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 regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.
So, Russia and China are now countries other countries want to emulate instead of us?
The international council of third world tyrants and despots want to be in charge of world information policy and communications?
Sounds like a plan, nothing could possibly go wrong.
You’re absolutely right! Nothing could go wrong since those nations are also models for freedom and democracy. And it’s not like the U.N. has never made a mistake either. Right?
>:-D
(If you believe that one then I also have some “Florida vacation property” for sale. Interested?)
That is what you get when you practice international politics of “we are all the same let’s join hands and sing”. Translated for dictators that reads “we are weak and meek, come and take what you want”. Same process that led to instability in the Middle East and skyrocketing oil prices. Making it worse, it is exactly what Progressives in power here and now want anyway – more control, happier they are. UN is just a good excuse. So, only way out is to fire present administration and get someone with backbone, daring and not afraid to think from the viewpoint of “US is the most important and best, all others are BS”. That would immediately make such contender a non-Progressive too.
I suppose youd like to nuke everyone from orbit, its the only way to be sure?
A Republican once said that you should “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Being a bully is not a show of strength. Not to mention its expensive.
Thank God for morans.
If this happens, it will be my sworn duty to subvert any attacks against the freedom to receive or send information.
I am a member of the Global Information Freedom Fighters (GIFF). Join us now and fight the tyranny.
And you just put a target on your own back. You need to be more astute and busy working on creating an organization at this stage because you are going to need an organization not all of whose members can be readily identified.
Too many in Congress and the WH admire what China has done and are using it as a role modal. Others are on the take from the entertainment industry including Rupert Murdoch.
Middle eastern dictators and fans of Sharia law and “intellectual property rights owners” are getting together to stop free speech, the free exchange of ideas, and turn the world including the internet into their private, tightly controlled prison and don’t ever think for a minute they can’t and won’t do it given the opportunity.
Uncle Dave you might need to contact this guy because you have shot your mouth off in public and said things that require you be terminated under Sharia law. The Iranians are about to hang a man for becoming a Christian because his parents were Muslims though less formal murders of Christians are also pretty common at the present. If Obama says he is a Christian he is subject to the same form of execution for the same reason. His father was a Muslim and by Islamic law so is he or his life is forfeit.
You may have heard about the guy that was extradited to Saudi for disrespecting the Mohammad. I’m not real sure but some of you statements might actually be enough to allow you to be extradited under some of these new international agreements the WH has signed off on.
What does this have to do with Uncle Dave? Uncle Dave has blasphemed against Allah and Mohammad by saying there is no God. That is a death sentence and about 80% Egyptians would agree. The rest are Coptic.
By the way it is my opinion that at least one murder I know about was carried out by an Iranian death squad in Texas. This was before similar efforts to kill Israeli diplomats using similar tactics. Someone drove up beside the woman as she was driving and shot her dead. DHS hasn’t said jack about the case.
We are in far more danger from christians who want their own version of sharia law imposed because the US is a “christian nation.” They are already in positions of power.
Muslims cant even open a damn church without threat, how will they sneak this massive takeover?
You’re either a fool or a bigot. I’m not sure which is worse.
Is Putin going to bang his shoe on the table??
Seriously, this is not good. Free speech is barely recognized here in the USA these days. Much less Russia and certainly not China. Of course, if China wanted to control international telecommunications, all they would have to do is stop manufacturing the hardware!
I, for one WELCOME our United Nations Overlor……no wait, this fucking SUCKS!
Yep….not surprise.
Isn’t that Google’s job, or at least what it wants to do.
Yeah, the Internet could benefit from a cooperative international effort that makes cyber attacks punishable by death.
But with the U.N. in charge, it will probably end up as a corrupt, world-wide kloosterfusen.
…that should be “kloosterfuken”.
They can have the internet, if they take the US Congress with them.
Too late to put the genie back in the bottle. You can’t centralize what is an inherently decentralized system.
Designed, built, run and protected by liberals !
You know I read something similar a few years back by a bunch of guys who were all over the news groups and those guys have totally vanished off my radar now. I haven’t personally seen anything relating to them in years other than an occasional news story that somebody got busted.
Adam seems to think that such people are power players in many places but if so they are seriously trying to fly under the radar these days rather than airing their behavior in public as they once did.
Well, two things will happen.
1. Anonymous will rip them a new asshole.
2. Nigeria will become the wealthiest nation due to Internet scammers.
3. Porn will be Ethiopian lesbian chicks with bloated bellies and flies crawling in their noses.
Yeah, yeah, I know – I can’t count. The sisters and I just opened a case of sacramental wine and we’re pretty shit faced.
Amen
There are three kinds of people. Those that can count. And, those that cannot.
All your internets are belong to us.
I’m pretty sure the US government is worse than those two are at this point. The concern that I have is will the UN bend to the whims of our entertainment industry. I’m willing to bet all the domain seizures that have been happening are prompting the other nations to take away control.
It’s all about billing calls and how to charge.
Censorship/bothering other people/hating freedom/confronting the status quo===lots of reasons a free and open internet will not survive.
Some are afraid of political speech, others for anti-religious speech, others for interference in business monopolies.
Hard to believe the internet is as free as it is today–and YES==definitely “under attack” even here in the wonderful US of A.
The UN. Fun to contemplate. When, where, how to encourage liberalization of disagreeable nations short of going to war. With such long range interest, we get Zimbabaway and Libya rotated into taking the lead on Human Rights? A democratic majority vote would march the Jews right into the ovens as well. Over/Under bet on how long until some “Respect for Something or Other” regulation is instituted turning the internet into another lame stream media megaphone for those in charge: I’ll say 3 years.
I’m no tech expert but isn’t the notion that the internet is too decentralized just a load of hogwash? With IP tracking, it really just becomes the very best Big Brother Has His Eyes On You Completely Integrated in your Life and Invasive Intelligence Monitoring/Enforcing Tool the world has ever known. That and back doors built into every cpu should bring us all a Brave New World?
Hoomans. What ya gonna do?
Dallas says:”You can’t centralize what is an inherently decentralized system.”
Of course, you can. And this proposal has the way to do it: taxation. Every click that leads to an international server (arguably MOST of them) your ISP is required to add a charge to your bill. That charge will start out so small no one could seriously complain but the modest UN bureaucracy is likely to grow so big – and powerful – that those charges will soon become much larger and much more onerous.
Then watch for all internet comms to be passed through centralized UN server farms.
I’m betting O’Bama will favor the proposal. I’m glad I’m getting old. I may not live to see the total fascistization of the world.
I’m not convinced. Technically easier to plan than to implement.
By the time fascist conservatives (Putin and Mao Tse Tung whatever) even figure how to control it, the internet is a Swiss Cheese backdoors. Never mind peer to peer, mobile networks and what the internet becomes in a 5 years.
Putin, Cheney, Vatican and Mao Tse Tung will never put the genie back in the bottle
So Cheney did finally get into the super-villains club after all.
So does that mean the US was fighting evil with evil?
I hope you’re right, Dallas.
Not gonna happen. Zero chance.