[governance] Internet blackout in Egypt

[Carlos A. Afonso]

Sorry, McTim, this can happen in any sector in any country in which a
government decides to do so in a crisis situation, be it right, just,
democratic or, as in this case, dictatorial. When the USA invaded Iraq
all communications were cut except for the US military and the "embedded
media", just to quote a somewhat more extreme example. The USA
government has already explicitly mentioned moves to "shut down" the
Internet in a crisis.

So, it demonstrates nothing of this sort... We need other arguments to
keep our struggle for multiskaholder governance of the Net. Our major
worry regarding the "influence" or control of the State over the
Internet is what is happening on a day-to-day basis in major countries
(like the USA, with the COICA proposal, in France, in England etc) which
can in practice draw dozens of other countries' governments to the same
trend.

--c.a.

On 01/28/2011 08:55 AM, McTim wrote:
> This is why its madness to comtenplate giving govts MORE control over
> things Internety. Rgds, McTim
> 
> On 1/28/11, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>> Today may turn out to be a historic day for Egypt...
>>
>>
>> Pl read below.
>>
>> AP: "The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark"
>>
>> http://bit.ly/gCJFHt  (AP / MSN)
>>
>>    "The Internet blackout in Egypt shows that a country with strong
>>     control over its Internet providers apparently can force all of
>>     them to pull their plugs at once, something that Cowie called
>>     'almost entirely unprecedented in Internet history.'"
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
> 
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