The Battle for Internet Control
The U.S. is considering its options in response to the United Nations’ move to increase its influence over the Internet, as politics appear poised to decide the course of worldwide online freedom.
What Happened
The House and Energy Committee will likely approve a resolution against the U.N.’s efforts to strengthen its International Telecommunications Union, or ITU.
“A vote for my resolution is a vote to keep the Internet free from government control and to prevent Russia, China, and other nations from succeeding in giving the U.N. unprecedented power over Web content and infrastructure,” wrote author Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.)
Bono Mack and other lawmakers warn strengthening the U.N.’s ITU may give its 193 member countries more control over international online activities after the World Conference on International Telecommunications, scheduled for December in Dubai.
U.S. NGOs like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, currently oversee worldwide online regulations separately from government intervention. Strengthening the ITU, however, could weaken ICANN, shifting the power of those who influence Internet guidelines to governments.
What Really Happened
The preparation for WCIT is officially secret, but the WCITLeaks site recently revealed several countries’ plans to leverage ITU power for their own gain should it expand in December.
These leaks suggest increased ITU leadership will negatively impact international Internet freedom, leaving ordinary people with little recourse against government surveillance. For example, the European Telecommunications Network Operators association allegedly plan to tax Internet content providers with long-distance rates, while China and Russia aim to watch internal online traffic for “criminal” activity if the ITU expands.
In addition, India hopes to create a 50-member U.N.-backed censorship committee to cut “offensive” online content from the country’s Internet.
“These proposals show that many ITU member states want to use international agreements to regulate the Internet by crowding out bottom-up institutions, imposing charges for international communication, and controlling the content that consumers can access online,” summarized Eli Dourado, WCITLeaks co-founder.
What’s Next
Dourado’s observations suggest the WCIT conference will be a heated one, as its outcome will decide the fate of worldwide online freedom.
Bono-Mack’s proposal and WCITLeaks may sway U.S. lawmakers and their supporters to rally against the U.N.’s proposal, which may affect U.S. citizens as well as those in other countries.
Under new ITU permissions, the U.S. government could legally exert control over online activities, something China and Russia are eager to do as well.
“Who benefits from increased ITU oversight of the Internet? Certainly not ordinary users in foreign countries, who would then be censored and spied upon by their governments with full international approval. The winners would be autocratic regimes, not their subjects,” Dourado observed.
The Takeaway
In light of this possibility, some like former Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz, view Bono-Mack’s proposal as too soft in its criticism of the ITU.
“It may be hard for the billions of Web users or the optimists of Silicon Valley to believe that an obscure agency of the U.N. can threaten their Internet,” Crovitz wrote, “but authoritarian regimes are busy lobbying a majority of the U.N. members to vote their way. The leaked documents disclose a U.S. side that has hardly begun to fight back. That’s no way to win this war.”
Dourado also hints the U.S. may be tepid in criticizing U.N. plans since it stands to benefit from them.
“I hope that the awareness we raise through WCITLeaks,” Dourado wrote, “will not only highlight how foolish the U.S. government is for playing the lose-lose game with the ITU, but how hypocritical it is for preaching Net freedom while spying on, censoring, and regulating its own citizens online.”
Ordinary people may not pay much attention to the U.N.’s plans, but WCITLeaks hopes to raise awareness about this issue before the ITU jeopardizes Internet freedom.