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

[Milton L Mueller]

On the contrary, I knew that Eshoo had expressed concerns but also that those concerns had been ignored: the Public Knowledge website is helpful in including booth Eshoo's letter (A) and a blog about how it fared (B).

A: http://www.publicknowledge.org/files/Letter%20to%20Chairman%20Walden%20from%20Ranking%20Member%20Eshoo%2002-25-13.pdf
B: http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/will-walden-wipe-out-dmca-just-hack-net-neutr


[Milton L Mueller] By "ignored" you mean that Rep. Walden refused to modify his principle to make an exception for U.S. forms of control. Which is all to the good. The principle stands. Harold Feld's (PK) attempt to scare everyone away from that consistency by asserting that opposing government control of the internet consistently will lead to the collapse of all legal authority and law enforcement is pretty obviously a desperate attempt to divert attention from the self-contradiction that lies at the heart of US attempts to have their cake and eat it, too. As my blog points out, either Feld/PK have reverted to a cyber-nationalism which should lead them to support ITU efforts, or they are being inconsistent and US-centric.

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...

[Milton L Mueller] What other countries are you talking about? China? Russia? Saudi Arabia? U.A.E.? Iran? What kind of compromise are you talking about? Concessions to "government control?" Perhaps a bit more government control than we have now in order to keep the Saudis happy?

No, resuming the unfinished work of the WGIG and WSIS towards a model of enhanced cooperation in Internet governance policy making, as now before the new CSTD working group.

[Milton L Mueller] I think the bill provides a good principle to guide that "unfinished work." You know, or should know, that most of the countries pushing for "enhanced cooperation" want governments to assume a greater role in making and enforcing "public policy" for the global internet. Or as the ITU SG put it in his WTPF report, [some believe that] "with regards to international Internet-related public policy, the role of one stakeholder - Governments - has not been allowed to evolve according to WSIS principles . . . They consider this to be one reason for ongoing challenges in dealing with various issues (e.g., exploitation of children, security, cyber-crime and spam, etc)." Remember that "WSIS Principles" under the TA means that governments are the primary source of Internet public policy, and the rest of us provide "input" which they may utilize as they see fit. So we truly NEED a statement of the principle that IG should not lead to "government control of the internet." Tell me again why you oppose that?

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130416/3eeef6f7/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t