WSIS to Consider Internet Governance Under U.N. 308
penciling_in writes "The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) starting
next week in Geneva is expected to attract more than 50 heads of state and
6,000 delegates who will address issues from the digital divide to Internet
governance. It will be addressing the broad range of themes concerning the
Information Society and adoption of a Declaration of Principles and Plan of
Action, which reportedly includes a recommendation to place the governance of
the Internet under the United Nations. In response to issues leading up to this event,
CircleID has been running a number of articles including Karl Auerbach's piece, 'Will
ICANN Reveal Its True Self To WSIS?' and an extensive Interview (Part
I | Part II) by Geert
Lovink with Milton Mueller,
author of 'Ruling the Root', one of the first detailed investigations into the
Internet domain name policies." There's a Reuters story on this conference.
Bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I am completely against U.N. control of the Internet, because I believe it would lead to censorship. I believe the U.N. would use its power to deny domains to those critical of the U.N., or those who hold unpopular opinions in opposition to the U.N.
Exhibit A is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [un.org]. It all sounds pretty good. I think the particularly applicable Article to this case is #19:
That sounds to me like one should be able to say whatever one wants over the Internet. i.e., to impart information and ideas through any media.
Now kindly review Article 29, section 3:
What exactly are the purposes and principles of the United Nations? If I were to try to register 'theUNsucks.com' would they stop me? My right to free speech ends when I exercise that right contrary to the purposes of the U.N. The U.N. holds all kinds of conferences where they condemn racism and sexism. What if I wanted to create a website about the inferiority of a certain race or sex? Would they stop me? Sure, the opinions I express may be wrong, stupid, and unpopular, but popular opinions are those that don't need protecting.
The U.N. will pry control of the Internet from my cold, dead DNS server.
What is the purpose of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Over 6000 people will agree on a large range of issues to submit on a recommendation to a group that may or may not do something about it because it may or may not have the power to act on it.
Will anything actually come out of this?
How About This Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
I know, they would like to act as if they're doing something. But, I personally don't want some world governing body controlling what goes down on the internet. If that doesn't scare you I don't know what does. Can't governments of any type just keep their hands off?
Don't see this happening... (Score:5, Insightful)
Expect this initiative to languish in various committees until the end of time...
New World Order? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/
Coincidence?
Oh Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the beautiful thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't see the UN taking control. Developed nations won't allow it. The Internet should remain a private entity without direct government control. Especially not the UN's control... Considering how ineffective they are in running everything else, I shudder to think about how poorly they will manage something like the Internet.
The days of self-regulation are ending (Score:3, Insightful)
The questions the user-base of the Internet is who and how. I find it surprising that two of the biggest backer of the UN's idea of giving more control of the Internet are China and Cuba, both try to control what people can read and what sites their people can visit on the internet.
The days of the internet being a true medium for free-speach I think is alomst over. The problem now is if governments, that freedom will be gone for many people.
Lowest Common Denominator (Score:5, Insightful)
If country A, doesnt belive in, lets say nazi relics, and forbids them to be on their network, then the rest of the countries must also abide by that ruling, as it would be a ban 'net-wide..
That is, if one controlling mulitnational entity was in control...
non-issue (Score:3, Insightful)
its like North Korea discussing what they are going to do with Houston, TX.
wtf ? total non-issue
Incidentally, htf COULD they censor or control it?
Dig up the ocean going cables and route them through their offices ?
the cpu horsepower they would need to monitor it all is way above the UN's budget.
Re:Bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't like it (Score:5, Insightful)
With businesses running things (as is mostly the case today), we have a system in which the "technological elite" exercise the greatest control over the Internet. You and I are the driving force between the everything-routes-everywhere phenomena seen today in the Free World. We won't subscribe to an ISP that only gives us their 37% of the Internet. We don't do business with ISP's that openly censor controversial content (though there are a few stupid exceptions).
Any sort of Government control threatens this. I don't want an Internet where the U.S. is "protected" from visiting "terrorist" nations. I don't want an Internet where this week's dissenting European ally doesn't route our data. I don't want the largest parties in democracies using mob-rule to determine what is and is not appropriate.
What I want is decentralized chaos. The less control exerted by any one agency, the better off we all are. Given the difficult choice between the Governments and private sectors, I'll take the private sectors. At least their motives are clear and susceptible to genuine democratic influence (money)--not to gov't propaganda and international politicking.
