Democratic and Republican government officials warned this morning that a United Nations summit in December will lead to a virtual takeover of the Internet if proposals from China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are adopted.
[…]
“These are terrible ideas,” Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. They could allow “governments to monitor and restrict content or impose economic costs upon international data flows,” added Ambassador Philip Verveer, a deputy assistant secretary of state.
[…]
Called the World Conference on International Telecommunications, or WCIT, the summit will review a set of telecommunications regulations established in 1988, when home computers used dial-up modems, the Internet was primarily a university network, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a mere 4 years old.
[…]
Unless the U.S. and its allies can block these proposals, they “just might break the Internet by subjecting it to an international regulatory regime designed for old-fashioned telephone service,” Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican said.
Unless we stop this, we just have to bend over and take it from other countries.
“Unless we stop this, we just have to bend over and take it from other countries.” /// Yeah, because you know if other countries manage their own affairs then the USA is being abused. HOGWASH.
Now, I personally am all for letting information be free but I recognize I’m not the only person in the world. Time for the USA to recognize that as well. Other countries have a “right” to abuse and control their own citizens, just as the USA does us. So–worst case scenario–the www becomes tiftusa (the internet for the USA).
This is where “religious non-thing” comes into play. “If” MY religion isn’t implemented everywhere, then I am being restricted. Just that simple. Just that stupid.
actually, you know who really should be up in arms about this? places like amazon, ebay, saas providers, and other multi-nationals. reason why? they’ll have to go through loads and loads of extra red tape just to make otherwise legal sales. and weaving through all the extra hoops to even talk to their remote offices, talk about a total PITA. and if you were say a bank in switzerland, the caymans, luxemborg, or other tax-haven countries, i’d also be wary because want to know the first thing the common people would do if they had their way? no more secret transactions to secret bank accounts to these countries. you could no longer hide money if you wanted to, and the banks that would do or allow these transfers, their business would go down the drain instantly if that happened.
Good point Bear.
Rules/effects of unintended consequences/pro’s and con’s to all we do – – – what do we really want?
What if the world really did slow down just a bit? No holding and selling arbitraged international stocks in nano seconds. Would the criminal rich then take entire seconds or minutes to siphon our wealth away? Who knows? Who decides. Why?
Chris Hayes this morning had a good first segment: USA is bad at economics, bad at diplomacy. Our fall back position is turning every issue into a Military one because our military is “so good.” Who thinks that? Wasteful and bloated is “so good?”
Ha, ha. Silly Hoomans.
So in the meantime us in the rest of the work have to bend over and take it from the USA?
OMG no! Well, one good thing is that I have my underground alien friends to stay with once this happens. They have alien internet which is way better not to mention cooler.
FLMBO!
It’s important to support the UN.
@steveA (and somewhat toward @bobbo comment) “So in the meantime us in the rest of the work have to bend over and take it from the USA?” – article and comments fail to see the most abusive part: TAXATION for the UN. Part of the deal (and a way to make local controls “legal”) is “pay per click” for “foreign” sites. So, for every Chinese citizen who clicks on Google link… UN gets X amount of money from taxing Google… Google refuses… no Google in China (or other country of your choice). So, it’s a racket – pay UN to present your own content to the rest of the world… As for steveA: who pays tax to US to use Internet right now? @bobbo – yes, other countries can control their citizens as they wish even right now -but UN can’t help that process with a taxation profit along. Or does the UN provide the backbone service of the Internet or something like that?
Hey dusanmal–fair points. I do support the “good” that the UN does, and I do think much of what the UN gets blamed for is because it covers for and is used as a punching bag by strong member nations who always advance their own interests over that of the rest of the world – BUT – like any other living putrid thing, the UN wants to grow and take over the world. Carbon tax, voting tax, water tax, heritage dna = whatever you got, so the internet going into or passing thru their cesspool third world countries is just another item on the list.
I do love “unintended consequences” and the analysis thereof. Subtle. Sublime.
