In an exclusive interview with the New York Analysis of Policy & Government’s Vernuccio/Novak Report radio program on August 26, Brian C. Anderson, author of the study “Against the Obamanet” called for the abolition of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and strong opposition to the variety of current proposals to regulate the internet or to surrender control of it to a United Nations organization heavily influenced by nations seeking to provide government censorship of it.
Opposition to the FCC’s moves under the Obama Administration to control the internet can be based on First Amendment grounds. Opposing providing greater authority to international bodies should be based on a study of the mindset of several powerful nations whose attitude towards free speech—especially on the internet—is diametrically opposed to America’s.
The Sratfor research organization has forecast that Russia and China will maintain a unified front to challenge the West’s conception of the Internet, and that Moscow and Beijing will be able to extend government control on their respective domestic Internet realms.
According to Stratfor, “A Russian law regarding data localization of Internet communications goes into effect Sept. 1 with the stated intent of safeguarding Russian citizens from the growing threat of foreign interference, particularly from the United States, in cyberspace. The law effectively requires companies obtaining information online from Russian citizens to store that data on servers physically located in the country. Initially, companies like Google, Facebook or Twitter would be required to move or build data centers in Russia if they wish to conduct business online there, otherwise Russian Internet users presumably would be blocked from accessing the company’s content.
“Foreign technology industries and civic activists have opposed the law, which Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in July 2014, but it addresses Russia’s network security concerns in several ways. The law gives Russia another tool for controlling the flow of information within its borders to tamp down on dissidence. Moreover, the Kremlin wants to closely monitor the flow of information into and out of Russia through the Internet to protect its Internet space from foreign actors, whether state or non-state.”
Moreover, a definite easy fast or simply controlled eating regimen on top of a periodic juicy acai will often aid when you order cialis check need to detoxify most of the physique created by intoxicating tendencies. It must be online prescription viagra without stored away from attain regarding youngsters. Spam is categorized by these filters using a mathematical function called cheap viagra 100mg probability. Online stores offer medicines for issues online cialis soft like men’s health women’s health, skin care problems etc. This is not a new development. In 2012, The Computer & Communications Industry Association noted that “Undemocratic governments like China, Russia, and Iran seek greater control over the Internet, and are pursuing this objective in intergovernmental agencies worldwide, especially those headquartered in Geneva. Governments, industry, and NGOs worldwide must unite to oppose government-led Internet governance. CCIA opposes more government control of the Internet, and supports existing multi-stakeholder models… Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and others are promoting a ‘cyber-arms control’ treaty as a guise to create international legal ‘cover’ for classifying dis-favorable information as a military threat, and responding accordingly. Many of the same states are urging the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) – which traditionally develops essential standards for cross-border telecommunications – to indirectly expand its remit into Internet governance, using alarmist, hot-button issues like cybercrime and Internet porn…”
The Wall Street Journal reported in August that several years ago “As social media helped topple regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa, a senior colonel in [China’s] People’s Liberation Army publicly warned that an Internet dominated by the U.S. threatened to overthrow China’s Communist Party. Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings… Four years after… China is paying a lot of attention. Its government is pushing to rewrite the rules of the global Internet, aiming to draw the world’s largest group of Internet users away from an interconnected global commons and to increasingly run parts of the Internet on China’s terms. It envisions a future in which governments patrol online discourse like border-control agents, rather than let the U.S., long the world’s digital leader, dictate the rules. President Xi Jinping…is moving to exert influence over virtually every part of the digital world in China… In doing so, Mr. Xi is trying to fracture the international system that makes the Internet basically the same everywhere, and is pressuring foreign companies to help.
“On July 1, China’s legislature passed a new security law asserting the nation’s sovereignty extends into cyberspace and calling for network technology to be “controllable.” A week later, China released a draft law to tighten controls over the domestic Internet, including codifying the power to cut access during public-security emergencies.Other draft laws under consideration would encourage Chinese companies to find local replacements for technology equipment purchased abroad and force foreign vendors to give local authorities encryption keys that would let them control the equipment.
China Digital Times notes that this year, China has become ever more assertive in asserting its alleged “right” to control the internet within its’ borders. “Since the start of 2015, authorities have pushed even harder to realize this vision at every level from international norms and Internet traffic down to software and the hardware it runs on. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Alex Grigsby noted the submission to the U.N. earlier this month of a proposed International Code of Conduct on Information Security by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The document is an updated version of one previously submitted in 2011. Overall, the new text seems to simply update the 2011 code to take into account developments that have occurred since then. The new code references the 2012-2013 report of the group of governmental experts (GGE) on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security and the UN Human Rights Council’s Internet freedom resolution. Not surprisingly, Moscow and Beijing have altered or selectively quoted the text to promote their longstanding positions on cyber issues, such as the need for new international law for cyberspace and the concept of ‘cyber sovereignty.’ For example, the code references a line in paragraph sixteen of the GGE report that says that ‘additional norms could be developed over time’ without mentioning the same GGE report stresses that ‘international law, and in particular the Charter, is applicable and essential’ to promoting peace and security in cyberspace. The same thing happens in article seven of the code, which begins by referring to the Human Rights Council’s affirmation that ‘the same rights people have offline must also be protected online,’ but then concludes on how those rights may be restricted to protect national security, public order, health or morals.”
Clearly, there is a disturbing trend towards censorship emanating from several of the key powers involved in international bodies that the White House is moving towards giving greater internet authority to.