HTTP/HTML is not the internet. (Score:2, Insightful)
What Authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they own a significant portion of the "net"?
Where they involved in the risk taking that made the net successful?
No. No. No.
Quite frankly if the western world wants to run the internet by their own (fair or unfair) rules, they are allowed to. The internet isn't some gift to the world. It was designed by certain groups (okay, lots of groups, working together) and they should be able to maintain control.
If third-world dictators want an internet to control, why don't they invest in the infrastructure, setup their own governing body, and create their own network. It isn't like anything would stop them from doing so.
Other than lack of money and technologically skilled workers.
Ryan
Re:What crap. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. That's why it shouldn't be in the hands of the UN. Control of the Internet belongs to those who own/run the networks that comprise it. Any authority that they follow exists and has its authority solely because they voluntarily follow it. Should those in charge of the root servers and those in charge of address allocation become intolerable dictators or ineffective leaders, they will find themselves ignored by the individuals who run the 'Net.
And that is the true beauty of the Internet; there is no governance. Things only work because people agree to make them work. Standards only exist because people agree to those standards. If some company decided they wanted to write a new protocol to replace TCP/IP that only their company's software could make use of, for instance, they would find their packets dropped at the first router they didn't own. Non-compliance of voluntary standards is seen by the Internet as damage and routed around. (See: Usenet Death Penalty [catb.org])
This is how the Internet has been run in the past and should be run in the future: Those responsible for running and maintaining the networks should be the ones in charge of deciding how they are run.
Can't control something that doesn't exist... (Score:2, Insightful)
The only reality is that there are lots of computer networks variously located in many sovereign nations that happen to be cooperating at this time (the networks, not necessarily the nations). Just like everything else in the world, it all comes down to where the wires and the servers sit. If I say "fark the UN" on my website hosted out of Texas, I am protected by the US Constitution...which is the law of my land.
Don't like it a bit (Score:1, Insightful)
I tend to think any singular influential body involved it's development will act in a negative manner. UN participation would by it's nature and sometimes intent acts against free speech. The United Nations lacks the save guards of due process inherent to democratic goverments and is positively lacking the consent of the governed.
Why do people always have to be governed, why the hell can't free people be alone? The UN is another platform of exclusion, half truths and pure myths.
No custody, no money.
No consent, no abortion.
Fart in the wind... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
a) making the logical fallacy of the false choice, or
b) putting words in my mouth.
I never said the U.S. should be in control of the Internet. I said the U.N. should not be in control of the Internet. Just because the U.N. should not be in control, does not mean that the U.S. should, I made no statement as to whether or not the U.S. should control the Internet.
While you obviously have reading comprehension problems, this statement of yours is truly laughable:
Great. So who's your elected representative in the United Nations, to whom you can complain if you don't like the way they run the Internet? Who is it? Oh...wait, you don't have elected representation in the U.N., do you? Right. None of us do, I keep forgetting. However, every petty dictatorship does have a seat in the U.N., so, essentially, Fidel Castro himself gets a vote equal to the entire democratic state of, say, Sweden. That's a great place to put control of the Internet. Then it'll truly be "in the hands of all of us," won't it?
Re:Bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
That is why membership of the security council is limited and the permanent members have veto power.
The story has the purpose of the summit completely wrong. There is nothing about Internet governance, it is high level touchy feely bullshit about the information society.
To find out the substance of the agenda is near impossible but the fact there are 50 heads of government there shows what is up. A meeting on controlling the Internet would be attended by ministers who do the actual dirty work, heads of government don't talk about who runs the A-Root.
The sort of thing they will be discussing is how to keep lots of languages alive in the Internet age. Popular with the International community at large but ultimately futile and we will be better off without them. Anything worth keeping will be translated into English.
People go on so about international heritage, since when has anyone mourned the fact that we no longer have a community speaking ancient Mayan or Pharonic Egyptian? What national languages are in actuality are occasion for bigottry and violence. Get rid of Basque and you get rid of Basque language nutters killing people who object to being rulled by basque language nutters.
Same goes for Welsh, one minute you have people whining about the loss of a national identity that was never really theirs in the first place, then they start imposing it on schoolkids (always a good ploy, they can't refuse and few people have the guts to stand up and object that learning Spanish or German would be a better career move), next thing welsh language loonies are burning down holiday cottages and planning lists of foreigners for 'ethinc cleansing' come the revolution. And don't get me started on the French.
