US diplomat: ‘Managing the Internet certainly not one of the UN’s roles’

Josh Peterson
The Daily Caller
5/30/2012

American policymakers met Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to discuss how international proposals to regulate the Internet would affect the U.S. and developing nations. That fate which may decided at a conference in Dubai in December.

Policymakers were adamant that the proposals to renegotiate a treaty that deregulated international telecommunications in 1988 through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a little-known U.N. agency responsible for the regulation of long-distance phone calls and satellite orbits, would be harmful to the developing nations.

Treaties are only binding on countries that agree to them, and American experts were emphatic that not only would the U.S. oppose the proposals to shift the Internet governance away from its current multi-stakeholder process, but also that it would work with allies in Latin America to oppose these proposals.

“At the outset, let me make one point perfectly clear: The administration, and of course the Department of State, firmly supports the position that the United Nations is not the place for the day-to-day technical operations of the Internet,” said Richard Beaird, Senior Deputy United States Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the State Department.

“We have made this point repeatedly, and we will continue to make it,” said Beaird…

The article continues at The Daily Caller.

Also at The Daily Caller, Film takes on horrors of UN corruption, Michael-Moore style

…“First of all, it is an incredibly opaque institution — they are essentially accountable to no one. That is a very dangerous combination for anything,” Horowitz said…

Update: You can sign a petition on Dick Morris’s website that will be sent to Congress to instruct the US to vote against UN control of the web. It is just one of many we’ve seen, so you have no excuse not to make your voices heard.

Update 2: US rejects proposal to put Internet under UN control

US officials, lawmakers and technology leaders offered a resounding “no” Thursday to proposals to bring the Internet under United Nations’ control and said they would lead efforts to stop the move.

At a congressional hearing, the comments were united in opposition to place the Internet under the jurisdiction of the International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency which governs telecom systems…

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