November 16, 2005 5:40 AM PST
U.S. reaches Net detente with U.N.
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international participation in discussions of Internet governance issues. The question is how to achieve this. Let those discussions continue."
Internet showdown postponed
A debate on the future of the Internet will resume at an event in Greece next year to inaugurate a new U.N. Internet Governance Forum. Following are excerpts from the document creating that forum.
The mandate of the IGF is to:
More guidelines:
Source: World Summit on the Information Society
Annan acknowledged that the U.S. has exercised its Internet oversight "fairly and honorably" but said change has become necessary. The United Nations has no desire to "control or police the Internet," Annan added.
That stance seemed to be an effort to placate conservative groups and businesses, especially in the United States, which are alarmed at what some view as the prospect of a thoroughly corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy seizing control of Internet management.
A report released this week by the National Taxpayers Union warned that "controlling Internet content while securing another income source through the United Nations seems an attractive policy outcome for politicians looking to suppress dissent and to prop up financially ailing bureaucracies."
The Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, has stressed that it supports a "market-based solutions" approach rather than expanded U.N. control. So have a roster of tech companies, including Google, IBM and Microsoft, and members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
One reason why businesses are alarmed is the lengthy list of suggestions that have been advanced in the past by nations participating in the U.N. process. Those include new mandates for "consumer protection," the power to tax domain names to pay for "universal access" and folding ICANN into a U.N. agency. The United Nations has previously suggested creating an international tax bureaucracy and once floated the idea of taxing e-mail, saying in a report (PDF) that a 1 cent tax on 100 e-mail messages would be "negligible."
Violence before summit
The lead-up to the WSIS has been marred by violence against journalists and human rights activists. French journalist Christophe Boltanski, who had arrived early to write about Tunisia President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's civil-liberties record, was stabbed in an assault by four men and not aided by nearby police. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that such attacks are characteristic of Tunisia's secret police.
In another incident, journalists and civil-liberties activists planning their own summit on human rights were assaulted and detained by Tunisian police. In response, members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange said they would pull out of the summit.
Human rights groups have warned for years that Ben Ali's autocratic regime has imprisoned and tortured political opponents and harassed full-time journalists and part-time online scribes.
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Who thinks this crud up? Why would we EVER turn over control of the most valuable resource in the world over to an organization with no balls that can't even manage the smallest of projects without getting lost in thier own BS.
The Bush guys proabably made a mistake is telling them that we will continue to talk about this trash -- in two years.
This is ludicrous.
No, we are not going to let Iran censor the net.
No, we are not going to let India configure the root servers.
No, we are not going to let Kofie's kid put a tax on email.
No.
Whatever you were going to ask next, it's no.
http://work-out.blogspot.com/
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe spoke for the more radical opposition to U.S. control, saying Washington and its allies cannot continue to "insist on being world policemen on the management of the Internet."
"Why should our diverse world be beholden to an American company?," he told more than 10,000 government, business and other delegates as the three-day U.N. World Summit on the Information Society opened Wednesday.
I vote for antartica!! let the penguins do thier thing...
There are too many greedy CORRUPT leaders in the UN.
Never give this control up!
- Power Hungry USA!!!
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by
November 17, 2005 11:50 AM PST
- Who cares if US controls *.com .ny .canada .whatever!? The truth is no one does; we don't! The problem is if they want to control us!! Let us have our freedom back and have our own subdomains and fortnately we actually don't need your permission! Why do you control .co.it, .co.za, .co.fr, .co.jp...? What are you so afraid of? Just let them go! It's not any better than those lunatics who just buy multiple URLs to blackmail their owners! Bottom Line: you think you can control us and that stinks! Give us our power! What's wrong with us controlling ourselves?
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- Sad
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by telynor
November 17, 2005 8:50 PM PST
- How sad that you are so blinded by your dislike of the US that you fail to realize that the very reason to keep oversight with the US is so that the net remains open. Do you really believe that any totalitarian regime would not restrict access to all ideas--good and bad? Do I want any government censoring what I see or read or think, I don't think so.
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