rights from within the US than I am from outside. Getting Bush out of the White House will be an excellent step toward repair and repealing the Patriot Act will be perhaps the greatest victory for individual rights since the country came into being.
As to the matter at hand, there needs to be a very minimal amount of control over the Internet. Mostly, I think, people should be protected from libel and other false, harmful claims (in the form of the ability of the wronged to sue: we don't need a government body of censorship). Child porn should be stopped, but I don't think we need a new branch of governence to deal with it. I can't think of a lot more in terms of regulation that I would accept. Do I care if that regulation comes from within the US or outside? Not a whole lot. I think matters should be handled in the country they originate from, subject to that country's laws, for purposes of fairness. Other than that, and subject to the "minimal enforcement" restriction (which I am aware I have not well defined)? Eh, whatever.
Re:un-run is right (Score:3, Informative)
Re:un-run is right (Score:2, Informative)
Not "U.N." "U.S." They call it the "Pax Americana".
Has negotiated and enforced many peace treaties throughout that time.
"Enforced?" Is there anything funnier than watching a crowd of villagers chasing a bunch of blue helmets with pitchforks and WWII-era shotguns?
Economic and other sanctions have had positive effects on some countries.
Yeah, like Iraq, I guess. The only positive effect I saw was that the U.S. finally invaded, and now those babies actually get milk.
WHO has done some fantastic work in the 3rd world.
How? Handing out H1B applications?
Is the world's first supra-national organization and, more remarkably, has had its power seriously challenged only a few times.
"It's power is seriously challenged only a few times" because no one takes them seriously to begin with! I mean, didn't you see how "seriously" the U.N. was taken by those Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda a couple of years ago?
Has, respectively, saved the countries of Korea, Kuwait,and many others i'm forgetting by using multinational forces to defeat a common agressor enemy.
The U.N. had ZILCH to do with Kuwait, except as a rubber-stamp for the U.S. action.
And when we don't get the U.N. imprimatur, we go in anyway and kick evil heinie WITHOUT the U.N.
And South Korea exists solely because in the early 50s the U.N. was run by the WWII Allied Powers, notably the U.S. That was in the days before it became a laughing stock by seriously implying clowns like Boutros Boutros Ghali and Kofi Annan are "world statesmen."
Seriously, dude, you need to get off the New World Order Kool-Aid. It is doing serious harm to your grip on reality!
This reminds me... (Score:2, Informative)
It was a while ago, but the Cyberspace Independence Declaration [eff.org] remains a good read. Here is an excerpt:
"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
"We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear."
A Cyberspace Independence Declaration [eff.org], John Perry Barlow [eff.org], Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation [eff.org]
Re:Better than a USA-run Internet... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good idea (Score:3, Informative)
Don't know? That's OK, that's because they DON'T DO ANYTHING. They print pamphlets! Oh my fucking God! What can't Libya do with those nerfarious pamphlets of theirs!? And... and... and... they do statistical analyses of data!!! God help us! Sometimes they even write opinion essays! They're like the Wall Street Journal, only with a smaller audience and less influence! I hear your call, sir, the UN Security Council must sieze control of all these pamphlet-printing, analysis-writing terrorist groups before THE VERY WORLD AS WE KNOW IT COMES TO AN END!
Re:Good idea (Score:3, Informative)
Second, the Food Stamp program doesn't have a time limit, you can get Food Stamps for as long as you are under the income limits (hidden way of subsiding our food producers). You may have to have a work part time, if you are able, but that is all. Food Stamp benifits are based on income, the less you make, the more you get. A family of 4 with little income can get 250 USD or more per month in food stamps.
Lastly, their are a great variety of food banks and/or churches that will help out by providing food.
Economist article that predated this (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the article (copied for fair use of news reporting, criticism and review):
Time for UN intervention?
Oct 30th 2003
From The Economist print edition
A regime change may topple ICANN, the controversial internet regulator
WHEN Augustine arrived in Carthage, the saint found a seething, bubbling cauldron of wickedness. A similar fate has befallen the controversial internet address regulator, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which hosted its trimestrial public board meeting this week in the Tunisian city. Five years after it was founded as a quasi-private body with the backing of many governments, ICANN now faces its most severe test. The environment for which it was designed has radically changed: the business of selling domain names collapsed; governments are keener to oversee the internet; and ICANN itself proved maladroit in carrying out its tasks. This autumn, these three factors collided. How ICANN handles the situation will determine whether the internet's core infrastructure remains managed by industry rather than by international treaty--and highlights the need to balance stability and innovation.
The most visible dispute is between ICANN and VeriSign, a firm that operates the
This shows how much the market for internet addresses has changed. VeriSign needs new services to generate revenue, since selling names and operating the registration system is not as lucrative as it once appeared. In 1998, it had a monopoly on
More importantly, VeriSign's willingness to risk antagonising its regulator reveals the extent to which ICANN's authority is in doubt. Some governments feel that they could do a better job. At a pre-meeting in September for the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society, which begins in Geneva in December, a number of countries backed a proposal that a different body, the UN-affiliated International Telecommunication Union, should take on the activities that are currently within ICANN's remit. In policy circles, the idea represents a significant snub to the notion of private-sector management of the internet's addressing system.
The threat of being ousted in favour of the ITU helped to push ICANN to confront VeriSign, to prove that it was up to the task of keeping order on the net. But it also exposed an irony that was made clear at this week's board meeting in Carthage, where ICANN's allies and enemies congregated. In the past, the debate over how to run the internet has focused on the risk that too much government regulation might stall innovation. Indeed, industry and governments themselves