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

Sun Apr 14 04:31:23 EDT 2013

On Saturday 13 April 2013 09:05 AM, Ian Peter wrote:
> 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.”

Public Knowledge's draft letter is most instructive of what has really 
been happening in the global IG space. How the term 'government control' 
has been deviously used to further entrench hegemonies, and a neoliberal 
paradigm. A paradigm of complete non regulation of the emerging 
'communication realm, put forward more appealingly as 'an Internet free 
from governmental control', was the name of the game at WCIT. Here the 
front of 'protecting Internet freedoms' was employed to cover the real 
geo-economic intentions of using the Internet as the new pillar of 
global domination by US and its allies. We raised this issue through an 
oped in a top Indian daily ' Hyping one threat to hide another 
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hyping-one-threat-to-hide-another/article4140922.ece>'. 

The chickens have now come home to roost, as we had predicted in the 
mentioned op-ed. Excuse me to quote it, I simply cant resist the 
temptation .

    "What is happening at the ITU today, in good measure, is this game
    of freeing our communication realm from all public interest
    regulation. As mentioned, it is about a new paradigm of ‘complete
    non-regulation.’ And once the victory is achieved at the ITU,
    whereby the Internet and other IP networks, which would soon be the
    basis of all communication infrastructure, are considered out of any
    kind of regulatory oversight, the game will then be replayed at the
    national level, citing ‘global norms.’ "

US civil society was most active seeking that Internet - and with it, 
really, all future communication systems - should 'completely' stay out 
of ITU's realm. (Just opposing China/ Russia proposals of 'national 
Internet segement' and national control of CIRs etc is a completely 
different matter. What was opposed was even references to Internet 
related universal service obligations, net neutrlaity and such things.) 
What was even more problematic was that civil society from most 
developing countries also joined the (apparently well- resourced) 
chorus. And now when this game of de-regulation of communicative realm 
plays out in our respective national domains, do give a thought to 
whether the manner in which the WCIT game got played was the right thing 
to do for progressive causes... There is yet opportunity to re-look at 
what is being done to our futures, especially those of the marginalised 
people,  in the name of 'Internet freedoms' and multistakeholderism.

parminder

> Certainly a number of US groups have opposed the language for this and 
> similar reasons.
> *From:* Jeremy Malcolm <mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:56 PM
> *To:* governance at lists.igcaucus.org 
> <mailto: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
>
> WCRD 2013 – Consumer Justice Now! | Consumer Protection Map: 
> https://wcrd2013.crowdmap.com/main | #wcrd2013
>
> @Consumers_Int | www.consumersinternational.org 
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