[WSIS CS-Plenary] FW: [IP] Beware a 'Digital Munich'

Mon Nov 7 22:25:29 GMT 2005

From: Henry Sinnreich <henry at pulver.com>
Date: November 7, 2005 3:44:53 PM EST
To: 'David Farber' <dave at farber.net>
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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