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

[parminder]

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.

The 'Public Knowledge' statement is also very clear on respective roles 
of different groups or stakeholders vis a vis the public policy role of 
governments. This is the single most contentious issue in global IG 
today..... A good rejoinder to all those 'all stakeholders are equal in 
public policy making processes' kind of dangerous anti-democracy 
statements, that this elist/group also seem to be rife with. 'Public 
Knowledge' takes a clear and strong position against such a formulation. 
IT for Change has since long warned that playing with democratic 
principles at the global level can have extremely dangerous consequences 
for national and local level democracy practices and principles.

what are basic democratic principles for local and national levels 
remain unchanged for global levels. We all know that facts as well 
possibilities at each level are different, and these have to be worked 
with, however, without breaching larger democratic principles (which are 
repeated sought to be breached in the name of MSism).... UN based 
multilateral systems are far from perfect (but so are are our national 
systems in different ways). But then the processes at multilateral 
levels are also different - for instance need for consensus for most 
processes, and the fact that almost always anything agreed to 
internationally becomes effective only when ratified, and that there are 
almost zero coercive implementation mechanisms in the hands of 
multilateral systems (expect for some of the kind which US routinely 
usurps, but that is a different matter). Still, the democratic practices 
at global levels should be further improved - with all kinds of new 
participative, transparency, accountability etc methods..... Which 
however is very different from using the pretext of 'democracy deficit' 
to institutionalise practices and institutions that are 'in principle' 
anit-democratic, like seeking that a corporation should have a similar 
voting power as a government in international policy making settings.

parminder


> 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 <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 
> <http://www.consumersinternational.org/> | 
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