No Surprise Here: Congress Passes Unanimous Resolution Telling The ITU: Hands Off The Internet
from the but-of-course dept
One thing that's been somewhat universal in the US is pretty much everyone's opposition to the whole ITU WCIT charade going on in Dubai right now. It doesn't matter what political party they belong to or what general views on technology or the internet they hold, pretty much everyone recognizes, even if there are faults with the system today, giving the ITU more control will inevitably make things worse. So it should come as little surprise that Congress has passed another resolution (they did an earlier one in August that more or less said the same thing) unanimously (397-0) telling the ITU to not even think about trying to take over any aspect of internet governance. This resolution first was approved in the Senate and this is just the House concurring.Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, should continue working to implement the position of the United States on Internet governance that clearly articulates the consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet today.Of course, such a resolution is technically meaningless. It's mostly just a bit of warning, that if the ITU does actually lead to significant changes in internet governance, the US is unlikely to go along with them. In an age where it's rare to see bipartisan support of anything, it's nice to see pretty much everyone recognize the ITU process is dangerous and undesirable.
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Filed Under: congress, internet governance, itu, wcit
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ITU Immaterial?
I figure the only way the ITU could override US control without cooperation is to build their own separate internet.
That would take decades, and have very low adoption.
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Re: ITU Immaterial?
Although the UK is most definitely not perfect with it's track record it is hardly as bad as the US or some other countries like Germany and a few others.
Just look at how the government was forced to back down from the extradition laws when they were in the limelight.
If the mega mess had been started by a UK organisation we would already have had hearings , even before the case was finalised as to how a private business could determine and control the countries investigative forces like they owned them and heads would have been rolling.The case would have been finished and all of those involved would have to give very good reasons for there illegal actions. If anything the UK at least tries to be open and clear.
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Re: Re: ITU Immaterial?
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I mean, I hate the ITU's scheming but it's a pretty obvious argument that will likely be pushed forward.
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Don't kid yourselves
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Re: Don't kid yourselves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuET0kpHoyM
This went viral 5 days ago, pasr 500thousand views, as a tech site, i would of thought that this would be relavant news......why have i not seen this on techdirt
I wouldnt trust any government, who tells me they need to fix something that aint broke......not without many, many, many discussions with the public on all levels.....consent of the public....and full access for public body to make sure that governing bodies are not oversteping their bounds, i dont know, say like mass storage of all communication for purposes of invading privacy
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Re: Re: Don't kid yourselves
Because Techdirt is a wretched hive of scum and villainy?
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Re: Re: Re: Don't kid yourselves
So as a semi political techsite, with many members here, with whose discussions/post ive enjoyed over the years, and would love to get a take on how these site members feel about secret government surveilance.......yeah, i am amazed that what i feel is purtanant to what this site is, why has this story not been posted
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Don't kid yourselves
"Checks and balances"
Sorry for terrible grammer/spelling
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Re: Re: Don't kid yourselves
Because this is very old news and was covered back when it was new news?
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US govt. wants to keep control
All this "freedom of ..." discussion have nothing to do here, given recent domain seizures.
On the other hands, if ITU manages phone country codes, I see no reason why it can't manage DNS database either. At least US DOJ won't "seize" domains over stupid copyright claims.
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Re: US govt. wants to keep control
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Re: Re: US govt. wants to keep control
Explain, how exactly the fact that US DOJ can hijack .com domains is a good thing?
Saudi Arabia/Iran/China/whoever want to sensor their net - let them.
If you're afraid that they will block youtube.com - there's obvious solution for that. How about Google register youtube.co.us instead?
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Re: Re: Re: US govt. wants to keep control
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Re: Re: Re: Re: US govt. wants to keep control
If you're about to promote some dystopian anarchist-like government, my answer to you "go f..g away, nutjob".
On the other hand, "belong to everyone" usually mean "controlled by local government", since it's government's job to speak for everyone, no matter what kind of government we're talking about.
So, since UN mission (at least in theory) is to promote inter-government cooperation, I see no big deal here. Politics as usual, US being a bully and so on.
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As Masnick has said, the internet isn't broken so there's no need to fix it. Leave it alone.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: US govt. wants to keep control
The big deal is in two parts. The first part is that there is no need for "inter-governmental cooperation" here at all. What is the problem being solved? This is governments stepping in without any reason to do so.
The second part is that what is being discussed has very serious implications on internet freedom. Standardizing and endorsing spying and so forth.
No good can come of this (since there is no problem to be solved) and a lot of bad could result. That's the big deal.
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So this is a double-edged sword. While the ITU proposals may be bad, the bright side is that it would be all but impossible to the USA to seize domains.
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Would rather work to change the system to stop them making laws and regulations that forces us to oppose it, beccause like it or not, they will wise up, and only put the most subtle of phrases on a "good" bill, after many intentional bad bills, if you pay attention, THIS is what politics means to most of them, you have to look long and hard for those who learn from history for the benifit of the people they share this world with
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ITU The reason it exists
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union
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Re: ITU The reason it exists
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What is the UN going to do, try to pass a toothless resolution against the US? Ha! UN resolutions are a joke, and only the US and EU can do anything to enforce them. The US and EU are already opposed to this, and the US, France and UK have veto power anyway. What a waste of time this is, even for the waste of time UN.
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The us and un has as much authority as we deem to give them, so its the will of the people essentially, or at least thats how its suppose to be
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Control is all
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