Raise your hand: who here thought the internet would stay the same forever just as it emerged from USA University pure science research groups?
Anyone?
Ha, ha.
@dusanmal I was not commenting on the news article, just what Uncle Dave implies in his final sentence.
Of course the world’s shit holes want control of everything that represents freedom. It isn’t going to happen without a long fierce fight. The internet has become ownership of everyone who believes in freedom of speech, and freedom of information. If The UN tracks IP’s then IP’s will evolve. The UN is a joke anyway. Even Russia is run by a POS government that makes the US look like a “Shangri La”.
Be thankful for what we have left, and protect it.
I’ll give that a bobbo: Yea, verily.
When the USA has a bunch of dumb-ass lawyers running things and thinking that the Internet is all theirs to control, I say it’s about time someone outside America helps them realize what a mistake they keep making when even talking about totally bad ideas like SOPA/PIPA. These same power-drunk lawyers we call Congressmen, just won’t let the SOPA/PIPA crap die. So the sooner the rest of the world makes the USA gives up it’s total power over the Internet then I say, the better. I just hope this power shift is equally spread among other freedom loving countries and no longer concentrated in places like California. Clearly, the USA is slowly moving away from being a freedom loving country when states like California allow a total communists like Nanci Pelosi to be elected to Congress.
Just how America wound up with near total control over the Internet is still a bit bewildering particularly when you consider that Geneva Switzerland is the birth place of the World Wide Web. If it weren’t for the WWW and things like HTML the Internet might be a very different place.
If it weren’t for the WWW and things like HTML the Internet might be a very different place.
It was. WWW is not the Internet. Its an App. The Internet belongs to the US. Folks that don’t want to be on the US Internet can start their own.
WWW is not the Internet. Its an App. /// Well said. Wish I understood the fully impact of that. Then we could go on to what a browser actually browses?
The WWW can bee seen sort of as a subnet on the Internet. Sort of like a telephone country code when dialing someone internationally. Here’s a cut and paste of what Wikipedia says about it:
The World Wide Web began as a CERN project called ENQUIRE, initiated by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and Robert Cailliau in 1990.
The thing about the WWW is that it used what is now a widely adopted “standard” of LANGUAGES! HTML quite literally stands for HYPER-TEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE!
Here again is another good Wiki definition of what Hyper Text is:
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the underlying concept defining the structure of the World Wide Web. It is an easy-to-use and flexible format to share information over the Internet.
So to call it an “APP” is hillarious!
If you knew ANYTHING about which you talk about you might be scary. But as it is, you’re just a blogging JOKE!
It is an easy-to-use and flexible format to share information over the Internet.
I found it amusing to call the web an App. Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
When someone is cowering in a basement quailing and waiting for the other show to drop, because nation states they can take actions on each and others territories (hmmm…. like the US in Pakistan?) is when I’ll be concerned.
The US as a country of individuals is merely a passing phase.
Yeah, the future is uncertain except that everybody you know and love now will be dead… (Don’t I sound cheerful.I
And i>that is why corporations aren’t people*.
People die and kill each other because they lose perspective, if they ever had any.
*) No judge ever got indicted for murder for dissolving a corporation.**
**) I think that this would make for a fascinating trial. I hope it actually happens in my lifetime.
I changed my mind. A US Senator from Tennessee and future Vice President and Nobel Prize winner named Al Gore invented the internet and thus it should remain American.
Agreed
I’m sure Obama and Co wholeheartedly support the UN proposal.
Is the internet going to be ruined by the UN an it’s member states? Just a matter of time.
The US may even be leading the way.
this is just american corporate worryisam that they wont be able to make the americans consumers bend over and take it. has nothing to do with anything else…
“Unless we stop this, we just have to bend over and take it from other countries.”
Words to live by. If you’re xenophobic!
This kind of thinking is EXACTLY what’s wrong in the world. Because once you think you and your country have all the right answers, only then can the downward spiral begin.
