[IP] Beware a 'Digital Munich'
Begin forwarded message:
From: Henry Sinnreich <henry@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 7, 2005 3:44:53 PM EST
To: 'David Farber' <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Beware a 'Digital Munich'
DOW JONES REPRINTS
Beware a 'Digital Munich'
By NORM COLEMAN
November 7, 2005; Page A21
It sounds like a Tom Clancy plot. An anonymous group of international
technocrats holds secretive meetings in Geneva. Their cover story:
devising a blueprint to help the developing world more fully
participate in the digital revolution. Their real mission:
strategizing to take over management of the Internet from the U.S.
and enable the United Nations to dominate and politicize the World
Wide Web. Does it sound too bizarre to be true? Regrettably, much of
what emanates these days from the U.N. does.
The Internet faces a grave threat. We must defend it. We need to
preserve this unprecedented communications and informational medium,
which fosters freedom and enterprise. We can not allow the U.N. to
control the Internet.
The threat is posed by the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the
Information Society taking place later this month in Tunisia. At the
WSIS preparatory meeting weeks ago, it became apparent that the
agenda had been transformed. Instead of discussing how to place $100
laptops in the hands of the world's children, the delegates schemed
to transfer Internet control into the hands of intrigue-plagued
bureaucracies.
The low point of that planning session was the European Union's
shameful endorsement of a plan favored by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Cuba that would terminate the historic U.S. role in Internet
government oversight, relegate both private enterprise and non-
governmental organizations to the sidelines, and place a U.N.-
dominated group in charge of the Internet's operation and future. The
EU's declaration was a "political coup," according to London's
Guardian newspaper, which predicted that once the world's governments
awarded themselves control of the Internet, the U.S. would be able to
do little but acquiesce.
I disagree. Such acquiescence would amount to appeasement. We cannot
allow Tunis to become a digital Munich.
There is no rational justification for politicizing Internet
governance within a U.N. framework. The chairman of the WSIS Internet
Governance Subcommittee himself recently affirmed that existing
Internet governance arrangements "have worked effectively to make the
Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium
it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day
operations, and with innovation and value creation at the edges."
Nor is there a rational basis for the anti-U.S. resentment driving
the proposal. The history of the U.S. government's Internet
involvement has been one of relinquishing control. Rooted in a
Defense Department project of the 1960s, the Internet was transferred
to civilian hands and then opened to commerce by the National Science
Foundation in 1995. Three years later, the non-profit Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers assumed governance
responsibility under Department of Commerce oversight. Icann, with
its international work force and active Governmental Advisory
Committee, is scheduled to be fully privatized next year.
Privatization, not politicization, is the right Internet governance
regime.
We do not stand alone in our pursuit of that goal. The majority of
European telecommunications companies have already dissented from the
EU's Geneva announcement, with one executive pronouncing it "a U-turn
by the European Union that was as unexpected as it was disturbing."
In addition to resentment of U.S. technological leadership,
proponents of politicization are driven by fear -- of access to full
and accurate information, and of the opportunity for legitimate
political discourse and organization, provided by the Internet.
Nations like China, which are behind the U.N. plan to take control,
censor their citizens' Web sites, and monitor emails and chat rooms
to stifle legitimate political dissent. U.N. control would shield
this kind of activity from scrutiny and criticism.
The U.S. must do more to advance the values of an open Internet in
our broader trade and diplomatic conversations. We cannot expect U.S.
high-tech companies seeking business opportunities in growing markets
to defy official policy; yet we cannot stand idly by as some
governments seek to make the Internet an instrument of censorship and
political suppression. To those nations that seek to wall off their
populations from information and dialogue we must say, as Ronald
Reagan said in Berlin, "Tear down this wall."
Allowing Internet governance to be politicized under U.N. auspices
would raise a variety of dangers. First, it is wantonly irresponsible
to tolerate any expansion of the U.N.'s portfolio before that
abysmally managed and sometimes-corrupt institution undertakes
sweeping, overdue reform. It would be equal folly to let Icann be
displaced by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union, a
regulatory redoubt for those state telephone monopolies most
threatened by the voice over Internet protocol revolution.
Also, as we expand the global digital economy, the stability and
reliability of the Internet becomes a matter of security. Technical
minutiae have profound implications for competition and trade,
democratization, free expression and access to information, privacy
and intellectual-property protection.
Responding to the present danger, I have initiated a Sense of the
Senate Resolution that supports the four governance principles
articulated by the administration on June 30:
• Preservation of the security and stability of the Internet domain
name and addressing system (DNS).
• Recognition of the legitimate interest of governments in managing
their own country code top-level domains.
• Support for Icann as the appropriate technical manager of the
Internet DNS.
• Participation in continuing dialogue on Internet governance, with
continued support for market-based approaches toward, and private-
sector leadership of, its further evolution.
I also intend to seek hearings in advance of the Tunis Summit to
explore the implications of multinational politicization of Internet
governance. While Tunis marks the end of the WSIS process, it is just
the beginning of a long, multinational debate on the values that the
Internet will incorporate and foster. Our responsibility is to
safeguard the full potential of the new information society that the
Internet has brought into being.
Mr. Coleman is a Republican senator from Minnesota.
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