[governance] US House Bill to Affirm the Policy of the United States Regarding Internet Governance

[Ian Peter]

yes, the concept of no government involvement is nonsense. The Public Knowledge response (or draft response, it may have changed) included the following. Not that I entirely agree with it, but it makes some relevant points about the language.

“ we fear that the broad language of the proposed bill may
intrude on areas of consumer protection, competition policy, law enforcement and
cybersecurity long considered appropriate for national policy formulated by governments
with input from civil society, business and the technical community. For example, the
United States has by law protected the privacy of children online through Child Online
Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) for nearly 15 years. Although we opposed the ITU
resolution to require countries to limit spam, the United States protects its citizens from
spam through the CAN-SPAM Act. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), the Department of Justice and numerous other
federal and state agencies have long played a critical role in protecting consumers and
promoting competition and their existing statutes.
We fear that if this bill becomes law, rather than being understood as simply a resolution
directed specifically against the efforts to expand the jurisdiction of the ITU, these
important and long-standing government policies will be undermined. Our opposition to
ceding authority to the ITU to decide how to balance consumer protection and free
expression is not because we see no role for government in protecting consumers or
promoting competition. Rather, we believe those matters are best decided here at home,
by a Congress accountable to the people and enforced by a government constrained by
the Constitution. Similarly, many who oppose addressing cybersecurity or law
enforcement issues at the ITU regard it as entirely appropriate for Congress or other
federal agencies to address these concerns, subject to the Constitutional limitations of due
process and free expression.”

Certainly a number of US groups have opposed the language for this and similar reasons.

From: Jeremy Malcolm 
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:56 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org 
Subject: [governance] US House Bill to Affirm the Policy of the United States Regarding Internet Governance

It doesn't seem to have been mentioned here yet (or maybe only in passing) that there is a bill on Internet governance being debated in the Energy & Commerce Committee of the US House of Representatives at the moment.  There will doubtless be stampede of uncritical support for it from politicians of all sides (there is no hidden intellectual property "gotcha"), but unfortunately its premises are fundamentally flawed.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/markup/markup-bill-affirm-policy-united-states-regarding-internet-governance

It only has two sections: one on "Findings" and one on "Policy regarding Internet governance", which flows from the findings.  The latter simply states:

"It is the policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet."

So this is obviously nonsense; it is not US policy to promote a global Internet free from government control, only free from the control of other governments besides itself.  And note that US policy is only to "preserve and advance" not to "enhance" the multistakeholder model, which continues the fiction that the multistakeholder institutions that we have now are adequate both in their inclusiveness and in the breadth of Internet governance topics that they cover.

Of course, you can argue for more beneficial interpretations by defining "control" and "multistakeholder model" expansively, but even so this bill is just going to entrench the standoff between the US and other countries, which is not going to be helpful in reaching compromise on the evolution of Internet governance arrangements this year...

-- 

Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers
Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599


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