In a recent meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance in Geneva harsh words were exchanged between representatives of the US government and representatives of the UK and other European countries over the issue of who controls or should control the internet.
The internet originated in networks established by private and public institutions in the United States and eventually went global, with the regulation of the basic infrastructure remaining in the hands of US-based groups like ICANN.
At this meeting in Geneva there were objections to US control over what is now an international institution of great importance to many nations, some of which literally live or die by internet commerce The predominant opinion seemed to be that the UN should take control of the internet away from America, whether we created it or not.
The UN is all for this idea. Coming up next month is the World Summit on the Information Society - a UN group promoting their Orwellian idea of civil society through the medium of the internet - where they intend to begin to implement a plan put together in 2003 to transfer the internet to the control of a United Nations body which will be answerable only to the bureaucrats of the UN who represent a diverse group of nations, many of them openly hostile to individual liberty, free speech and the United States.
At the Global Forum on Internet Governance UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that "The world has a common interest in ensuring the security and dependability of this new medium. The medium must be made accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people." Which I imagine sounds great to a lot of people, but raises the issues of whose security interests the UN is likely to look out for, and how far the UN would go in sacrificing the freedoms we now enjoy on the internet to serve the needs of member countries for whom free speech and privacy are very low priorities. In their hands the internet could easily be turned from a medium for the free exchange of ideas to a tool through which a global state monitors and restricts the business and private activities of individuals all over the world.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - simon hb
In order to save time, I've started to bail out of blog articles when I hit a phrase that is meaningless nonesense. Genreally, these will involve mention of either Nazis or Orwell.
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Coming up next month is the World Summit on the Information Society - a UN group promoting their Orwellian idea of civil society through the medium of the internet -
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Do you actually mean "Orwellian" here - as by that I would take it to mean the sort of civil society that George Orwell would have campaigned for - or do you mean "1984-style", in which case it would be the exact opposite?
2 - troll
"Orwellian" has a common usage and meaning - context makes the poster's meaning clear
take your faux nit picking off my bridge
troll
3 - RedTard
Great post, I think that control of the internet will eventually be wrestled away from the US by the international community. If we don't voluntarily give up control the world will eventually create a competitive copy of our system and move to the new standard without us. When we do transfer control we must be smart about it and maintain veto power over any use of the system to generate revenue.
The capacity to earn money by control of the internet is too great a temptation to be allowed in the hands of the UN. If I could imagine it would start with a small tariff that would go to help disadvantaged African nations. Everybody's for that, right. Once we are used to taxation on the foundation of the internet, the fees will be used for anything the UN wants. In the end, the US would be paying an unfair share of the burden for the "priviledge" of having UN bureaucrats manage the sytem we created.
I would love to hear what the left thinks about this. Would we have to worry about a Democratic president handing it over Panama Canal style?
4 - Danny Younger
Unfortunately, the U.S. has not maintained a perfect hands-off policy... please review the recent letters sent to Michael Gallagher, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, by the Center for Democracy & Technology and by the Internet Governance Project that cite objections to U.S. Government meddling with respect to the .XXX domain.
The URLs:
http://www.cdt.org/dns/20050930xxxletter.pdf
http://dcc.syr.edu/signaturepost.asp
5 - RedTard
"Unfortunately, the U.S. has not maintained a perfect hands-off policy"
True, that was a critical mistake and will be cited as a reason why the US should not be in control. I think the point is not that the US system is perfect, but that the UN would be much worse.
6 - Cameron Parrish
Great posts here but whats new? So the UN is trying once again to establish a defacto global tax structure. Typical UN scheme to make money and grow as all bureacracy seeks to do. This internet approach is pretty sneaky and makes me wonder who is more sneaky the Chinese or the UN.
7 - Dave Nalle
Very good point about the .xxx issue. I considered putting it in the article, but it's a whole different kettle of fish. The way it was handled was pretty ham-handed and not really thought out well, but the basic concept was just as debatable as the move to delay and perhaps stop the implementation of .xxx.
There's a perfectly reasonable argument to be made that implementing .xxx was the first step towards internet censorship and that stopping .xxx was a move to preserve the status quo and not change a system that's working.
Dave
8 - gonzo marx
factual correction...the World Wide Web was created at CERN in Switzerland...not in the US
carry on...
Excelsior!
