ITU Boss Explains Why He Wants The UN To Start Regulating The Internet

from the not-good dept

We've written a few times about why we should be worried about the ITU (a part of the UN) and its attempts to regulate the internet, to which some have responded by arguing that the ITU/UN doesn't really want to regulate the internet. However, the Secretary-General of the ITU, Hamadoun Toure has now taken to the pages of Wired, to explicitly state why he believes the UN needs to regulate the internet. And it appears that many of the initial fears are 100% accurate. We've already covered how the ITU seems to be hiding all sorts of awful scary things by claiming they all fall under the "cybersecurity" banner, and we've noted that the ITU's mandate over cybersecurity is imaginary and its history with the subject is sketchy, at best. However, in the op-ed, Toure doubles down on why the UN should be there helping countries censor things like "porn and propaganda" on the internet as a part of its "cybersecurity" efforts

Governments are looking for more effective frameworks to combat fraud and other crimes. Some commentators have suggested such frameworks could also legitimize censorship. However, Member States already have the right, as stated in Article 34 of the Constitution of ITU, to block any private telecommunications that appear "dangerous to the security of the State or contrary to its laws, to public order or to decency." The treaty regulations cannot override the Constitution.

Many authorities around the world already intervene in communications for various reasons – such as preventing the circulation of pornography or extremist propaganda. So a balance must be found between protecting people's privacy and their right to communicate; and between protecting individuals, institutions, and whole economies from criminal activities.

First, it should be made clear that Toure is being somewhat disingenuous here. The ITU's mandate concerning such communications were written for a different time, when telecommunications meant limited communications systems -- initially the telegraph (yes, that's how far this goes back) and then the telephone. Toure claims that the ITU is "charged with coordinating global information and communication technology (ICT) resources," but that's only in his own mind. The "Constitution" he so proudly points to only refers to telecommunications -- which in this context has a very, very different meaning than broader "information and communications technology." The ITU's charter is for telecommunications only. That is, old telephone networks (and telegraphs before that). In such cases, there was a need for a group like the ITU to help deal with standardization and interconnection among large companies. But, with the internet, their role is basically obsolete. There are other basic standards bodies -- ones that are more open and understanding. But Toure is focused on helping out authoritarian states like Russia and China that want to claim that "pornography or extremist propaganda" should be censored.

This is a serious problem for those who support an open and free internet that provides greater ability for free expression to occur. If people are doing things that violate local laws, go after them legally and prosecute them under those laws. To put it on telcos -- often ones with close ties to state governments -- to block and censor, all in the name of "cybersecurity," is opening up a huge can of worms. There is no need for the ITU to get involved in this situation at all.

Then, there's the second big problem -- and what this story is all about in reality. As we've noted in the past, large, slow, lumbering legacy telcos (many of them either state owned or formerly state owned) haven't innovated at all. They see big internet companies, who are building awesome and fantastic services that consumers want -- and getting rich doing so. In response, they get jealous, and say that they deserve some of that money. And that's what this plan is really about -- the ITU helping its "member" telcos try to divert money from the successful services out there to the big lumbering telcos who failed to innovate. Toure more or less says that in his op-ed, by labeling it as a more "fair" distribution of revenue:

An important and influential factor is network financing, so the conference may consider strategies around sharing revenues more fairly, stimulating investment, mainstreaming green ICTs, and expanding access as widely as possible to meet booming demand.

And that's what this comes down to. It's about diverting revenues from companies who earned it in the market, to the telcos who did nothing, often getting fat and lazy on the back of government subsidies and who are now jealous. But since they make up the core of the ITU and give it its purpose, suddenly it's all about "sharing revenues more fairly."

