The proposal for Internet regulation has been gaining supporters outside of just the group of authoritarian countries that are pushing for its adoption. Brazil and India, for example, have joined Russia and China in backing aspects of the proposal. Together these four nations comprise the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), which is often poised as a counterweight to the power of the US and the European Union. Vinton Cerf commented that "Brazil and India have surprised me with their interest in intervening and vying for control [over the Internet]."9
Otherwise, Cerf noted that support for ITU regulation of the Net came from countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia, "who are threatened by openness and freedom of expression." He said these countries "are most interested in gaining control [over the Internet] through this treaty."10 It has not escaped the notice of the dictators and monarchs who rule these countries that the Internet and social media played key roles in the Arab Spring revolutions of recent years.
Under the one-nation, one-vote rules of the ITU, technologically backward and tiny countries can literally force the rest of the world to submit to regulation of the Internet! And don"t discount the very real possibility that Russian and Chinese leaders are working overtime to buy the votes of African, Latin American, Asian, and Oceanian nations. These countries, often with only very small Internet user populations, may have no stake in preserving Internet freedom and may be willing to sell it out for some financial reward (either to their countries or to themselves personally).
And what a welcome move Internet regulation would be for the petty tyrants and strongmen who rule most of Africa! The pesky revolutions and civil wars could be nipped in the bud by Internet controls. How happy they would be to rein in free speech so they can rule-and plunder-their populations in peace.
(See Part Ten in this book on the status of global freedom to understand how tyrants and dictators const.i.tute a majority of the membership of the UN.)
All this has led Cerf, one of the founders of the Web and currently a vice president of Google, to tell Congress recently that these proposals for regulation mean "the open Internet has never been at higher risk than it is now."11
Cerf warned, "If all of us do not pay attention to what"s going on, users worldwide will be at risk of losing the open and free Internet that has brought so much to so many."12
Cerf said the implications of the potential treaty regulating the Internet are "potentially disastrous." He added that more international control over the Net could trigger a "race to the bottom" to restrict Internet freedom, "choking innovation and hurting American business abroad."13
Richard Grenell, who served as spokesman and adviser to four US amba.s.sadors to the UN between 2001 and 2009, said that "having the UN or any international community regulate the Internet only means you"re going to have the lowest common denominator of 193 countries."14
We would not know of this plan to squelch Internet freedom but for a courageous-and still anonymous-leaker who unveiled a 212-page planning doc.u.ment that Crovitz, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reports is "being used by governments to prepare for the December conference."
The leak materialized when Jerry Brito and Eli Dourado, George Mason University researchers, frustrated by the secrecy of the talks, created a website called WCITLeaks.org and invited anyone with access to doc.u.ments outlining the UN proposals to post them online "to foster greater transparency."15
That those who would protect the freedom of the Internet had to go to such lengths to find out what is being contemplated is itself a scandal. Why on earth would the delegates from the United States and the European democracies consent to secret negotiations and allow the doc.u.ments and proposals being distributed to be shielded from public view or scrutiny? These talks do not concern top-secret military or intelligence matters. There is no valid reason for having kept them secret. But the fact that the Western delegates consented to the gag order indicates how supinely they are confronting this threat to freedom.
Of course, the autocratic nations want to negotiate to squelch the Internet in secret. Secrecy for the likes of the rulers in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran is the norm. The last thing they would want is for their own people to know of their efforts to keep the truth from them. And, these tyrants must realize that exposure of their plans would help to doom them. (That"s why we wrote this book!)
Dourado-one of the two courageous men who facilitated the leak-explained that "these proposals show that many ITU member states want to use international agreements to regulate the Internet by crowding out bottom-up inst.i.tutions, imposing charges for international communication, and controlling the content that consumers can access online."16
Crovitz, one of the only journalists covering this horrific development, notes that "the broadest proposal in the draft materials is an initiative by China to give countries authority over "the information and communication infrastructure within their state" and require that online companies "operating in their territory" use the Internet "in a rational way"-in short, to legitimize full government control."17
The Internet Society, which represents the engineers around the world who keep the Internet functioning, says this proposal "would require member states to take on a very active and inappropriate role in patrolling" the Internet.18
Crovitz reports other proposals in the planning doc.u.ment:
"Give the UN power to regulate online content for the first time, under the guise of protecting against computer malware or spam.
"Russia and some Arab countries want to be able to inspect private communications such as email.
"Russia and Iran propose new rules to measure Internet traffic along national borders and bill the originator of the traffic, as with international phone calls. That would result in new fees to local governments and less access to traffic from US "originating" companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple. A similar idea has the support of European telecommunications companies, even though the Internet"s global packet switching makes national tolls an anachronistic idea.
"Another proposal would give the UN authority over allocating Internet addresses. It would replace Icann [Internet Corporation for a.s.signed Names and Numbers], the self-regulating body that helped ensure the stability of the Internet, under a contract from the US Commerce Department."19 Currently, nongovernmental inst.i.tutions, including ICANN, oversees the Web"s management and its technical standards.
