The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom

The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom

online.wsj.com

On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.

If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet's flourishing r

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Reading this article has makes me seriously concerned. It seems as if, when somthing becomes truly succesful outside of the state/government mandated area (i.e. the private sector), governments feel that they must impede inovation, rationality and logic, by putting their dirty big hand in the middle of the pie.

The reason behind the success of the internet, is governmental involvment in regulation and control, on a global scale, has been virtually non-existent. Governments may have had control on a regional level, such as China. However, this would in effect create a international regulatory and control framework, both impeding sovereignty and inovation.

Here is a list of the redicoulous possibilites which could occur if these changes were to be enacted.

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;

• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;

• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."

• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;

• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;

• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

We need to once again, as a global internet user community mobilize and do our best to strike this down.

online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

If this is allowed to happen, I think it really will be checkmate. Say goodbye to information for all, and say hello to the idiotbox 2.0....

They can try all they like . The internet is our last little area of free speech we have , and can communicate with the world .

Just keep pushing it , try and control the internet. All they are doing is asking for internet 2.0 which will be an underground internet and the masses will flock there.

The internet has been unleashed and we have tasted its freedom , you can never take that away , no matter how many filters and censorships tricks you try and apply.

The people will win the internet regardless of how many laws , treaties , programs are designed to try and stop it . I'm sure many philanthropists will step up and help purchase equipment needed for underground internet.

Let them try , all they are doing with these laws is pushing everyone to an underground version.

It won't happen .

The internet was a military project.

Why are people surprised that it is dangerous?

According to this article, this story is just that, a story.

Originally posted by seedofchucky


The people will win the internet regardless of how many laws , treaties , programs are designed to try and stop it .

The people don't make the internet work. Corporations do it in America. DNS servers, networking hardware, etc.

So sure, it will be free in the rest of the world where their governments allow it.

Yes, put your foil hat on.

Peace

Originally posted by TKDRL
If this is allowed to happen, I think it really will be checkmate. Say goodbye to information for all, and say hello to the idiotbox 2.0....

I feel they are already closing in. I was trying to google something of a political nature and only ONE site came up. I just couldn't believe it. Only one site. There should have been several sites carrying that famous quote from an interview of a famous politician.

It's like the sites we have access to are already being "cleaned."

Originally posted by seedofchucky
They can try all they like . The internet is our last little area of free speech we have , and can communicate with the world .

Just keep pushing it , try and control the internet. All they are doing is asking for internet 2.0 which will be an underground internet and the masses will flock there.

The internet has been unleashed and we have tasted its freedom , you can never take that away , no matter how many filters and censorships tricks you try and apply.

The people will win the internet regardless of how many laws , treaties , programs are designed to try and stop it . I'm sure many philanthropists will step up and help purchase equipment needed for underground internet.

Let them try , all they are doing with these laws is pushing everyone to an underground version.

It won't happen .

I hope you're right, but I'm afraid they really do have the power to monitor, to control and even to kill the internet.

Originally posted by zroth


The internet was a military project.

Why are people surprised that it is dangerous?

You're exactly right. It was called WWMCCS (worldwide military command & control system), as I recall.

This does not give me warm fuzzies.

Originally posted by ArMaP
According to this article, this story is just that, a story.

God, I hope so. But maybe there's a reason the conspiracy rumors are so persistent.

reply to post by zroth

The people don't make the internet work. Corporations do it in America. DNS servers, networking hardware, etc

all those things can be duplicated. Once full censorship , and loss of net neutrality occurs , I believ emany philanthropists will stand up and either legally or illegally , donate their money , to get the underground internet , or internet v.2.0 , or a whole new internet clouding system that works on everyones wifi , something will be done. Why? because people will pay when things get prohibited , where there is money , there is a business. Its just a matter of how much they wanna push. The blow black will suck , . war on piracy , will be like war on terror , war on drugs . Create the problem , spend forever chasing to fix it .

This comment has been approved by the UN security council under section 3.1. Please wait for UN moderators to reinstate your account.

Anything that we can fight on a Local level, in regards to our Country's SOPA. Will be echoed Internationally. If we somehow manage to beat the system and vote further SOPAs down, in America and Canada. We will be contending with International Laws After that. And I'm sure America "will suddenly cave" to International law when it suits them.

You can bet your ass that this has to do with imperialist notions towards cyberspace.

The Americans have been doing what they can to seize control and regulate the internet, so Russia and China took the logical step in securing an internet that works for their benefit, instead of one that is exclusively American.

Frankly, in my opinion, none of this would have happened if one certain nation would have kept its grubby paws off of something that didn't belong to them. This nation is the same nation that has established CYBERCOM, a "military" branch deployed for the sole purpose of conducting the internet to the tune of this country. It would be delusional to assume that this wouldn't incite competition to partition up the internet.

Quite frankly the UN solution sounds a lot better to me than having these nations go out on their own in some cyber war to seize control of the internet.

The UN have been trying to gain jurisdiction over the Internet for at least ten years. They've failed every time, and they will predictably fail this time. It isn't in anybody's best interests, and fortunately that includes the corporate world.

Putin can say what he likes; I don't care what he thinks. Russia has degenerated into a Mafia-infested ruin. I'm more interested in what happens in Somalia, these days. The Bear is fit to be stuffed and mounted on someone's wall, at this point.