Rep. Mary Bono Freaks Out Both About 'Gov't Takeover' AND 'Gov't Handover' Of The Internet

from the hypocrite-much? dept

Tue, Mar 18th 2014 10:27am — Mike Masnick

On Friday afternoon, we wrote about the basic non-story about how NTIA (a part of the Commerce Department) will be relinquishing what little "control" it had over ICANN's IANA function. The US government already had little to no actual say over anything that ICANN was doing. The organization has been almost entirely independent from the beginning, and this move really just helps to clarify things, while actually taking some pressure off of ICANN so that other countries can't whine and complain (incorrectly) that the internet is "under US control."

Still, with headlines everywhere screaming about how the US is "giving up control" over the internet, you had to know that it was going to become some sort of political issue. And, indeed, a bunch of politicians are up in arms about this, with the most vocal (by far) critic of this move being Rep. Mary Bono, who tweeted angrily on Friday about how we should all be concerned about this and how we need to "keep the internet!"

Of course, since some of us have memories that go back more than a month or so, it's not that difficult to remember Rep. Mary Bono was also one of the most vehement politicians against net neutrality. In fact, just three years ago, in launching an attack on net neutrality, this very same Rep. Mary Bono was screaming about stopping the "government takeover of the internet." Sadly, that tweet is now deleted (gee... wonder why?).

Still, we're curious about all of this, and are hoping that Rep. Bono can answer this basic question. If we needed to "stop the government takeover of the internet" a few years ago... and yet, today, it's an incredibly important job for the government to "keep the internet," what, exactly, is Rep. Bono's position on US government control over the internet? Or is it just whatever bogus talking point she can use to fire up constituents into believing the government is about to do something bad?

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Filed Under: government takeover, iana, internet, internet governance, mary bono, net neutrality, ntia
Companies: icann

20 Comments

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Oblate (profile), 18 Mar 2014 @ 10:43am

Indeterminate timeline
There's an indeterminate timeline for this transition. The actual transition may occur far enough in the future for Rep. Bono to change her mind on this several more times.
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 1:18pm
  
  Re: Indeterminate timeline
  I wonder what her flip-flops are made of?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 10:44am

Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
Rep Bono's policy is clearly opposing anything Obama supports.

Obama supported Net Neutrality, so Bono had to oppose it as a 'government takeover' of the Internet without paying attention to what Obama was actually saying or researching what net neutrality was.

Now Obama supports relinquishing what little role the US had over ICANN, so Rep Bono opposes it, because again, if Obama supports it then it must be bad! Nevermind that once again Rep Bono has no idea what Obama is actually doing, anything Obama does must be bad, simply because he's Obama!
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 10:52am
  
  Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
  And this is why gerrymandering has to go. Because the parties have become so extreme that they're fighting over what the other is fighting over them fighting over. It's a political war with no end because neither side will concede to the other even though they have no idea what they're fighting over.
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  - Mason Wheeler (profile), 18 Mar 2014 @ 11:01am
    
    Re: Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
    How will getting rid of gerrymandering change that?
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    - zip, 18 Mar 2014 @ 11:23am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
      Maybe A.C. erroneously thought that Mary Bono belongs to a racial minority and/or represents a purposefully-created racial-minority district -- neither of which would appear to be true.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 11:44am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
        Districts are gerrymandered on more then just race.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 11:50am
    
    Re: Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
    Unfortunately, no matter how you draw the districts, it always will harm someone based on pure geography. Democrats tend to live close together in big cities, and gerrymandering is all about throwing a ton of your opposition into as few districts as possible to dilute their vote.
    
    The only way to truly abolish gerrymandering is to elect congress like Parliaments are elected, you don't vote for a candidate, you vote for a political party. The # of votes each party gets nationwide determines how many seats they get, regardless of where those votes are from.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 1:25pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
      The problem with voting for a party is that the party decides who get into the government. It becomes impossible to vote a person out of offices if they are high on a party list. Also the representatives are beholden to a party, not the electorate, as the party determines their chance of getting elected by their position on the party list.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:26am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Rep Bono's policy = oppose anything Obama supports
        Try the German system: You use two votes, one for a party, one for a local candidate. Half of the nimnal strength of parliament is elected directly, the rest get's filled from lists until you reach the relative strength you should have according to party votes. If a party get's more directly elected candidates then it should have at all according to the relativ votes, those people are added in addition to the nominal strength of the parliament, so usually you end up with a few more seats in total.
        
        Like any other democratic system I often feel the German one leaves much to be desired, but this two-vote-logic is one of the things it gets right if you ask me. Best of both worlds.
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Ninja (profile), 18 Mar 2014 @ 11:20am

Bipolar disturb?
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Scott (profile), 18 Mar 2014 @ 1:22pm

Former???
Shouldn't it be "former" Rep. Bono? She lost the last election. She is no longer a member of Congress
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DV Henkel-Wallace (profile), 18 Mar 2014 @ 1:59pm

She is HOPING for the streisand effect
She is suffering from the politician�s nighmare: being forgotten. As long as her name is out there there�s a chance she could be re-elected. So any press is better than no press at all.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 2:53pm

Mary should go back and read some history about ICANN and the IANA. This isn't an issue that just popped up. The IANA is already fairly well out of the US control before this announcement and it was planned to be independent in the future.

If Mary really wants to drum up some support among her potential voters perhaps she should pick the right targets while hollering government take over. This is being pushed because of the Snowden releases showing that the US government can not be trusted. This is why the global internet community is up in arms over US control of the internet at this time.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2014 @ 10:26pm

Consider the source...
Mary Bono was the one who proposed that copyright should be "infinity minus one day"!
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:24am

I think this has more do with do to with enforcement of any future SOPA law, than with net neturality.

If the US gives up control of ICANN, if effectively neuters the ability to do things like seize domains and block content via DNS.

IIRC, she was one of the sponsors of SOPA.
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- anonymous coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:41am
  
  Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 19th, 2014 @ 3:24am
  This isn't correct. If USA gives up ICANN control, lawsuits can still be filed against ICANN in California. That's also where MPAA is HQed.
  
  California courts would rubberstamp injunctions no problem, same with 9th circus courts.
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Violated (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:18am

Abuse it and lose it has always been a good policy in life from little kids to large Governments.

So the NSA and DHS proves US Internet abuse should be taken away in favour of a multi-stakeholder model. Democracy and balance would go a long way to protect the Internet from Government overreach.

Just a shame this is only a small start when ICANN itself should not be under the control of the US Department of Commerce. ICANN wanted independence years ago but the US Government said "no".
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John Fenderson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 9:38am

Look at who's NOT freaking out about this
Pretty much everybody and every business that would be the most affected. Because they know that in practice this is not really a change at all.
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anonymous coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:34am

Mike, the internet is "under US control" insofar as ICANN is HQed in California. Operating a website outside of USA jurisdiction that MPAA or USA in general deems inappropriate? No biggie. ICE will just seize your domain.

You're right that this move is inconsequential, but I disagree with your dismissal of accusations that the internet is under US control.
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