Get rid of languages and you get rid of language bigotry. The Web is doing a great job in this respect. Within a couple of generations it will be impossible to hold a middle class job in any country unless you are fluent in English.
You want people EXECUTED for non-PC postings? (Score:3, Insightful)
Like not serving as a platform for nazis and war criminals [washingtontimes.com] ?
Note that the decision in question convicts three broadcasters of genocide for talking about it on the air. Advocating = committing. Oops!
Scenario:
- You flame about some political A-hole, spammer, or annoying whatever on the net and mention that you wish he were dead.
- Somebody kills him.
- You get fried.
Scenario 2:
- You flame about some regime somewhere in the world and mention that it would be good if it were overthrown.
- You get hauled into international court and then handed over to the regime for the "crime" of criticizing it and advocating violence against it.
As to handing such power over to the UN, the US government is empowerd only by the Constitution. This means it cannot hand its citizens over to an international tribunal that considers speech to be the equivalent of action, in violation of their First Amendment rights.
Further, any action by US officials that PURPORTS to do so is (according to the Supreme Court) not an official action, but a personal action by the individuals in question - suitable for being disobeyed by any other government official (such as the police and military personnel charged with executing the order - who have sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or DOMESTIC) and opening them up to both impeachment and personal responsibility under such laws as the Civil Rights act.
Freedom of speech can never be absolute.
That reminds me of an Abbie Hoffman incident (which I'll paraphrase since I don't have the exact text handy).
Abbie on interview show in front of a studio audience:
Q: So you think freedom of speech is absolute?
A: Absolutely!
Q: But surely you don't believe it's all right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre?
A: FIRE!
Re:Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, it all depends on your definition of "racial hatred." People's opinions on what consitutes "racial hatred" are very different. For example, what if I believe that programs such as Affirmative Action are wrong? I have heard "civil rights leaders" claim that opposition to programs which provide special benefits to minorities are "hateful." So if I create a web site in which I argue that Affirmative Action is immoral, because I don't think, say, who gets a job should be decided on the basis of the color of one's skin, and that is determined to be "hate speech," then I'm screwed.
Would the U.N. actually shut down my web site? Maybe, maybe not. But why give them that power in the first place?
Re:Bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they lock people up without trial and deny access to a lawyer while their investigators 'interrogate' them.
Internet 'governance' comes down in the end to only two issues, who allocates IP address blocks and who allocates DNS names and under what circumstances. The issues there are simply does everyone have a right to gain access, or do some countries get to make the rules that others must follow?
The only practical issue of consequence here is does the US get to allocate an unfair proportion of IPv4 addresses now that shortages are starting to hurt? Answer - no. The second issue is does the US get to kick the Cuba domain or the Palestine domain off the net because some US politician wants to pander to a particular part of the electorate.
The answer to the last one is unfortunately a 'maybe'. If it ever happens that would be the end of US control, the root would fracture instantly and there would be a rival root run by the UN, in point of fact several of the existing roots are outside US control and could unilaterally fork. The net would behave somewhat unreliably for a while after which the UN root would be established as canonical and US influence at an end.
And of course the fact this would be the inevitable result is the reason that idiots in Congress who suggest this sort of thing get slapped down really hard. It is also the real purpose of ICANN, keep idiots in Congress out of the loop in case they push something idiotic through.
As for the Sinophobia that sweeps the US from time to time. China has a population four to five times that of the US and it is rapidly increasing industrial output. Within twenty years China and India will be the world economic superpowers. It would be better for the US to spend time thinking of how it is going to wield influence in that world than trying to isolate and daemonize.
The US has supported plenty of regimes that are considerably worse, in many cases imposing dictatorships on democracies. Ever wonder why the Iranians are so pissed with the US? Its because the US organized a coup to overthrow the democratic government and install the Shah as dictator rather than support the Iranian people as a fellow nation oppressed by a colonial tyrant.
Perhaps if the US would start by counting the votes in its own elections and keeping to the international treaties it signed it will be in a better position to lecture other countries about freedom and democracy. At the moment the stench of hypocrisy each time George Bush opens his mouth is nauseating.
Re:That can go both ways (Score:3, Insightful)