Thankfully, it appears that most of the commenters on the Wired piece see through this and are calling Toure out on it.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, free speech, hamadoun toure, internet regulation, itu, pornography, propaganda, un

Despite No One Wanting It To, ITU Seeks To Butt In On Patent Issues Too

from the searching-for-relevance dept

We've been talking a fair bit about the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) -- the legacy group that's been around in one form or another for over a century and a half, trying to regulate how telco systems work across national borders. Much of the concern has been about its plans to expand its purview over the internet. As many people have noted, it really seemed like the ITU was realizing that its primary function was losing relevance, as basic telco issues become less and less important as they are superseded by the internet. So, without any reason, need or mandate, the ITU is just looking to force itself into a position of internet governance as well -- with potentially horrific results. Of course, that's not the only arena in which the ITU is trying to shove its weight around and assert relevance where it has none. We've already pointed out that it also wants in on internet security, despite near complete ignorance on the topic.

And that's not all... Back in July, we wrote about the ITU's plan to host a patent summit to respond to the various patent thickets and disputes, with a main focus on the smart phone patent thicket. Now, having discussed problems with patents, and the smartphone patent thicket in particular, this might seem like a good thing, but when the summit was announced, we wondered if the ITU really understood the issue, and whether it would even have the right people participating. While the full details of the summit were apparently off the record, Nick Ashton-Hart's report on what he could say about the event suggests that, once again, it was entirely about the ITU inserting itself where it doesn't belong and where no one wants it to go. He notes that all of the ITU's public statements about the summit positioned itself as "riding to the rescue" of various patent disputes. But there were significant problems with this... in that no one wants the ITU's "help" here:

1 - First, the was an overwhelming lack of support for action at the ITU by the participants. I’ve been to many international meetings over more than two decades. You can tell, through the often exaggerated politeness in which positions are inevitably couched, when a group is willing to continue to discuss an issue and when it is not. It was completely obvious long before the end of the day that there was insufficient interest in the room to take forward the discussion – at the ITU, at least.

2 - Secondly, the ITU had clearly decided in advance what was going to happen, and expected the participants to rubber-stamp their conclusions. This was obvious when an ITU official read out a pre-prepared speech at the end of the meeting, including the following:

“I believe that providing market players with clear, transparent, effective and up-to-date patent policies works for the benefit of the industry as a whole…As the Secretary-General stated in the opening, ITU has a determination to take a leading role in the development of effective RAND based policies in the ICT sector…”

Followed by this bombshell:

“I will therefore request the TSB Director’s Ad Hoc Group on Intellectual Property Rights, which will meet tomorrow, to begin work on a recommendation aimed at providing high level principles clarifying the meaning of reasonable, and the issue of injunctive relief, in the RAND context.”

In other words, ‘we’re going to do what we want and we expect you to go along with it.’

Basically, before the meeting even started, the ITU had decided what the problem was. But, since it's jumping into a space where it doesn't understand the issues, it's suggesting a "solution" that doesn't make sense, and which was clearly not supported by others at the summit. Nick explains further:

I recall only one of the 100 participants asking the ITU itself to do anything as an outcome of the meeting – though a few did suggest that standards organisations in general – of which the ITU is one of many – could usefully look at various technical issues (such as transparency of ownership of SEPs).

He goes on to point out that the focus on standards-essential patents is misguided, and was not a main concern of the attendees. In fact, he even notes one participant who got there thinking that SEPs were a problem, but left with his mind changed -- further evidence that the ITU had decided well before the meeting what the "result" would be -- and the fact that the summit didn't support its position was simply ignored.

Once again, it appears to just be a situation where the ITU has little knowledge, no experience and no mandate... but where it's trying to shove itself in, as it tries to remain relevant in a world that no longer needs it.

Filed Under: itu, patents, un

UN: The Problem With The Internet Today Is It's Just Too Open & Terrorists Might Use It

from the terrorists!-run! dept

Ah, the UN. As highlighted by Declan McCullagh, a new report from the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, clocking in at an unwieldy 158 pages (pdf) warns that this old internet of ours is just too damn open, and that means terrorists can use it. Thus, it has to stop the openness. The report really is just about that bad: if terrorists might misuse it, it's bad and must be stopped. The costs of locking up all this openness are brushed aside, if they're even considered at all. Among the problems? How about open WiFi?