9 - Dave Nalle
Not exactly, Gonzo. The internet as we know it today originates in projects of universities in the US and the DoD. The first incarnation of the internet came out of ARPAnet which originated in 1969. The first things which could be identified as akin to the world wide web were networked bulletin board systems like FidoNet (1984) and discussion/news networks like Usenet (1979) - my Fido BBS was online from '86 to '91. CERN didn't even come into existence until 1989, so it was a relative latecomer.
Dave
10 - JR
CERN celebrated their 50th anniversary last year.
11 - Dave Nalle
Sorry, I should have said that CERN didn't get involved in the internet until 1989. Prior to that they were primarily an international scientific research group which had no particular role in the internet.
Dave
12 - melchior
ITU-T will manage the world's X.25 internetworking standard. The UN are the supreme rulers!
13 - Dave Nalle
From my reading it doesn't seem as if the UN wants to work within the existing structure of the ITU. They seem to want to create a new body specifically for the internet, which would presumably be even worse than putting it all in the hands of the ITU.
Dave
14 - melchior
FAQ 3.2 Who are the organizers of WSIS?
Dave, with all due respect, tell me another whopper...
15 - Dave Nalle
I didn't say the ITU wasn't participating in WSIS. What I was referring to was statements made by Kofi Annan and other UN leaders which suggest that the internet would be managed by a new agency rather than ITU.
Dave
16 - Danny Younger
"They seem to want to create a new body specifically for the internet"
Yours is a correct reading of the situation; the EU proposal:
"The new cooperation model should include the development and application of globally applicable public policy principles and provide an international government involvement at the level of principles over the following naming, numbering and addressing-related matters:
a. Provision for a global allocation system of IP number blocks, which is equitable and efficient;
b. Procedures for changing the root zone file, specifically for the insertion of new top level domains in the root system and changes of ccTLD managers;
c. Establishment of contingency plans to ensure the continuity of crucial DNS functions;
d. Establishment of an arbitration and dispute resolution mechanism based on international law in case of disputes;
e. Rules applicable to DNS system.
Forum function:
In order to strengthen the global multi-stakeholder cooperation within Internet Governance, we decide to create a Forum. The task of this Forum is to address multidimensional and interrelated public policy issues, through the exchange and sharing of information and good practices. It shall work on the basis of a clear mandate for a predefined period. It should work with existing institutions or organisations and not try to dominate issues already dealt with elsewhere. It should not perform oversight tasks."
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/sca/EU-28.doc
17 - Heloise
I also thought that the U of Texas at Austin actually created the www part of the internet. The physicists of the world wanted to keep in close touch and invented the internet part, if you will.
But the www and internet are actually two separate creations. The www was invented to organize the internet. These are two separate inventions is my understanding.
Heloise
I learned this at UT Austin and involvement with physicists, so hope it is correct info.
18 - Dave Nalle
God I love the way the internationalist bureaucrats write.
Dave
19 - Heloise
Translation of that mess: The U.N. wants to control opposition to itself on a global scale. When they put black figureheads at the helm such as Kofi Annan they are the ones that need big watching IMO.
Heloise
20 - Dave Nalle
Well, I know that my first access to the internet was through UT, but I was a grad student there when the internet was taking off through usenet and email in the early 1980s.
Dave
21 - Slim
"In the Plan of Action issued at the last meeting of the WSIS, they listed 10 goals, which included a single international database of user information and detailed monitoring of internet usage in libraries, schools, univerrities, museums, hospitals and just about everywhere else."
Can you tell me where this single international database is in the Plan of Action? I've been involved in WSIS planning for three years and this is the first I've heard of a UN plan that would do this. I would really like to know how you have come to this conclusion?
"They would know what you are doing, where you are doing it, and the security of that information would only be as viable as the good will and competence of the UN, qualities which they are not generally known for."
Are you sure? Are you getting the UN confused with China? The UN has neither the capacity or the will to set up such a system (does anyone, even the US, on an international scale?!) and member nations such as the US, China, Cuba, Iran and the EU countries would not let it.
"The plan also proposes adapting "all primary and secondary school curricula to meet the challenges of the Information Society," essentially putting the UN and its agenda and curriculum in every classroom in the world.".