Leave it to these commie/fascist/conservative regime infested countries to fuck things up for obvious reasons.
Wanting to turn the internet into a regulated, censored environment for their respective sheeple to hear and see what they want.
The civilized world should just cut the proverbial wire with these shitheads and keep the open internet with some sort of gateway into their walled garden of commie, fascist or religious bullshit.
Liberals support the UN takeover in so many other areas, whether it’s the International Criminal Court, Law of the Sea Treaty, Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. Suddenly the Internet domains are where you draw the line?
Yes
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned the security council. Basically, THIS CAN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT US SUPPORT. All this noise is either politicians trying to distance themselves from stuff like SOPA/PIPA and/or so they can pin the blame on other countries when this happens.
Anonymous says:
6/2/2012 at 9:28 pm
Apparently, you don’t know what a FASCIST is! Obama and many democrats are following many (if not, all) of the fascist doctrines that Hitler and others like him have laid out.
But people are STUPID! (You are a great example of that!) So the struggle against totalitarian fascist regimes has to be put into “sound bytes” that complete MORONS can mentally digest. That way we can all avoid it. Therefore, people with BRAINS call it COMMUNISM since that too isn’t much different.
It’s something the pin-heads might understand since they might otherwise mistake a fascist for someone who is really into modeling clothes.
///////////////// Well, I was meaning to say “corporatist” rather than capitalist but in today’s America, how different are the two?
Fascist/Corporate Welfare/American Capitalist = how different are these terms really?
Say Anon–I like your animism, but don’t you have to focus on what is actually being said rather than go down some side street shunted by whatever out of context quibble you want to make?
Use that intellect of yours for something other than a door stop. In America, calling someone a Fascist only means you don’t like them. Thats how precisely we use any term of political art.
Talking out your ass again?
Here’s an idea! Try looking the word up on your precious Internet “app.” (I’m still laughing over that one. It’s hilarious to know that some liberal blow hard dyslexic sociopath who constantly misspells his own name actually thinks the Internet is an app. Good one, BOOB!)
You might also like to wipe the sperm off your keyboard if you “meant” to say something but didn’t. That backslash does seem to get stuck a lot.
Your apparent allegiance to the fascist doctrine and the Nazi party I find rather revolting. So maybe now would be a good time to educate yourself about what a fascist is? Hint: it’s NOT a polite way to say you don’t like someone’s political views. And it’s definitely not a title that a fashion expert like Mr. Blackwell would deserve either – even though he too is a bit of a dick.
But we are ALREADY TAKING IT FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE US OF A !!! The FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, ETC all can already turn on your cameras and mics, and they READ ALL YOUR EMAILS AND “SOCIAL MEDIA” POSTS, SO WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE ? And of course, all your PRIVATE “SERVICE PROVIDERS” ARE ***SELLING YOUR DATA TO THE HIGHEST BIDDERS*** !!!
Everybody should support the U.N. This is The Single Most Idiotic Statement EVER, unless it was meant as Sarcasm.
The U.N. IS THE SINGLE MOST USELESS POS POLITICAL ENTITY EVER ALLOWED TO EXIST!!!!
The U.N. Hates America, Votes against America and Sucks up to Every America Hating POS Nation out there, and Bends Over and Grabs its Ankles for Every America Hating Government or Terrorist Group in the World, like osama’s Great Friends The Muslim Brotherhood, emphasis on the Hood. Who now control the Egyptian Government and are moving to Deny America access to Oil from their part of the world, THANK YOU OSAMA.
You know who I’m talking about when I say osama, and Meant with ALL THE DISRESPECT THAT THIS IMPLY’S TO THAT MUSLIM FASCIST IN OUR WHITE HOUSE!!!
The U.S. Should TURN AGAINST THE U.N. WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE, AND THEY SHOULD NEVER RECEIVE ONE THIN DIME OF TAXPAYER’S MONEY EVER AGAIN. HAVE A NICE DAY.