EmptyTimCup
06-04-2012, 05:48 PM
Congressional Witnesses Agree: Multistakeholder Processes Are Right for Internet Regulation (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/congressional-witnesses-agree-multistakeholderism-right-way-regulate-internet)
Yesterday morning, the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing on "International Proposals to Regulate the Internet," focusing on the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), an important treaty-writing event set to take place in Dubai this December. The WCIT is organized by an UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a slow-moving and bureaucratic regulatory organization established in 1865 to oversee telegraph regulations. The ITU Member States adopted a legally binding set of telecommunication regulations in 1988, and now some countries are seeking to expand those regulations to cover the Internet.
Online anonymity, privacy and free expression are likely to be under attack under an ITU model. ITU officials have publically stated that anonymity shouldn't exist in the future. Moreover, countries like Russia and China, in particular, have been prominent advocates of codes of conduct that seek to protect national governmental powers over the Internet, including provisions that seek to censor the net.
It's worth noting though, that the threat posed by the ITU is not limited to an outright "takeover" by Russia or China. ITU's vision of Internet policy-making is more like "taking control" than the transparent and bottom-up multi-stakeholder process typically associated with Internet governance. The current negotiations, for example, consist of proposals being discussed under terms of secrecy, circumventing any transparent discussion. And much like the parties behind the unpopular IP regulations in trade agreements like ACTA and TPP, the ITU member states are also refusing to release documents that make up the amendments and preparatory materials that they will propose. We have also seen censorships and surveillance measures in the name of copyright enforcement or by authoritarian regimes, and both are a real problem.
To their credit, the witnesses at yesterday's hearing — including former Ambassador David Gross, Senior Manager of Public Policy for the Internet Society Sally Shipman Wentworth, and "father of the Internet" Vint Cerf — were all clear that the stakes were high, and that any process that decides the direction of the Internet must be based on a foundation of multistakeholderism.
Yesterday morning, the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing on "International Proposals to Regulate the Internet," focusing on the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), an important treaty-writing event set to take place in Dubai this December. The WCIT is organized by an UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a slow-moving and bureaucratic regulatory organization established in 1865 to oversee telegraph regulations. The ITU Member States adopted a legally binding set of telecommunication regulations in 1988, and now some countries are seeking to expand those regulations to cover the Internet.
Online anonymity, privacy and free expression are likely to be under attack under an ITU model. ITU officials have publically stated that anonymity shouldn't exist in the future. Moreover, countries like Russia and China, in particular, have been prominent advocates of codes of conduct that seek to protect national governmental powers over the Internet, including provisions that seek to censor the net.
It's worth noting though, that the threat posed by the ITU is not limited to an outright "takeover" by Russia or China. ITU's vision of Internet policy-making is more like "taking control" than the transparent and bottom-up multi-stakeholder process typically associated with Internet governance. The current negotiations, for example, consist of proposals being discussed under terms of secrecy, circumventing any transparent discussion. And much like the parties behind the unpopular IP regulations in trade agreements like ACTA and TPP, the ITU member states are also refusing to release documents that make up the amendments and preparatory materials that they will propose. We have also seen censorships and surveillance measures in the name of copyright enforcement or by authoritarian regimes, and both are a real problem.
To their credit, the witnesses at yesterday's hearing — including former Ambassador David Gross, Senior Manager of Public Policy for the Internet Society Sally Shipman Wentworth, and "father of the Internet" Vint Cerf — were all clear that the stakes were high, and that any process that decides the direction of the Internet must be based on a foundation of multistakeholderism.