Will Obama Let the U.N.
Seize The Internet?
Free
Speech: The U.N. plans to control the tool that tyrants
fear most — technology that promotes free speech and
intellectual freedom — by imposing a global tax in the
name of fairness. Think of net neutrality on steroids.
Elections
have consequences, and one consequence of President
Obama's re-election may be U.S. acquiescence to the
administrative control of the Internet to the United
Nations and journalist-jailing and Web-censoring regimes
from Iran to Venezuela, complete with a global tax on its
use.
The
U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is
holding the World Conference on International
Telecommunications in Dubai from Dec. 3 to 14. U.N. member
states, largely composed of Third World despots, will be
meeting to update the ITU treaty arrangements for
international communications.
The ITU
last drafted a treaty on communications in 1988, before
the dawn of the Internet as we know it, and many of the
world's thugs seek to restrict its freedoms by imposing on
it a global tax. The Internet was then primarily a
university network, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a
mere 4 years old.
Today,
the self-regulating Internet means no one has to ask for
permission to launch a website, and no government can tell
network operators how to do their jobs. The Internet
freely crosses international boundaries, making it
difficult for governments to censor or to tax.
Regimes
such as Russia and Iran also want an ITU rule letting them
monitor Internet traffic routed through or to their
countries, allowing them to eavesdrop or block access.
Since
at least 2004, the ITU has tried repeatedly to wrest power
from ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, the multi-stakeholder body created in 1998 to
oversee domain names and addresses.