[governance] Cerf: Internet Freedom under Attack

[Karl Auerbach]

On 05/23/2012 11:49 AM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:

> http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/228561-father-of-the-internet-warns-web-freedom-is-under-attack

Not to put too fine a point on it, but ICANN, from the day of its 
inception has been kow towing to the trademark, industrial, and 
governmental interests that are driving "law enforcement" into more and 
more corners of our lives and started to replace presumption of 
innocence with presumption of guilt in both civil and criminal contexts.

Since its birth 15 years ago threats to privacy, to democratic 
principles, to freedom of innovation, to due process, and to freedom of 
expression have been quite growing, quite visibly - and without shame - 
within ICANN.

And governments, particularly the US government, rejoiced at the notion 
that they could have a private arm to pursue goals that those government 
bodies could not, due to Constitutional limitations, do themselves.

The most interesting aspect of the concern expressed in the article is 
its lateness - the same concern could have been expressed with equal 
import at any time during the last 15 years.

I, personally, see the article as part of an anti-ITU campaign that has 
failed to ask an important threshold question - Are the ITU and ICANN 
really all that different?

I'd suggest that the difference is more in weights - that on the balance 
of influences the ITU weighs government expressions higher than those of 
industrial interests, and in ICANN the scales are reversed - but in 
neither is there much concern for public values, due process, or public 
voices.

 From where I sit I see merely a turf war between the US/ICANN and the 
ITU/rest-of-the-world; I don't see any white knights riding up to 
vindicate personal rights.

	--karl--

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