ISPs may require users to provide identifying information prior to accessing Internet content and services. The collection and preservation of identifying information associated with Internet data, and the disclosure of such information, subject to the appropriate safeguards, could significantly assist investigative and prosecutorial proceedings. In particular, requiring registration for the use of Wi-Fi networks or cybercafes could provide an important data source for criminal investigations. While some countries, such as Egypt, have implemented legislation requiring ISPs to identify users before allowing them Internet access, similar measures may be undertaken by ISPs on a voluntary basis.

It seems like it should be a general rule that, if you're supporting something that includes better surveillance tools by saying, "Hey, Egypt -- the same country that recently had the people rise up to force out a dictator, who tried to shut down the internet -- does it!" perhaps you don't have a very good argument.

The report is basically one big "OMG! But... but... terrorists! Kill it!" It talks about things like "standardizing" data retention rules for ISPs, while we here in the US don't currently have data retention rules -- nor is everyone in agreement that such things are good. Nevermind all that... terrorists!

The development of a universally agreed regulatory framework imposing consistent obligations on all ISPs regarding the type and duration of customer usage data to be retained would be of considerable benefit to law enforcement and intelligence agencies investigating terrorism cases.

Also... all that social media stuff going on out there? Scary, scary stuff because terrorists might use it as well. They might publish propaganda on it, and we can't have that:

The promotion of extremist rhetoric encouraging violent acts is also a common trend across the growing range of Internet-based platforms that host user-generated content. Content that might formerly have been distributed to a relatively limited audience, in person or via physical media such as compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs), has increasingly migrated to the Internet. Such content may be distributed using a broad range of tools, such as dedicated websites, targeted virtual chat rooms and forums, online magazines, social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, and popular video and file-sharing websites, such as YouTube and Rapidshare, respectively. The use of indexing services such as Internet search engines also makes it easier to identify and retrieve terrorism-related content.

You hear that? All those internet companies, enabling terrorists. Oh, and they're not just handy for terrorists to promote their propaganda... but to sneak up on the dumb users who reveal important info for terrorists as well:

Particularly in the age of popular social networking media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and blogging platforms, individuals also publish, voluntarily or inadvertently, an unprecedented amount of sensitive information on the Internet. While the intent of those distributing the information may be to provide news or other updates to their audience for informational or social purposes, some of this information may be misappropriated and used for the benefit of criminal activity.

Loose fingers on Twitter sink ships, as the saying goes.

Now, of course, some of this is just describing what's going on out there for those who haven't realized that any communications technology can be used by both people with good intentions and bad intentions (and no intentions at all). And we shouldn't freak out about that kind of thing. But, the report does also make some "legislative and policy recommendations," where it gets worrisome:

In order to provide effective criminal justice responses to threats presented by terrorists using the Internet, States require clear national policies and legislative frameworks. Broadly speaking, such policies and laws will focus on:

(a) Criminalization of unlawful acts carried out by terrorists over the Internet or related services;
(b) Provision of investigative powers for law enforcement agencies engaged in terrorism-related investigations;
(c) Regulation of Internet-related services (e.g. ISPs) and content control;
(d) Facilitation of international cooperation;
(e) Development of specialized judicial or evidential procedures;
(f) Maintenance of international human rights standards.

Nice of them to throw in that last one about human rights... because all of those other ones are really about ways to chip away (often with a pretty big digital bulldozer) at human rights and civil liberties. In providing examples of countries that have put in place good anti-cyber-terrorism laws... they list a who's who of countries with dubious human rights records, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Oh, and China:

In the terrorism context, in China there are provisions criminalizing different forms of terrorist activities, including article 120 of the Criminal Law, which criminalizes activities related to organizing, leading and participating in terrorist organizations. This broad criminalization provision covers a wide range of terrorism-related activities, including those carried out over the Internet.

Of course, if you also get to define what counts as "terrorism," I imagine such laws can be quite handy in making opposition parties and activists disappear (or at least get them to shut up).

There's a lot more in the report like that. While the report pays lip service to "human rights" throughout, it really seems to focus on a whole bunch of ways to chip away at those human rights all because terrorists might be out there, using your internets.

