The Project to Restore America
Who Threatens Internet Freedom?
By Sheldon Richman
Friday, October 05, 2012
Two months from now the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) will convene in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, sponsored by the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Depending on whom you believe, this is either the gravest threat to the Internet to date or a justifiable effort to free the Internet from U.S. domination.
In fact, there is truth on both sides of the controversy. Consequently, the best way to foster Internet freedom is to trust neither the UN nor the U.S. government, but to pursue a third way that has an important precedent in world history.
The WCIT will explore proposals to extend the 1988 International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), which cover wired telephone systems, to the Internet. The ITU says the conference will present "a key opportunity to increase collaboration between countries, to help countries reach new levels of economic and social development through efficient telecom services, and to make the ITRs more relevant and valuable to ITU members, to help them respond to the challenges of a fast-evolving ICT environment."
"When an invention becomes used by billions across the world," ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Touré explained to Michael Joseph Gross of Vanity Fair, "it no longer remains the sole property of one nation, however powerful that nation might be. There should be a mechanism where many countries have an opportunity to have a say. I think that's democratic."
But not everyone sees the WCIT as benign. In August the U.S. House passed H.Con.Res. 127, 414-0, responding to the planned conference by resolving that the Obama administration "should . . . promote a global Internet free from government control . . . ." The resolution warned that the WCIT "would fundamentally alter the governance and operation of the Internet; . . . justify under international law increased government control over the Internet. . . [and] diminish the freedom of expression on the Internet in favor of government control over content, contrary to international law." (The Senate has not acted.)
Members of the House were not alone in their anxiety. Other critics warned that centralized regulation of the Internet would imperil the benefits that come from its private decentralized governance in which all "stakeholders" have a voice.
Google vice president Vinton Cerf, a father of the Internet, expressed concern before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology: "The Internet's success has generated a worrying desire by some countries' governments to create new international rules that would jeopardize the network's innovative evolution and its multi-faceted success."
Noting that "the Internet developed outside of traditional telecommunications regulation," Robert Pepper, Cisco Systems vice president for global technology policy, warns of the WCIT's "grave threat to the Internet as we know it":
If these radical changes are adopted, the results could be devastating. It could break the global Internet into unconnected islands of national or regional networks, extend telecommunications regulations to computing, or lead to onerous government regulation of the Internet. . . . We should be extremely wary of any actions that dramatically alter the global Internet landscape and stem the growth, innovation and dynamism of the Internet today.
Pepper sees the WCIT as "well-intentioned," but not everyone does. Robert M. McDowell of the Federal Communications Commission last February wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
Even though Internet-based technologies are improving billions of lives everywhere, some governments feel excluded and want more control.
And let's face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity. They have formed impressive coalitions, and their efforts have progressed significantly.
McDowell cites the interest of authoritarian Russia and China in such "chilling" WCIT proposals as "Subject[ing] cyber security and data privacy to international control . . .; Allow[ing] foreign phone companies to charge fees for 'international' Internet traffic . . . with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries; Impos[ing] unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as 'peering.' [and] Subsum[ing] 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."
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