Obama To Give Control of Internet To International Oversight Body

Posted by Tina

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about the deal President Obama has dreamed up to give control of the internet to “an independent, international oversight authority”.

Currently management is done by the “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers” through a contract with the Telecommunications division of the Commerce Department. ICANN’s contract expires in 2015. This move is apparently being made after the NSA spying scandal angered leaders across the globe. Should America relinquish control just because under the leadership of President Obama the NSA has been behaving badly?

And by what authority does the President do this? If it is to be done at all shouldn’t Congress have something to say? What about the people that have spent time and money to develop a simple government program into what we now know as a much more sophisticated tool used by people all over the world? Should they have some say in all of this?

It’s hard for me to imagine that a global body would be affective or trustworthy…but then Obama hasn’t done much for the trustworthiness of America in the last five years either. I can understand the concern other countries have but it just doesn’t smell right to me…how about you?

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11 Responses to Obama To Give Control of Internet To International Oversight Body

Chris says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 7:29 am

This move has little to do with President Obama or the NSA. ICANN’s authority over domain names was always supposed to be temporary; their contract is set to expire next year.

“U.S. officials said their decision had nothing to do with the NSA spying revelations and the worldwide controversy they sparked, saying there had been plans since ICANN’s creation in 1998 to eventually migrate it to international control.

“The timing is now right to start this transition both because ICANN as an organization has matured, and international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” Strickling said in a statement.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-to-relinquish-remaining-control-over-the-internet/2014/03/14/0c7472d0-abb5-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_story.html
Tina says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 10:55 am

A lot of questions are addresses in a WSJ article today. This is how they tackled a couple of my questions:

Will this mean that we have a multilateral body like the United Nations controlling the Internet? In short, no. Larry Strickling, head of the Commerce Department agency that oversees ICANN, said a main objective for the U.S. is to make sure that NTIA isn’t replaced by the U.N. or another governmental organization. Mr. Strickling said he’s confident that a solution can be reached; the implication is that the U.S. is not going to back out unless it’s sure another government-led organization isn’t going to take its place. …

What effect will this have on U.S. businesses? It the short term, there shouldn’t be any effect. In the future, there may be changes to how ICANN selects and distributes top-level domain names like .com and .music, but for now, things should stay largely the same.

So why is this happening? Couldn’t they just leave things the way they were? The main goal is to reassure other countries that the U.S. isn’t secretly controlling the structure of the Internet. To the extent American businesses have been damaged by the Edward Snowden disclosures, especially those offering cloud and other online services, this is a move aimed at repairing the relationship between the U.S. and other countries on Internet issues.

Make no mistake, this is a concession by the U.S. While the Commerce Department rarely intervened publicly in ICANN’s affairs, the implicit threat of its ability to do so will be gone. That could have an unforeseen impact in the future, particularly if cyberweapons continue to play a larger role in military and counter-intelligence activities.

Another concern that has come up this morning is the imposition of an international tax. It’s reassuring for the moment to know that the U.N. will not (supposedly) be a controlling entity.
Tina says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 4:31 pm

Additional information is offered for consideration from IBD including the following:

Since at least 2004, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has tried repeatedly to wrest power from Icann. During a meeting in Dubai last year, the ITU, the telecom branch of the United Nations, demanded rules governing the Internet be rewritten. It proposed inspection authority that would allow it to monitor and censor otherwise encrypted content on the Internet.

In 2008, the Internet trade journal Cnet reported the ITU was quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous. Regimes in places such as Russia and Iran also want an ITU rule letting them monitor traffic routed through or to their countries, allowing them to eavesdrop or block access.

The Obama administration calls the move to relinquish Internet oversight the “multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance,” as announced by Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information. “We look forward to Icann convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan.”

Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the ITU, released a report in May 2013 outlining groundwork for Internet governance and regulatory topics. The report calls for the creation of “global principles for the governance and use of the Internet” and proposes the resolution of issues pertaining to “use of Internet resources for purposes that are inconsistent with international peace, stability and security.”…

…Today, the largely self-regulating Internet means no one has to ask for permission to launch a site and no government can tell network operators how to do their jobs. The Internet freely crosses international boundaries, making it difficult for governments to censor. To many governments, the Internet is a threat to statist goals.

“While I certainly agree our nation must stridently review our procedures regarding surveillance in light of the NSA controversy, to put ourselves in a situation where censorship-laden governments like China or Russia could take a firm hold on the Internet itself is truly a scary thought,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., says in Politico.

It appears there is controversy about the thinking behind this move.
Post Scripts says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 4:33 pm

Wait a second doesn’t Al Gore own the internet? he invented it, how can Obama give away Al’s property?
Tina says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 4:42 pm

Didn’t you hear Jack? It’s footprint is too big now.

More concerns expressed by National Journal which asks, “Will Russia and China Control the Internet?”
RHT447 says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 5:39 pm

Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re about to give away the Panama Canal. Again.
bill says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 6:24 pm

Chris, you’re delussional. Obama is a Muslim and he is going to hand over the Internet to the Muslims and probabably terrorists at that!
Tina says:

Monday, March 17, 2014 at 10:45 pm

RHT447 thanks! I knew the feeling, I just couldn’t put my finger on it!
Chris says:

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 7:18 am

Bill, I can only assume your comment is satire, in which case: funny!
bill says:

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 2:21 pm

Chris, Obama is a Christian in name only….well…not even that…how many Christians do you know whose middle name is Hussein?
Chris says:

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 7:03 pm

Oh, I’m sorry Bill. I mistook you for a regular person with a twisted sense of humor, when you are in fact an actual racist crazy person.

Have fun with that!