Filed Under: internet, technology, terrorism, un

Why You Should Be Worried About The ITU's Bizarre Claim To Have A Mandate Over Internet Security

from the looking-to-remain-relevant dept

We just recently wrote about how the UN's ITU (International Telecommunications Union) has been seeking to massively expand its mandate to take over international governance issues related to the internet, based on no real mandate other than one of its own making. Because of this, there are reasonable fears that it will end up creating dangerous rules that favor the incumbent telcos (often closely associated with certain governments) over what's actually best for the internet. Part of that analysis suggested that this was about the ITU trying to remain relevant in any way it could. After all, the core reason for the ITU existing for more than a century and a half was to deal with how different telcos would do the kinds of things that people no longer rely on telcos for. Because of that, they've basically been pretending that they should be involved in all sorts of unrelated things.

For example, plenty of the recent discussions coming out of the ITU have been focused on internet security issues. And you could argue that there are some significant security concerns that need attention. But is the ITU the proper body for this? Almost certainly not. Anthony Rutkowski has written up a history of the ITU's relationship to security noting that, at best, the ITU has tended to completely ignore security issues, and at worst, "treated security as a kind of vague requirement." The conclusion is pretty clear. The ITU isn't the proper body to be dealing with security at all. It has neither the mandate nor the necessary expertise.

So why is this ITU security history relevant today? Because its Secretary-General's new draft of an unneeded and worthless treaty instrument called the International Telecommunication Regulations mentions the word "security" no less than 36 times. Although the term "security" is never defined, the draft leaves the impression that the ITU is competent to deal with the subject of network security.

The reality today is that almost all work relating to network security occurs in myriad other public-private global bodies where it is pursued on a significant scale among expert communities. It is that array of work in other venues that is used worldwide. What purports to occur in the ITU is basically irrelevant and involves a relative handful of people who appear at meetings or workshops in ITU-T, ITU-D, or the General Secretariat for the purposes of maintaining largely website-based fictions to appear responsive to some political mandate of its conferences or leadership. Although a few knowledgeable and dedicated individuals participate in its work, the ITU as an institution has not possessed in modern history, and today does not possess the competence to deal with the subject matter of network security; and treaty mandates will not alter that reality.

Any treaty-based reliance on the ITU's network security competency would be perilous for the global infrastructure and irresponsible for nation States to recognize. I should know — I was the designated leader of the ITU-T cybersecurity work for the past four years who had to deal with these realities.

In other words, yet another overreach by the ITU to take on something it is not qualified to handle, and which will almost certainly result in a bad situation, driven by political interests, rather than actual security issues.

Filed Under: internet security, itu, un

UN: We Don't Want To Take Over The Internet... Just Fundamentally Change How It Works

from the tone-deaf dept

We've been covering how there are a number of troubling proposals before the UN's ITU (International Telecom Union), which has been trying to use its role as the global regulator of international telecom issues to insert itself into how the internet should work. So far, the leaks from the secretive process have really only served to highlight how various telcos are using this as an opportunity to get regulators to divert money their way from internet innovators, because they're jealous of the revenue that actual innovators can generate. Vint Cerf recently gave an insightful, if worrisome, interview with Jerry Brito about how the ITU is being misleading with its statements on the matter. Cerf notes that the ITU has been trying to insert itself into internet issues for many years now, recognizing that its existing mandate, covering telco issues, is becoming increasingly obsolete. Rather than do something useful, like disband, it's trying to gobble up internet issues, despite a very different view on them.

Cerf points out that the ITU is playing word games in claiming that it simply acts as a neutral platform for various proposals from different telcos, noting that it's pretty clear that it's been actively working in this direction for a while, encouraging proposals that would give the ITU much greater say in key internet issues, despite little familiarity with the basics of the internet (or, worse, thinking that it's no different than a standard telco network).

