UN Internet Regulation Treaty

by Bryan

6 comments

1 Steve Bates { 12.04.12 at 7:50 pm }

We should block the mofo, just as a point of principle, the principle being that we deserve an open process, beginning to end.

The US made a large portion of the Internet and made it available to the world more-or-less gratis: the US should not put up with a sharp stick in the eye on this one. We can block the mofo “by any means necessary,” if we have to, but the notion that the nation that created the Internet should be subject to an assortment of rules it never agreed to, or was inadequately informed of in advance, is abhorrent to me.

Fuck ’em if they don’t behave themselves. I’ve no patience with that crap.

2 Bryan { 12.04.12 at 10:41 pm }

The US representatives said today that all proposals concerning the Internet should be removed from the treaty. The public still doesn’t know what is actually being proposed, but the US has joined the EU in being unhappy with it.

Apparently this treaty is a replacement for everything the ITU does, and isn’t concerned solely with the Internet. The reporting hasn’t been clear on that, as I understand because people don’t have an official copy to find out what is going on.

Based on the speed of the response by the US I suspect that there is something in the treaty that the big carriers really don’t like, because Zero has never really reacted to campaigns from ordinary people.

3 Kryten42 { 12.06.12 at 5:15 am }

It seems that the only reason the USA and most other Nations outside of China, Russia & Saudi Arabia, is thanks to WikiLeaks. (Yes, I do so loooove the irony!! But I realise most will fail to see it of course). 😉

It’s claimed that the move is a ploy dreamed up by China and Russia to control most of the internet.

The world learned of these negotiations only because Jerry Brito and Eli Dourado, George Mason University researchers, set up a website called WCITLeaks and encouraged anyone with knowledge of the negotiations to make an anonymous posting detailing their progress. Someone responded on June 12 of this year posting a 250-page synopsis of the proposed treaty and the talks surrounding it.

Under the treaty:

· The U.N. would distribute and assign all e names

· Each country would be notified of the IP addresses of each email user within its borders (allowing China and Russia to track down dissidents)

· The UN could regulate Internet content

· Every nation would have the right to censor websites that originate within its borders

· And every country could charge a surcharge for access to any websites that originate beyond its borders.

Vinton Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet and currently vice president of Google, has correctly warned that the “open Internet has never been at higher risk than it is now.” He notes that “if all of us don’t pay attention to what’s going on, users worldwide will be at risk of losing the open and free Internet that has brought so much to so many.”

Meet Hamadoun Toure, the new wannabe boss of the Internet. Educated at the Leningrad Institute and at Moscow Technical University — both during the ’80s — he is now the head of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) of the United Nations. And he’s Vladimir Putin’s choice to run the Internet.

Currently the ITU is a little-known arm of the U.N. in charge of long-distance phone calls and satellite orbits. But the negotiations now under way would vest it with enormous powers over the Internet.

And yet, there is almost no coverage of this outrageous proposal and possible treaty in the media in the United States. The Wall Street Journal has warned that the proposed treaty could “use the International Telecommunications Regulations to take control of the Internet.”

here’s one of the reports here in Aus by itNews:
UN talks on Internet Regulation labelled “offensive”

US Congresswoman offers resolution: Hands off the internet!

US politicians have responded to moves from within the United Nations to form an inter-Government panel to regulate the internet, putting forward a resolution demanding the UN maintain a “hands-off approach”.

Responding to an exclusive iTnews report on the United Nations discussion (which overnight became the most read story in iTnews’ history), California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack has put forward a resolution that the United Nations and other international governmental organisations take their hands off the Internet.

Introducing House Resolution 1775 [see full text below], Mack argued that “the Internet has progressed and thrived precisely because it has not been subjected to the suffocating effect of a governmental organization’s heavy hand.

“The attempt of the United Nations to overtake something that is so central to our economy-like the Internet-is offensive and completely out of line,” she said.

“We have a hard enough time keeping the Federal Communications Commission’s hands off the Internet; imagine having to convince governments like Syria, Iran and Venezuela.”

Mack insisted that market-based policies and private sector leadership allowed the Internet the flexibility to evolve and continue to push the boundaries of innovation.

“I call on the President and his Administration to oppose any effort to transfer control of the Internet to the United Nations or any other international governmental entity.”

Mack – who is the incoming Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade within the United States House Energy and Commerce Committee – wasn’t a lone voice in opposing efforts to police the internet in the wake of WikiLeak’s ‘Cablegate’ fiasco.

BTW, the comments in that article are interesting. 😉 🙂

Anyway, the way I see it, as someone who has worked and had to deal with the bureaucrats and security services in Saudi Arabia, Sth. Africa, China and Russia; anything that group wants should automatically be something everyone else should reject. They can’t be trusted a nanometer (not that I trust many other Nations, including my own, much farther!)

I think this short article pretty much sums things up (in Haberler, EN translation):

UN’s WCIT Summit Opens, Discussing Internet Regulation

Much fun and games ahead! 😉 😀

4 Kryten42 { 12.06.12 at 5:21 am }

Oh… Have you seen this, from Forbes?

UN Agency’s Leaked Playbook: Panic, Chaos over Anti-Internet Treaty

Heh… yeah… Fun times ahead! 😉 😆

5 Kryten42 { 12.06.12 at 5:28 am }

I’m not sure if anyone has this, so I think it’s worth posting. It the WCITleaks website with a list of leaked documents, including proposals from various Nations. There is the original Russian proposal, and the quickly and recently revised version. 🙂

WCITleaks.ORG: Bringing transparency to the ITU

6 Bryan { 12.06.12 at 10:27 pm }

If there wasn’t a problem with contents of the treaty, and nothing major would change, all they had to do was publish an official copy of what they were discussing so Sir Tim and Vin Cerf wouldn’t get upset by what they have seen.

If everyone was going to get a pony, I think they would tell the world. The ‘nothing to see here, move along citizens’ that we are getting from the ITU just feeds the paranoia of some groups, and annoys the people who are really concerned with a decentralized, open Internet.

Having this take place right after Syria shut down its ‘Net access for several days just heightens the general discomfort.

At this point, other than Russia and China, you have to wonder who thought this was a good idea?