U.S. Senator: Keep U.N. away from the Internet

I do not trust the US government but I rather follow US law and regulations. The rules and regulation of Internet is voluntary. Other nations (and their computers) feels it is no longer in their interest to participate, they are free to disconnect themselves off the Internet (and if want to, create their own system).
Posted by anonymous on Wednesday, October 19 2005 11:59 PM

The internet should fractionalize and have interfaces limited by treaty, then we can keep what we have and they can build what they want, even if it turns out they eventually see the light and don't want it.

The UN is nothing more than a corrupt mob whose sole purpose is tearing down the West and distributing the rotting remains to the looters until they are gone. F the UN, they are no FUN.
Posted by BaRbArIaN on Thursday, October 20 2005 12:05 AM

Indeed, don't give any sort of control to the U.N., they'll simply break it, and letting nations like China and Iran have any say is a horrible idea.
Posted by Kaze on Thursday, October 20 2005 12:28 AM

You don't trust the US government but you trust US laws? I hate to break it to you, but but the US government is based on US law and must abide by it. I do agree with you though in principle - if a country doesn't like how the internet is being managed by ICANN, then make your own. The US poured millons into early versions of the internet, why give it away? The UN sucks, just like the League of Nations did from WWI.
Posted by anonymous on Thursday, October 20 2005 01:24 AM

Quote: the Internet would become "an instrument of censorship and political suppression."

Surely by supressing the creation of a .xxx domain the Bush administration is already performing an act of censorship. I guess what they mean is that someone else may be able to censor something they want to do!
Posted by anonymous on Thursday, October 20 2005 02:52 AM

Great: Nonbinding?

Is the UN going to attack this issue with non-binding rules? I don't think so.

And if you think the UN can maintain the net, you haven't seen the rapes, slaughters, and otherwise COMPLETE SCREW UPS the UN has become known for.

Make it binding, or don't waste my time.
Posted by Brian Fahrlander on Thursday, October 20 2005 06:05 AM

I dont understand why this even has to come up.
If something has been working for YEARS, why does anyone want change. Personally I only see self-satisfying leaders from countries trying to change to internet to what they want. I guess heavy filtering for China on the content of the internet isnt enough, now they want to control the whole internet. And about Iran, don't they have better things to be worrying about? Like how to stop people being stoned to death or something?
just my two cents.
Posted by Dzk on Thursday, October 20 2005 06:34 AM

No one nation can or should control the internet... It should never have become regulated, commercialized nor have some of it's chielf components/processes pantented. The truth is it's mathematical principle (and electical principles) that allow internet communications to take place, and this is the stuff of pure science. Companies owning the rights to it is nothing but a big power grab. If the U.S. wants to control what's within it's borders, fine. Let it cut itself off from the rest. But then leave the rest to their own devices too. I don't want the U.S. or the U.N controlling it. Put it back into the hands of grass-roots entities and pure scientific research.
Posted by D. Lee Sebantes on Thursday, October 20 2005 09:48 AM

Country-Code TLDs let Governments Control their own DNS space - If governments want to control DNS instead of letting ICANN or the IETF do it, they've got CCTLDs they can bully around to their hearts' content. The IETF *does* need to develop a workable international-character-set DNS extension, and once that's done, ICANN needs to let the COM/NET/ORG registries deploy it. But the rest of this whole argument is really about censorship and control, and neither the US nor the Chinese nor the Taliban should be doing that.
Posted by bill stewart on Thursday, October 20 2005 09:55 AM

If the Internet is International, it should be administered internationally - not by any one Nation. There are many people around the World who would consider the US an oppressive Nation
Posted by Mike Simmons on Thursday, October 20 2005 01:43 PM

Nations like China, North Korea, and Sudan are currently using software made in the US to censor the Internet within their respective nations. People in these countries can't access sites like Hotmail or Gmail, instead they have to use the goverenment sponsored (and monitored) e-mail systems.
Any US Senator saying that it is essential for the US to maintain control of the Internet in order for it to remain free is an oxymoron.
I wouldn't doubt that there are back doors built into those censorship programs, and that our intellegence organizations aren't taking adventage of them. Giving up control of the Internet could jeopardize a lot of things having to do with international security, whether or not the US should maintain that control, or turn it over to an international governing party with a record that is less than stellar is debatable.
Of course Americas government has been extremely disappointing just as well.
Posted by Tracy L Eckels on Thursday, October 20 2005 02:08 PM

agree with you Tracy... such rheotic statement "If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on."
does not make much sense other than protraying a self-righteous justification to a problem since we all know that many of these oppressive country control Internet Access and censorship.

That said, I don't wish another self-righteous organisation with bad record of political blickerings that is exceptionally beuracratic and slow in responding to any meaningful decision to hold the mantle.
Posted by Hans Lee on Thursday, October 20 2005 06:20 PM

Ummm. The Internet was first called ARPANET and was commissioned by the US military. I believe the US SHOULD control it.
Posted by anonymous on Thursday, October 20 2005 09:56 PM

The internet is global, who cares if the US "invented" it; it does not mean you own it. A Canadian invented the telephone, should Canada be the sole country to "own" all telephone networks? No. The US only built the internet framework in the US only, the rest of world built the other 90% of it.

And this bit about "let them have their internet and we'll have ours" is also foolish. What good would the internet be to anyone in that case?

Just because the UN has a few scandals in it (just as many as the US government, IMO), it does not mean it should be disbanded. Should the US government be disbaned? No. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a UN body which is an unparallelled success. If anything, it shows that the UN would do a great job running the internet.

Maybe the US should try working with the rest of the world instead of being jerks about everything.
Posted by MVP on Friday, October 21 2005 01:16 AM

To anonymous: Denying the creation of a new domain name, such as .xxx, is by no means the equivalent of censorship. Explicit material can and will still be available through the use of current domains.
Get a clue.
As long as the US maintains benevolent control the Status Quo should be protected.
Posted by anonymous on Monday, October 24 2005 06:59 AM

Better the Devil you know, then the one you don't! - SJ
Posted by Stephan on Monday, April 17 2006 05:38 AM

MVP, maybe you should mind your own business and keep out of ours. America the beautiful invented the internet, 100% of it and at considerable expense.
Posted by Dewd Iles on Monday, December 18 2006 11:06 AM

what a load of crap
this is where the problem resides, this is how governments and nations crumble, they let foreign influence get the better of them. if we were to let the UN stomp on the internet, the next thing you know we will have to have UN "peace keepers" in your house to prevent "internet terrorists." the UN is the biggest joke in the world today, when genocides such as darfur pop up, they say as long as they don't call it a genocide, they don't have to help them. UN troops arent even allowed to fire on enemy combatants in many different situations, and if they do they get discharged. something about irony i think. im not buying their bullshit, and i just want them to go die, like seriously, now.
Posted by anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2009 01:51 AM