governance authority.”26
Verveer’s circumspection in attacking the regulatory proposals—and his use of wording such as “could limit” and “potentially allow”—indicates less than hard and fast opposition. And the administration’s willingness to keep secret the negotiations themselves suggests that Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Barack Obama’s White House may be slender reeds to rely on in keeping the Internet open and free.
Both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama owe us an explanation of why they countenanced secrecy in these negotiations during which our free speech is on the line!
Indeed, as of this writing, the only statement from the administration on the possible UN Internet controls came from a May 2, 2012, blog entry by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, which read: “Centralized control [of the Internet] would threaten the ability of the world’s citizens to freely connect and express themselves by placing decision-making power in the hands of global leaders who have demonstrated a clear lack of respect for the right of free speech.”27
Again, what is worrying is the muted nature of the administration’s objections. So radical a proposal as to put the Internet under UN control and to give Russia and China the ability to restrict the flow of information to their citizens would seem to call for opponents to be shouting their objections from the rooftops. Instead, there has been no presidential statement or comment from Secretary Clinton, just a blog entry by a minor White House office.
Fortunately, a more robust response to this erosion of Internet freedom came from the House of Representatives, where a bipartisan group of congressmen on the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced a resolution calling on the Obama administration to oppose efforts to turn the Internet over to UN regulation. The resolution called on the US delegation to the ITU talks to “promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today.”28
The resolution is sponsored by Representative Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and has the support of Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), and ranking subcommittee member Anna Eshoo (D-CA).
Sounding a clarion call, Congresswoman Bono Mack said that “[t]his year, we’re facing an historic referendum on the future of the Internet. For nearly a decade, the United Nations quietly has been angling to become the epicenter of Internet governance. A vote for my resolution is a vote to keep the Internet free from government control and to prevent Russia, China, India and other nations from succeeding in giving the UN unprecedented power over Web content and infrastructure.”29
Bono Mack warns: “If this power grab is successful, I’m concerned that the next ‘Arab Spring’ will instead become a ‘Russian winter,’ where free speech is chilled, not encouraged, and the Internet becomes a wasteland of unfilled hopes, dreams and opportunities. We can’t let this happen.”30
The resolution’s Democratic cosponsor, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, added that “this resolution reaffirms our belief and sends a strong message that international control over the Internet will uproot the innovation, openness and transparency enjoyed by nearly 2.3 billion users around the world.”31
More and more voices are suddenly speaking out against the UN regulation of the Internet. At a congressional hearing in June 2012, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell asked, “Does anyone here today believe that these countries’ [Russia’s and China’s] proposals would encourage the continued proliferation of an open and freedom-enhancing Internet?”32
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) said that an “international regulatory intrusion into the Internet would have disastrous results, not only for the US, but for folks around the world.”33
But statements from American politicians are not going to derail this effort at global censorship. Only the full mobilization of the more than two billion Internet users worldwide will suffice. It is time they learned of the threat to their liberty and battled to defeat it!
KEEP THE INTERNET FREE!
How do we stop this power grab and keep the Internet free? Richard Whitt, public policy director and managing counsel for Google, emphasized the importance of a cyber-roots rebellion against UN control. “I think a key aspect of this [battle] is that this cannot be the US against the world,” said Whitt. “If that is the formula, we lose, plain and simple. This has to be something where we engage with everybody around the world. All of the communities of interest who have a stake, whether they know it right now or not, in the future of the Internet, we have to try to find ways to engage them.”34
Nina Easton, writing on fortune.com, says that “business leaders beyond Silicon Valley would be smart to sit up and take notice [of the UN initiative]—and fast. American opponents are being seriously outpaced by UN plans to tax and regulate that are already grinding forward in advance of a December treaty negotiation in Dubai.”35
But what happens if a majority of the 193-member ITU votes for a plan that regulates, censors, and controls the Internet? The United States should walk out of the conference in Dubai and refuse to be bound by its strictures. We should work to persuade our European allies to join us.
If the ITU enacts rules on the Internet and the US and the EU refuse to abide by them or recognize them as binding, Internet administrators and the major online companies and servers will be in a bind. They will face a push-pull that may well lead them to compromise our freedoms in order to appease the ITU.
Another bad outcome would be a compromise—in the tradition of the United Nations. Building on the model of the UN Rio Conferences, the so-called middle ground might recognize ITU jurisdiction over the Internet but restrict its power so it does not regulate content or adopt the other nefarious proposals being put forth by Russia and China.
But a compromise of this sort would be a terrible blow to freedom of speech. Conceding that a global body —where autocrats, corrupt regimes, and tyrants have a voting majority—controls the Internet would be the first step in restricting its freedom.
Since the ITU normally does not vote on proposals, preferring instead to negotiate a consensus, Cerf worries that there may be a series of incremental changes that would, together, doom Internet freedom. He cites a proposal by Arab states changing the definition of “telecommunications” to include “processing” or computer functions. FCC commissioner McDowell warns that such a definitional change would “swallow the Internet’s functions with only a tiny edit of existing rules.”36
Indeed, the way the UN works is that such proposals are always, at least partially, adopted. Once a suggestion is raised and ratified by becoming the subject of high-level UN negotiations, a consensus almost always emerges. In this case, it is easy to see how the United States and Europe, heavily outvoted in the ITU, would focus on watering down the Internet regulations while leaving the basic premise—that the ITU can regulate the Net— fundamentally unchallenged.
To counter this consensus approach, we need a massive sense of public outrage (in this election year) demanding that the United States pull out of these negotiations and the Dubai Conference and refuse to recognize the authority of the ITU or its member states or its UN sponsor to even discuss Internet regulation. This is the time for us to stand up and demand an end to this process before it goes any further.
Would the United States cravenly agree to participate in secret negotiations on proposals by Russia and China to restrict global free speech, free press, or freedom of religion? No way. Yet these talks are just as pernicious and destructive of our liberties.
The Internet must see to its own self-preservation! Its users need to spread word of the UN effort virally and arouse a cyber-roots rebellion against the proposed treaty or even the negotiations concerning it. If we want to preserve our freedom to use the Internet as a free exchange of ideas, we have to act and act soon.
Internet users of the world! Speak up!