Of course, the ITU process is being condemned by a growing number of folks. The US government has a surprisingly unified voice on this issue, with both houses of Congress emphatically passing resolutions rejecting the ITU's efforts here. Of course, the worry is that the US is just one vote in the process, and many other countries see this as an opportunity not just to prop up telcos, but to better establish standards that would make it easy to monitor and censor the internet. Iran, China and Russia, for example, have all been quite interested in the upcoming ITU discussions. Now, the US is (not surprisingly) still a powerful voice in what happens here, so even as just one vote, it can exert influence... which it appears to be trying to do in a variety of ways.

Given the sudden and unexpected public interest in its activities, the ITU has been scrambling to respond, including having its chief, Hamadoun Toure give a talk at Columbia supposedly responding to "critics." Of course, as Larry Downes highlights, Toure and the ITU seem totally tone deaf in the way they've responded so far. For example, Toure seems to think that the complaints are all due to "sensationalist claims in the press," -- apparently ignoring governments, the public, internet companies, civil service, public interest groups and others. All the press's fault, apparently.

The ITU itself, meanwhile, is stepping up the rhetoric in its campaign to defend the transfer of at least some Internet oversight from today’s multi-stakeholder process to the U.N. Dr. Toure, for example, says that he hopes the WCIT negotiations will address issues “of real import,” including Internet security.

But “security,” in ITU jargon, is a loaded term, relating more to perceived threats to national security than to the security of network communications.

In that regard, the ITU has become dangerously close to associating itself with the overtly repressive goals of Russia. Last year, at a meeting between Dr. Toure and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Putin was characteristically blunt about his country’s aspirations for the ITU. Putin told Dr. Toure that he was keen on “establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capability of the International Telecommunications Union.”

Toure, of course, is used to dealing with telco execs and some regulators, and simply hasn't been prepared for public scrutiny at all.

The ITU’s clumsy response has exposed just how uncomfortable the agency is in dealing directly with Internet users worldwide—a sure sign of the ITU’s inability to regulate a technology it doesn’t even know how to use.   The agency’s flurry of releases read like weird dispatches from Dickensian England, with lots of extra “distinguished guests,” “plenipotentiaries” “directorates,” and references to “civil society” thrown in for good measure.

In an unprecedented number of interviews and public speeches, ITU senior officials have tried to dismiss their critics as “scaremongers” and “paranoids.”  Dr. Toure has even called out FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who first brought the threat of a free-for-all WCIT to the attention of Congress.

The agency also keeps the media at arm’s length or better.  Any journalist who wishes to cover the WCIT conference, for example, must first satisfy the ITU that they are “a professional journalist or analyst with a proven track record of reporting for bona fide media.”  Online journalists must be “registered to a media organization with a verifiable non-web address and telephone number.”  Bloggers can just stay home.

So not only does the group not actually understand the internet that it's looking to have much more control over... it doesn't even think that web-only journalists count as real journalists. Is this really the group that we want making decisions on core internet issues?

Filed Under: hamdoun toure, internet governance, itu, un, vint cerf

Do We Really Want The UN In Charge Of Cybersecurity Standards?

from the answer:-no dept

We've been talking quite a bit about the upcoming efforts by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to expand its ability to govern the internet, and numerous proposals are being submitted by various telcos along those lines. The folks over at CDT are ably demonstrating why this is dangerous in a number of ways, starting with why the ITU is the exact wrong place to be dealing with cybersecurity issues, even though many of the proposals deal with cybersecurity. Take, for example, the proposal of African Member States, which suggests that the ITU can be a central force in "harmonizing" data retention laws and rules. As CDT notes, this seems to assume that the only issue with data retention laws are that they are different in different countries. But that ignores the fact that many people question whether or not such laws even make sense in the first place:

This reference to data retention well illustrates the problems with involving the ITU in issues related to cybercrime and cybersecurity. Not only do national laws on data retention vary greatly, but there is ongoing controversy about whether governments should impose data retention mandates at all. In addition, where data retention is required, there are many different views on the legal standards under which governments should be able to gain access to retained data – whether access should require a court order, for example. Such questions are crucial to adopting a data retention law, but are far outside the expertise of the ITU. Other concerns arise from the fact that data retained by a service provider may, absent specific legal and procedural safeguards, be subject to access by the government to investigate any crime, may be accessed by intelligence agencies, and may be shared with other governments to assist their investigations. In addition, the more data that companies are required to retain, and the longer the retention period, the greater the risk that personal information could be breached, leaked, or otherwise abused.

