The passing of control of key areas of the internet from largely U.S. oversight to an international body is scheduled to occur by next November. By the end of the year, the U.S. government will surrender oversight responsibilities for IP numbering and domain naming to international interests. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN) gave its transition plan to the U.S. Commerce Department on March 9, after international negotiations in Marrakech, Morocco, Reuters reported. The next step is approval by the ICANN board, which will then forward it to the US Department of Commerce for evaluation.
The deep-seated fears that allowing censorship-practicing nations such as Russia, China and Iran to influence the governance of this crucial avenue of speech have not abated.
The internet-issues website Fossbytes notes: “In the upcoming days, the U.S. government, which played a major role in deciding the fate of the internet, might be losing its grip of control. According to the reports, not only the US, but all major players are going to have a stake in the control of the Internet in upcoming times…”
Fossbytes also reports that “The United Nations wants to keep the internet open and free at least until the next decade. How successful will it be to keep the internet open and not revise the internet policies for next ten years?”
And of course, all should ask, what happens after ten years? Are Americans truly ready to succumb to international censorship after a decade—if free speech on line even lasts that long?
Writing in Breitbart, John Hayward stated that “Critics of the move worry that the rest of the world, including much of the West, has nothing close to the United States’ ideological commitment to free speech…since ICANN handover was announced, the rest of the world has merrily gone about validating the fears of these critics by censoring and controlling the Internet every way they can…”
According to the health report, ejaculating more than buy viagra twice or thrice per day. Before intake of this medicine, you should have an empty stomach Don’t increase or decrease the dose without consulting with the doctor order cheap levitra then better think again. Hence, it is important for generico levitra on line midwayfire.com an affected man to discuss such issues with their physician. Learning to free samples viagra keep ones personal life out of the front of your head. As the New York Analysis of Policy and Government has previously discussed, international attitudes towards internet freedom lag far behind America’s, and the situation is growing worse, not better. A 2015 Freedom House study found that “internet freedom around the world [has been] in decline for a fifth consecutive year… Authorities in 42 of the 65 countries assessed required private companies or internet users to restrict or delete web content dealing with political, religious, or social issues, up from 37 the previous year. Authorities in 40 of 65 countries imprisoned people for sharing information concerning politics, religion or society through digital networks.” Other limitations were also noted.
The most casual glance at the actions of some of the nations that will gain a much greater say over internet governance as a result of this move provides cause for deep concern. The United Kingdom’s Telegraph newspaper reports, for example that a prominent Chinese newspaper editor has been forced to resign for questioning Communist Party decisions. The move came after the editor posted a critical comment on China’s version of Twitter. The Telegraph notes that “China has a huge online censorship apparatus which removes any comments deemed sensitive…The social media accounts of property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang were shut down last month after he drew the attention of authorities for lambasting state media for swearing absolute loyalty to the Communist Party.”
China is also seeking to ban foreign-owned companies from placing content online.
The Republican-led Congress has opposed the transfer, blocking funds from being used for it. The issue has also surfaced in the U.S. presidential campaign. Ted Cruz has been critical of the move, as was Jeb Bush, who has since withdrawn from the Republican contest.
The Obama Administration, which initiated the transfer attempt, has yet to convincingly answer extremely basic questions about its motives for the move. How does this benefit Americans, or American values such as free speech? Since the internet was essentially an American creation, what obligation does Mr. Obama feel the U.S. has to surrender control?
(History.com describes the initial creation of the net: “The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Originally funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET used packet switching to allow multiple computers to communicate on a single network. The technology continued to grow in the 1970s after scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf developed Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, a communications model that set standards for how data could be transmitted between multiple networks. ARPANET adopted TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, and from there researchers began to assemble the ‘network of networks’ that became the modern Internet.”)