New World Order Celebrates Internet Handoff Oct 1
New World Order Celebrates Internet
Handoff Oct 1 -A lock icon, signifying an encrypted Internet connection, is
seen on an Internet Explorer browser in a photo illustration in Paris April 15,
2014.
A tiny branch of the U.S. Commerce
Department is preparing to hand over control of the Internet’s “address
book”—the highest level of the Domain Naming System, or DNS—to the Internet
Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, also know as ICANN, effective Oct.
1.
- The Los Angeles-based international nonprofit operates the database for domain names such as .com and .net and their corresponding numeric addresses that allow computers to connect.
- The U.S. Commerce Department currently oversees the Internet's management largely because it was invented in the United States.
- The contract with ICANN will lapse on October 1.
- Tech companies, technical experts, academics, have said the transition is overdue and necessary to keep the Internet open and globally oriented, and that the proposal includes safeguards against any potential abuse by any one country.
- Delaying the transition to the multistakeholder global community may also weaken U.S. credibility in future international negotiations at the United Nations and elsewhere about Internet standards and security, thus empowering countries like Russia and China, experts have said.
GOP LAWMAKERS ATTEMPTED TO STALL
HANDOFF
DNS control is causing deep
disagreement in the technology world, as experts in the industry
and academia have vastly different opinions on the issue. Some say
security and free use of the Internet is better under the umbrella of an
organization that resides in America, while others assert this power
should be given to a global organization.
The handover of oversight of
the Internet's technical management from the U.S. to a global community of
stakeholders would be a "gift to Russia" and other authoritarian
regimes, a senior Obama administration official said
The comments before a congressional
panel came as several Republican lawmakers are attempting to thwart the
changeover, arguing it would stifle online freedom and has not been
appropriately vetted.
"I urge you: Do not give a gift
to Russia and other authoritarian nations by blocking this transition,"
Lawrence Strickling, administrator of the U.S. Commerce Department's National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, told a Senate subcommittee.
The plan, announced in March 2014,
to transfer oversight of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, or ICANN, is expected to go forward unless Congress votes to
block the handover.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of
Texas, who convened and chaired Wednesday's hearing on the Internet, and other
Republicans who have argued in recent weeks that the transition would be a
"giveaway" of Internet control to Russia, China, and other
governments that censor Internet content.
"When ICANN escapes
from government authority, ICANN escapes from ... having to worry about
protecting your rights or my rights," Cruz said.
ICANN does not have the ability
to censor the Internet, the corporation's CEO Goran Marby said during the
hearing.
U.S. Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump opposes a long-planned transition of oversight of the internet's
technical management from the U.S. government to a global community of
stakeholders.