Surrendering the Internet?

Puff_Dougie

ejgorman

While I haven't heard about this yet, it doesn't surprise me. There have been many attempts (some successful) to relinquish oversight of certain aspects of our life to international bodies. I suspect dark net would become more popular if oversight becomes overbearing and bitcoin is already in place for transactions on dark net. Americans tend to lean towards civil disobedience and we tend to find ways to circumvent government oversight.

PAtoNH

0patience

Puff_Dougie

perkinke

To me this sounds like more of the "Obama's gonna take your guns!" paranoia than a real issue. But even if so, so what? TONS of our actions are governed by international treaties and no one notices. From the way our telephones interact and are numbered including cell phone frequencies, to water rights on some of our major rivers even down to goose hunting on the west coast. We are already one of the most heavily censored nations on the planet (MPAA, FCC, public indecency laws, and if you don't think that's true buy a true international package and watch some European TV) so I really don't think anything will change for us, in fact it is likely to open up a lot more if it gets out from under American Puritanism. Besides, it's more than a bit hypocritical to say that we get to make those decisions for everyone else, but no one gets input into our decisions. Not that that's anything new, it's the dark side to American exceptionalism. Another thing to think about, how successful has the international community been in regulating important things like, oh, say genocide?

0patience

SleevePlz

So we want our government to control the internet? We want Obozo interfering with our online lives, spying on us, controlling what we can and can not see? Seriously though, I'm shocked that people want the government in control of this stuff rather than an NGO. I thought every thread in the NCR was in favor of less government. Now I'm confused. Lol.

SleevePlz

0patience:

the probability is there.

Based on the TV example, the probability is already there with our government in control of it as well.

Puff_Dougie

I get what you're saying, Kevin... and I'm not a gung-ho 'Merica-first-and-only guy, but it seems to me that it matters who holds the authority to regulate (or purposely NOT regulate) a platform for speech as powerful as the internet. Maybe this transition won't have much of an immediate effect, but does it set the stage for some oppressive regime in the future to wrest control and institute censorship for political or religious reasons? While I would readily acknowledge that the U.S. has its share of problems, our Constitution and Bill of Rights provide a foundation for freedom and liberty that is not found in places like China or Russia. And since it was primarily American research and development, as well as financial resources, that gave the internet to the world community, it seems only right that we maintain control of the infrastructure. I don't think that qualifies as hypocrisy. It's not like the internet just popped out of thin air and America claimed it. It was conceived, developed and perfected here.

0patience

Puff_Dougie

SleevePlz

Puff_Dougie:

If they were talking about moving control of the internet away from the government into the private sector, I would be in favor.

Isn't that exactly what is happening? ICANN is a private organization, right? Shouldn't they have had control from the get go? It seems to me that the internet as a whole should never have been in our government's control. Maybe I'm missing something.

perkinke

Puff_Dougie:

I get what you're saying, Kevin... and I'm not a gung-ho 'Merica-first-and-only guy, but it seems to me that it matters who holds the authority to regulate (or purposely NOT regulate) a platform for speech as powerful as the internet. Maybe this transition won't have much of an immediate effect, but does it set the stage for some oppressive regime in the future to wrest control and institute censorship for political or religious reasons? While I would readily acknowledge that the U.S. has its share of problems, our Constitution and Bill of Rights provide a foundation for freedom and liberty that is not found in places like China or Russia. And since it was primarily American research and development, as well as financial resources, that gave the internet to the world community, it seems only right that we maintain control of the infrastructure. I don't think that qualifies as hypocrisy. It's not like the internet just popped out of thin air and America claimed it. It was conceived, developed and perfected here.

The same argument could be made of air travel, yet that is intensely governed by international treaty and we restrict the rights of our citizens to travel as much and likely more than any other western nation. Ever heard of a Canadian "no-fly" list? The fear that this could be used for economic sanctions is probably well founded and deserved, considering we are trying to sanction Russia for doing virtually the same thing we did in Iraq, and we didn't even bother with the pretense of rigging an election. Might be good for us to be more accountable to the international community.

jd50ae

Puff_Dougie

SleevePlz:

Puff_Dougie:

If they were talking about moving control of the internet away from the government into the private sector, I would be in favor.

Isn't that exactly what is happening? ICANN is a private organization, right? Shouldn't they have had control from the get go? It seems to me that the internet as a whole should never have been in our government's control. Maybe I'm missing something.

Like I said, I'm not a tech-savvy guy. But as I understand it, ICANN is a non-profit organization but is heavily controlled and influenced by the U.S. Commerce Department (which used to oversee the internet). ICANN is under contract with the Commerce Department and the contract will expire in 2015. So, currently these internet operations are overseen by a private entity (ICANN) under contract with the U.S. government. The plan is to broaden the influence and oversight of ICANN's functions by including other governments from the global community. That's not moving to private-sector oversight, but rather multi-national government oversight.

SleevePlz

jd50ae

blutattoo

At the risk of sounding contrarian, wouldn't the US be just as restrictive as an international committee if not more? I mean we have huge corporations with extremely powerful lobbies who want to restrict what we see right now. For years every broadband ISP throttled internet access to specific sites. Call it corporate censorship, and the government did nothing. It wasn't until the net neutrality movement gained a foothold that companies had a light shined on their unscrupulous practices and they took a voluntary approach to it even if they don't follow it fully. In the EU at least some countries have regulations forcing net neutrality, in the US we have none. In the end it's not likely to matter my guess is the status quo will stay the same if the big money from ISPs wants it to stay that way.

jd50ae

Amos Umwhat

webmost

Here's what happened to net neutrality.

jd50ae