No it does not. That is entirely your reading of the phrase you quote. Saying that the enabling of primary and secondary schools all over the world to deal with online eduction and the issues raised by the Internet in the classroom is putting the UN and its agenda in classrooms worldwide...how do you make the leap from helping kids in developing countries get the most out of the Internet to a new world order run along UN lines? I simply don't accept your reading of the situation.
"It seems quite likely that under UN control the internet could become a cash cow which they would milk to the detriment of businesses and individuals who depend on it for their livelihood."
Do you really think that this would be allowed to happen by e.g. the US, or China? I've been at the pre-summits - the business lobby is extremely strong. Not a chance.
I think you are right to raise the problems that will come as a result of handing control of the Internet over to the UN. I think the if-it's-not-broke-why-fix-it angle has some legs here. Saying that, it's impossible that the rest of the UN member countries will accept control of the Internet remaining in the hands of the US - too many countries now have a interest and the Internet is now an integral part of bureaucracy and governance (and business) everywhere. To be bluntly realistic - I cannot see how these countries can continue to accept the US role as (nearly) sole manager of the Internet. Something has to give.
So I share your worries about where it's going. But the paranoid view of the UN? I can't go with that.
Cheers,
Slim
22 - melchior
So this proposed new "Forum" is that euro-slang for blog or for mailing list?
Moderated or unmoderated?
I read "not try to dominate issues already dealt with elsewhere" as indicating that vi vs. emacs flame-wars are strictly OT! And I can live with that provision in the charter.
So where's the url for this new forum?
23 - Dave Nalle
I think that by forum they mean a big meeting in this case.
Dave
24 - Dave Nalle
>>"Can you tell me where this single international database is in the Plan of Action? I've been involved in WSIS planning for three years and this is the first I've heard of a UN plan that would do this. I would really like to know how you have come to this conclusion?<<
From reading the Plan of Action, actually. It seems implied in many of the propsals they make that there will be some sort of centralized database to support the services they have in mind.
>>Are you sure? Are you getting the UN confused with China? The UN has neither the capacity or the will to set up such a system (does anyone, even the US, on an international scale?!) and member nations such as the US, China, Cuba, Iran and the EU countries would not let it.<<
Can we trust benign indifference to protect our rights? Given the nations who are in the UN and who are influential - like China - how can we be sure that in the future the policies will not evolve into something very undesirable?
>>No it does not. That is entirely your reading of the phrase you quote. Saying that the enabling of primary and secondary schools all over the world to deal with online eduction and the issues raised by the Internet in the classroom is putting the UN and its agenda in classrooms worldwide...how do you make the leap from helping kids in developing countries get the most out of the Internet to a new world order run along UN lines? I simply don't accept your reading of the situation.<<
I read it again and it still reads that way. Are you saying there are not people who would like to use the UN this way? What guarantees do we have that people with an agenda like that would not someday be in a position to implement it. If you create the mechanisms to facilitate governmental oppression it's just a matter of time before someone comes along and puts them to use.
>>Do you really think that this would be allowed to happen by e.g. the US, or China? I've been at the pre-summits - the business lobby is extremely strong. Not a chance.<<
I think that there are many people who'd like to cash in on the internet to make money for their governments, and the UN is certainly one such group. Whether they could pull it off is another issue.
>>I think you are right to raise the problems that will come as a result of handing control of the Internet over to the UN. I think the if-it's-not-broke-why-fix-it angle has some legs here. Saying that, it's impossible that the rest of the UN member countries will accept control of the Internet remaining in the hands of the US - too many countries now have a interest and the Internet is now an integral part of bureaucracy and governance (and business) everywhere. To be bluntly realistic - I cannot see how these countries can continue to accept the US role as (nearly) sole manager of the Internet. Something has to give.<<
I don't see why not. The US basically does nothing to control, regulate or limit the internet or how other countries might want to make use of it. I don't see how they can imagine that any other system would be more advantageous to them unless it's a system which can be abused to benefit some countries at the expense of others.
>>So I share your worries about where it's going. But the paranoid view of the UN? I can't go with that.<<
The UN is tainted with bureaucratic self-interest, and no longer serves the needs of the constituent nations as much as it does the needs of their bureaucratic culture. That's not a formula for success in a project like this.
Dave
25 - Geo
Good GAWDALMIGHTY another UN conspiracy theory... whew, it's been a while with all the diversions (IRAQ, AFGANISTAN, KATRINA)....
Good thing the watchmen are keeping an eye out for us!