Elsewhere, the report highlights how many of the proposals on "cybersecurity" seem more likely to set up rules and laws that help repressive regimes crack down on critics and dissidents. And that, of course, highlights the real problem here. There is nothing in the ITU that involves actually determining what's best for the public and for individuals' rights. Instead, the proposals are from big (often state-supported) telcos and governments themselves. The CDT paper correctly argues that a group like the ITU simply isn't as quick or as flexible as any reasonable body dealing with the rapidly changing, always dynamic world of cybersecurity. But it goes even further than that. An effective look at cybersecurity requires recognizing that governments and telcos often have views that are not at all in the best interests of citizens -- and handing off all discussions on "cybersecurity" regulations to such a body seems ripe for abuse in ways that may help governments or telcos, but at the expense of the public and their ability to speak out.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, data retention, flexibility, itu, regulation, security, telcos, un, wcit

ITU: Travel All The Way To Dubai... And Then We'll Decide If You Can Attend Our Meeting On Internet Governance

from the not-really-that-open dept

We've talked a bit about how the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) -- a part of the UN -- is getting ready for a big meeting in Dubai in December (the "World Conference on International Telecommunications" -- WCIT), where it will seek to put in place some new internet governance rules. There are significant concerns that the rules being discussed will favor certain governments and fracture the internet, by letting incumbent international telcos both tax internet usage and track all usage (potentially blocking anonymous usage). Part of the problem, of course, is that the ITU has been extraordinarily secretive.

In response to the criticism, the ITU is claiming that it will now be more open, including making the various draft plans publicly accessible. Still, it often looks like they're making empty gestures towards openness, rather than showing any real commitment towards it. Take, for example, the FAQ the ITU released (pdf and embedded below) about the WCIT, in which they say that the public is welcome to come all the way to Dubai... to find out if they'll be allowed in the meeting. Seriously.

CAN MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC ATTEND WCIT-12?

At the opening of WCIT-12 the Secretary-General of ITU will propose that the public be allowed to be present at the conference venue, in line with the practical arrangements adopted at similar ITU conferences. A formal decision on admitting the public will be taken at a meeting of the heads of delegations on the first day of the conference. This would permit the public to attend plenary sessions and certain committee meetings. Webcasts of plenary sessions are also planned.

Got that? Fly to Dubai, show up, and then wait for them to take a vote on whether or not to let you in. If they decide not to let you in, then, um... well... I guess you can enjoy the world's largest shopping mall while a bunch of bureaucrats who don't understand the internet carve it up and break it apart next door. That's not exactly being "open" to the public, now, is it?

Filed Under: dubai, internet governance, itu, public, transparency, un

Be Afraid: Russia And China Seek To Put In Place Top-Down Regulation Of The Internet

from the pay-attention dept

For all the talk of SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/TPP, there's another much bigger threat to "the internet as we know it." It's a bunch of countries who are seeking to use the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to create a top-down regulatory scheme for the internet. This process began a few months back, but FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell has a pretty good summary of the situation in the WSJ, and why those who believe in internet freedom should be afraid. It is worth noting, of course, that things like ICANN and IETF are far from perfect today, but handing many of their functions over to the ITU with the goal of a pretty broad top-down regulatory plan for the internet is not the solution. McDowell highlights a few of the key points in the plan:

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;
• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;
• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."
• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;
• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;
• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

Again this attempt to give the UN and certain governments unprecedented control over parts of the internet is not new. It's actually been in process for a few years, but it's expected to heat up in the next few months, and most in the US don't seem to even know it's about to happen. While there are some issues that are worth discussing among the proposals, it's been pretty transparent from the start that a lot of the plan is to give certain governments much more control over how the internet is used... and not in a good way. The internet thrives today in large part because it's not controlled by governments, no matter how much they've slowly tried to encroach (and the US is particularly guilty of that lately).

