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

[Milton L Mueller]

Jeremy:
By now you should be aware that the bill was amended to remove the clause about opposing “government control of the Internet.” This suggests to me that you are wrong about it being bogus.

Faced with a choice between articulating a global public policy principle that could be used to challenge some of the US government’s own special powers and gutting the bill so that it only contains an anodyne expression of support for “the multistakeholder model,” the U.S. congress chose the latter.

I’ll blog on this topic in more detail, but to me their need to delete it due to the concerns expressed by Rep. Eshoo bolsters my feeling that it was a good principle.

The analogy with the USSR (or Chinese) constitution is quite bogus, however, because there was no freedom of expression in USSR so public advocacy could not call attention to the contradiction between the principle and the reality. In the U.S. that would not be the case.

From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Malcolm
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 11:15 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] US House Bill to Affirm the Policy of the United States Regarding Internet Governance

On 16/04/13 23:10, Milton L Mueller wrote:

[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.
...

[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. ... 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?

Because from this source, it is bogus.  It's like the old constitution of the USSR which said things like "citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations".  The meaning that it bears on its face is so palpably at variance with the way it is applied that to say is little more than an insult.  The only good point I can see about this is that it will highlight how bald-faced is the US government's hypocrisy on control of the Internet, but it was pretty apparent already anyway.
--

Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
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