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US Senator Fires Shot at WSIS
posted by michael on Wednesday October 19 2005, @10:15AM
Declan McCullagh, CNET News, Senator: Keep U.N. away from the Internet.
A
new resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate offers political backing
to the Bush administration by slamming a United Nations effort to exert
more influence over the Internet.
Sen. Norm Coleman, a
Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect
the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that’s scheduled to
be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.
…
Coleman’s
resolution endorses the principles–effectively maintaining the status
quo–that the Bush administration announced in June. But he ventured
even further by warning that if governance functions were handed to
bureaucrats from oppressive nations, the Internet would become "an
instrument of censorship and political suppression." Business groups
have raised similar objections, warning of censorship from nations such
as China, Iran and Syria.
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ICANN is just so lucky -- without WSIS around to bash, someone might be asking why ICANN is getting and spending so much money...
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US Senator Fires Shot at WSIS
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The resolution is much like telling the passenger in an automobile to drive better - it is not aimed at the person (or entity) in charge.
ICANN is not "in charge" of any of the knobs or levers that control the operation of the internet - nothing that ICANN does can affect the end-to-end flow of packets across the internet. DNS will not stop running if ICANN fumbles. ICANN deals only with business regulation.
(In addition, ICANN's performance of the "IANA" function is essentially a non-discretionary secretarial function performed for the IETF and has virtually no impact on the daily operation of the internet.)
The powers described in the resolution are in the hands of others. Those others are the proper subject of this kind of resolution (assuming that one agrees with the underlying sense of the resolution.)
This resolution, because it is based on incorrect presumptions, does nothing to resolve the current situation and because of its assertion of US hegemony over the internet ends up merely further inflaming the fears (some legitimate, some fanciful) of those in other nations.
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