The fact that this effort is mainly being led by Russia and China should give you a sense of the intentions here. Neither country is particularly well-known for supporting the principles of open communications or freedom of speech.

Unfortunately, as McDowell notes, the US doesn't seem to be taking the issue particularly seriously, and hasn't even assigned a negotiator to handle the discussions (though, I'm afraid to find out who they eventually do assign to that role). McDowell also points out that simply saying "no" to any changes probably won't go over well with many countries -- and all Russia and China need to get this approved are half of the countries to side with them on this proposal. Since doing nothing is often seen as ceding the internet to the US, that could be a problem. Of course, that doesn't mean caving in. It means engaging and getting enough people aware of these issues so they can make a reasonable case for why a top-down management system would have massive unintended (or, um, intended) consequences that the world doesn't want:

As part of this conversation, we should underscore the tremendous benefits that the Internet has yielded for the developing world through the multi-stakeholder model.

Upending this model with a new regulatory treaty is likely to partition the Internet as some countries would inevitably choose to opt out. A balkanized Internet would be devastating to global free trade and national sovereignty. It would impair Internet growth most severely in the developing world, but also globally as technologists are forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and invest. This would also undermine the proliferation of new cross-border technologies, such as cloud computing.

A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders. No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time. Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body.

Any attempts to expand intergovernmental powers over the Internet—no matter how incremental or seemingly innocuous—should be turned back. Modernization and reform can be constructive, but not if the end result is a new global bureaucracy that departs from the multi-stakeholder model. Enlightened nations should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a nonregulatory role for the ITU.

This issue is going to pick up steam pretty quickly in the next few months, so educate yourselves now...

Filed Under: china, internet regulation, itu, robert mcdowell, russia, un

Wikileaks Denied A Speaking Opportunity At UN Conference About Wikileaks?

from the perhaps-someone-will-leak-a-pass? dept

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, is hosting a conference about The Media World after Wikileaks and News of the World. Sounds like it could be an interesting event, but one organization not happy about it... is Wikileaks. Seeing as it was a conference that touched on Wikileaks' interests directly, Wikileaks asked to take part, and was instead denied a chance to speak at the event. When asked about this, UNESCO actually claimed that choosing to not allow Wikileaks attendees was an exercise in "freedom of expression," which seems like a poor choice of words.

Of course, Wikileaks doesn't come out of this looking very good either. In unfortunately typical overstatement from Wikileaks, it tries to paint this as some big censorship issue, but that seems like an exaggeration. UNESCO noted that Julian Assange's legal advisor is taking part, as are numerous news organizations that partnered with Wikileaks. Wikileaks complains that even if Assange's legal counsel will be on one panel, there's no Wikileaks representation on other panels. Now, if I were organizing the event, I might use that as an opportunity to invite direct representatives of the site... if only for the fact that it would draw more interest to many of the discussions. However, beyond the irony of telling Wikileaks it can't speak at an event about Wikileaks, it really seems like the site is trying to make a bigger deal out of this than is justified.

Filed Under: conference journalism, speaking, un, unesco
Companies: wikileaks

India Wants UN Body To Run The Internet: Would That Be Such A Bad Thing?

from the can't-go-on-like-this dept

The Internet is under attack – but not, as politicians would have us believe, from hordes of cyber criminals, but from the politicians themselves. Alongside national legislation like E-PARASITE and international treaties such as ACTA, there is this proposal that a UN body should take over the running of the whole system:

The Indian government has formally proposed a government takeover of the Internet at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In a statement sent yesterday, India argued for the creation of a new body to be called the United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) which would develop Internet policies, oversee all Internet standards bodies and policy organizations, negotiate Internet-related treaties, and act as an arbitrator in Internet-related disputes.

The CIRP would exist under the United Nations, comprise of 50 Member States, be funded by the United Nations, run by staff from the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) arm, and report directly to the UN General Assembly.