The Russian and Chinese justification for Internet censorship-that it would fight hacking (at which they are the world"s masters)-is specious. Congressmen Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Jim Langevin (D-RI), the cochairs of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, note that "[i]t must be made clear that efforts to secure the Internet against malicious hacking do not need to interfere with this freedom and the United States will oppose any attempt to blur the line between the two."20
China"s stated rationale for its efforts to regulate the Internet is preposterous. The tyrants of Beijing say that their proposal "raises a series of basic principles of maintaining information and network security which cover the political, military, economic, social, cultural, technical and other aspects." The government statement continued: "The principles stipulate that countries shall not use such information and telecom technologies to conduct hostile behaviors and acts of aggression or to threaten international peace and security and stress that countries have the rights and obligations to protect their information and cybers.p.a.ce as well as key information and network infrastructure from threats, interference, and sabotage attacks."21
This statement comes from the government that, more than any other, tries to interfere with and sabotage the Internet. Beijing employs tens of thousands of specially trained hackers whose job is to pry loose military and technological secrets from American and European governments and companies. Now this Internet pirate-regime is calling for greater "security"!
But the reality, of course, is that the only "hostile behavior" or "act of aggression" that is likely to invade Chinese cybers.p.a.ce is the truth. Facts, accurate reporting, correct data, and public debate are the only acts of aggression China is trying to regulate. Indeed, China wants the ITU to collect IP addresses of Internet users so it can identify dissidents, whom it will move to suppress.
AMERICA SEEMS TO BE ACQUIESCING
As you are reading these outrageous proposals, you are probably saying to yourself what we said when we first saw them-that the United States and the European Union would never permit these changes and regulations to take effect.
But not so fast. Crovitz reports that while the leaked doc.u.ments suggest that US negotiators are objecting to the regulatory changes behind closed doors, they are doing so "politely."22
Very politely. Apparently, the US called the Chinese proposals for Internet control "both unnecessary and beyond the appropriate scope" of UN regulation. Then, to soften the blow, the leaked doc.u.ment notes that "the US looks forward to a further explanation from China with regard to the proposed amendments, and we note that we may have further reaction at that time."23
American delegates also objected to proposals to give the ITU a role in regulating Internet content, tamely noting that they do "not believe" the ITU can play such a role.
Crovitz writes that the American objections are "weak responses even by Obama administration standards."24
From Washington, the Obama administration"s response to the Internet governance proposals has been muted and laggard. Amba.s.sador Phil Verveer, deputy a.s.sistant secretary of state for international communications and information policy, noted that some of the pending proposals, if adopted, "could limit the Internet as an open and innovative platform by potentially allowing governments to monitor and restrict content or impose economic costs upon international data flows."25
But, in the next breath, he denied that any of the pending proposals would give the ITU "direct Internet governance authority."26
Verveer"s circ.u.mspection in attacking the regulatory proposals-and his use of wording such as "could limit" and "potentially allow"-indicates less than hard and fast opposition. And the administration"s willingness to keep secret the negotiations themselves suggests that Hillary Clinton"s State Department and Barack Obama"s White House may be slender reeds to rely on in keeping the Internet open and free.
Both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama owe us an explanation of why they countenanced secrecy in these negotiations during which our free speech is on the line!
Indeed, as of this writing, the only statement from the administration on the possible UN Internet controls came from a May 2, 2012, blog entry by the White House"s Office of Science and Technology Policy, which read: "Centralized control [of the Internet] would threaten the ability of the world"s citizens to freely connect and express themselves by placing decision-making power in the hands of global leaders who have demonstrated a clear lack of respect for the right of free speech."27
Again, what is worrying is the muted nature of the administration"s objections. So radical a proposal as to put the Internet under UN control and to give Russia and China the ability to restrict the flow of information to their citizens would seem to call for opponents to be shouting their objections from the rooftops. Instead, there has been no presidential statement or comment from Secretary Clinton, just a blog entry by a minor White House office.
Fortunately, a more robust response to this erosion of Internet freedom came from the House of Representatives, where a bipartisan group of congressmen on the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced a resolution calling on the Obama administration to oppose efforts to turn the Internet over to UN regulation. The resolution called on the US delegation to the ITU talks to "promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet today."28
The resolution is sponsored by Representative Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and has the support of Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), and ranking subcommittee member Anna Eshoo (D-CA).
Sounding a clarion call, Congresswoman Bono Mack said that "[t]his year, we"re facing an historic referendum on the future of the Internet. For nearly a decade, the United Nations quietly has been angling to become the epicenter of Internet governance. A vote for my resolution is a vote to keep the Internet free from government control and to prevent Russia, China, India and other nations from succeeding in giving the UN unprecedented power over Web content and infrastructure."29
Bono Mack warns: "If this power grab is successful, I"m concerned that the next "Arab Spring" will instead become a "Russian winter," where free speech is chilled, not encouraged, and the Internet becomes a wasteland of unfilled hopes, dreams and opportunities. We can"t let this happen."30
The resolution"s Democratic cosponsor, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, added that "this resolution reaffirms our belief and sends a strong message that international control over the Internet will uproot the innovation, openness and transparency enjoyed by nearly 2.3 billion users around the world."31
More and more voices are suddenly speaking out against the UN regulation of the Internet. At a congressional hearing in June 2012, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell asked, "Does anyone here today believe that these countries" [Russia"s and China"s] proposals would encourage the continued proliferation of an open and freedom-enhancing Internet?"32
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) said that an "international regulatory intrusion into the Internet would have disastrous results, not only for the US, but for folks around the world."33
But statements from American politicians are not going to derail this effort at global censorship. Only the full mobilization of the more than two billion Internet users worldwide will suffice. It is time they learned of the threat to their liberty and battled to defeat it!