Despite the proposal representing an extraordinary shift from the status quo to a single, purely government-run Internet body, India’s spokesman, Mr Dushyant Singh, argued that the proposal “should not be viewed as an attempt by governments to ‘take over’ or ‘regulate and circumscribe’ the Internet.”

In a nod to the multi-stakeholder model of decision-making that currently defines much of the Internet’s processes - and where all actors from business to academia to the technical community and governments are given equal say in decisions - the Indian proposal foresees the creation of four “Advisory Groups” that would represent civil society, the private sector, inter-governmental and international organizations, and the technical and academic community.

Those groups would provide recommendations to the CIRP. The CIRP would consider them, along input from the existing Internet Governance Forum, at an annual two-week conference at the UN building in Geneva and then present its own subsequent recommendations to the UN General Assembly.

As the author of that report, Kieren McCarthy, points out:

A very similar proposal to that proposed this week was published by a joint group of the Indian, South African and Brazilian governments just prior to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Nairobi last month and caused some controversy when it clearly implied that the proposal came with the support of civil society and the technical community.

Its recommendations, which also foresaw all Internet organizations being pulled under the control of a new government-run United Nations body, were disowned by civil society and they then received a definitive thumbs-down from the broader Internet community during the IGF open session on “critical Internet resources”, during which the Indian government representative stated that the paper had only been put out for discussion.

Despite the very negative response to that paper, however, the Indian government pressed ahead with discussions on the exact same lines at an IBSA Summit on 18 October in Durban, South Africa. And the result of that meeting was the proposal put to the UN General Assembly yesterday.

That would suggest that the Indian proposal doesn't really stand much of a chance, and many will doubtless cheer that, seeing it as a dangerous attempt to "take over" the Internet – despite India's assurances to the contrary.

But here's an interesting contrarian view from Jeremy Malcolm on his site Internet Governance Forum Watch:

If a UN Committee for Internet-Related Policies, adequately linked to multi-stakeholder public sphere, were able to set global norms for the Internet in an adequately open and inclusive manner, then neither the US government, corrupted by big-pocketed IP rights-holders, nor repressive governments such as China, would be able to regulate the Internet in isolation from these norms.

Now, some might say that governments have no role in setting policy norms for the Internet, even if it is in consultation with other stakeholders. In the long run, I agree: we should be able to develop a multi-stakeholder transnational governance mechanism that is not grounded in the nation-state. But we are far from that position now, and it is those most opposed to Internet governance reform who make this point most often, when opposing a norm-setting role for the IGF. They insist that the discussions at the IGF should merely inform norm-setting processes that take place at higher levels.

But where are those norms to be set, where no authoritative transnational institution already exists to set them? Unless an expansion of the IGF's mandate can be considered, then clearly some new mechanism is required. This was recognised at WSIS [World Summit on the Information Society] in 2005 when an "enhanced cooperation" mechanism was mandated, and it remains equally true today. The Indian proposal for a UN Committee for Internet-Related Policies is the first serious attempt by any government to propose such a mechanism, and for this it is to be welcomed. Civil society ought not to fall into the trap of rejecting this proposal out of hand, if the alternative is to leave existing more narrow Internet governance hegemonies unchallenged.

It's an important point: after all, the way the Internet is run and developed at the moment is hardly perfect. As Malcolm notes:

some of the most important areas of public policy online are not governed by multi-stakeholder networks at all, not even by any existing intergovernmental organisations, but by individual national governments and big businesses. The most blind to this seem to be representatives of technical community, who for practical purposes maintain a very narrow pre-WGIG [Working Group on Internet Governance] definition of Internet governance that excludes vital issues such as intellectual property enforcement, privacy and data protection, online filtering and censorship and network neutrality.

It is precisely those issues that are driving many of the recent ill-conceived legislative proposals around the world aimed at "taming" the Internet. Maybe we do need a new approach to Internet governance; whether or not the Indian initiative is the way forward, it is a at least raising some crucial questions.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: governance, internet, un