FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2003
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

THE UN IS PUSHING FOR CONTROL OF THE INTERNET

Yup .. you got it. There is a move afoot to turn the control of the Internet over to a United Nations agency. You can almost imagine the arguments. Right now the names and Internet URLs are assigned and controlled by an American entity. Most of the computing power that drives the Internet is located in the United States. In a situation like this it is easy to develop various conspiracy theories pointing to U.S. efforts to keep undeveloped and developing countries down by denying them full access to the Internet and manipulating Internet access for the benefit of America's friends. It doesn't matter whether these claims are true (they're not) or untrue. It just matters that charges like this resonate with America's haters around the world.

This move was inevitable. For the most part the Internet knows no international boundaries. Someone in Croatia can order a book from a Japanese book store with a few mouse clicks. A villager in Uganda can voice an opinion on a Hollywood chat line in seconds. These capabilities are not going to escape those who would like to establish a one-world government through the UN. In their minds anything with the international reach of the Internet simply has to be regulated and controlled by the United Nations.

And just how does the UN feel about things such as freedom of speech and freedom of expression? Just read the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sure, right there in Article 19 it says that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression." It also says that everyone has the right "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Even if the UN did control the Internet we would be assured of our freedom to seek, receive and impart information, right?

Not so fast. You need to read a little further. Just read Article 29 Section 3. Here, I'll print it for you:

"These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

Do you need me to translate? This section says that your freedom of speech, your freedom of expression, and your freedom to "seek, receive and impart information" cannot be exercised if you would interfere with the "purposes and principles of the United Nations," whatever those are.

Remember also that the United Nations has recently determined that some forms of "hate speech" can actually be war crimes. Now ... define "hate speech." And while you're working on that definition remember that liberals, the very people who love the United Nations and who feel that we should turn over our sovereignty to this august organization, would tell you that the very idea expressed on this web page are "hate speech."

Yeah ... UN control of the Internet would certainly be something to look forward too. Not only would web site content end up being censored, but you could also look for other goodies such as a UN imposed sales tax on all Internet transactions to fund UN activities around the world .. activities that usually work against the interests of the United States.

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I don't know about the rest of you but sites with names that end in "z" or contain words like "nuze" don't fill me with confidence as to the accuracy of their content (or intent for that matter).

(1) that is increasingly less true - "dot com" is no longer the only address, for one thing - The US has nothing to do with "dot ca" names, just as one example.
(2) anything the UN wants to actually do is extremely unlikely to happen - it's pretty clear by now that the UN has lost virtually all credibility and all the power they once had to actually make a decision and do something meaningful on the world scene - it's basically become like a book club now - they meet once in a while, make a lot of meaningless speeches, and then go home and try to sober up...

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I hope your right. I'm not sure what they could do but I'm sure no good would come from it.

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minstrel said:janeth then said:Okay, let's see where we are..H-h-m-m--mmmm..Yes, I believe we are in the IT forum, not the "Break from Reality" room so I think he has a very good chance of being right, and I agree with his reasoning.

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Thank you Mik... thank goodness you're back - Janeth has been picking on me... it was just a matter of time before Mat and Wen joined in.

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I think maybe mikmik has been siting on minstrel coach.

minstrel is always right
minstrel is always right
minstrel is always right


Did he give you a type to listen to mikmik?

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I rather like the sound of that... just keep repeating that phrase, Janeth - I wonder if I can get my sons doing that too? ;-)

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Just give them a copy of the type you gave mik

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minstrel gets a rescue from mikmik this time: Must be terrible!
Janeth, do you like jello?
janeth is suspiscious!Sitting, reclining, sleeping... In fact, I pay by the month; RENT!
I just got evicted from my 'cranial consultant' (my psychiatrisr) here in Kelowna.

And, yes, whatever you said about a-h-h....GOOGLE, I agree, unless you didn't want me to.
(shhh - we got in trouble going off topic over here...I think! http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php...er=asc&start=0

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Yes this is Brittany side of the forum here and I'm telling on both of you.


But I eat the jello no matter what it has to say.

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I would have to concurr with Minstrel 100% on all counts on this one.

The term "Nuze" in their title doesn't support a great deal of professionalism on the part of the source. It projects adolescent ~ "I'm trying to be cute in my site title," ~ attitude.

Although, I can't state with any authority, that the US doesn't have any control over foreign domains, I can state that I've never encountered one offered on application for domain name here in the US. We have the usual choices of .com, .net, .org, .edu, .biz, .gov, and we are limited to .us in the country of origin race. It has likewise been my experience that if you try and plug something they don't offer from the list into the application, it'll spit you out real quick!

As for comments on the UN itself, I too think they probably have enough problems on their hands without worrying about the Internet. There are likely those that think they should control the Internet within the body of the UN, however I would have to question whether they have any authority to control it. Is it owned by the US Government? If so wouldn't take over be considered a hostile act toward the US, unless it was surrendered, which I'm sure the government here, would have the same concerns regarding freedom of speech under UN authority? By the same respect, I don't honestly believe the Internet is "owned and operated" by the Government. (They can't even control it.) Thus, I would have to conclude it is owned and operated privately, although the Government no doubt does utilize it, wherein the UN certainly has no authority to assume control of it.

Looking at it from a realistic point of view, who exactly is the governing body of the internet? I honestly don't know! I can tell you W3C would like to be; but who is W3C? As for ownership... no one entity, agency, company owns all of the transmission lines, satellites, servers, etc. It's all individually owned and inter-connected to form a global network, and that would be difficult if not impossible to take over, let alone control.

If there's any validity in this report I would assume that it ends at certain members of the UN having maybe discussed the possibility of an Internet take over to serve their goals, nothing more.

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Whether this is true or not. The internet is the property of the HUMAN RACE...not those who Allegedly Govern us (well dictate to us). Control would take away our freedom. That isn't to say that certain 'nasty' parts of the net shouldn't be managed ( some should be banned completely), because they should...but total control by any official body smacks of '1984' and we don't want that !!!

The problem is most goverments only want you to think your free but really want to control you.

I'm sure the goverment would love to control everything we do online and tax us for doing it.

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This is for mikmik, Rocky and minstrel

You where all wrong

http://www.whois.sc/news/2003-12/un-icann.html

How do you say your where right Janeth

UN Internet coming soon?
December 8th, 2003
By John Zaracostas

GENEVA -- The United States, backed by the European Union, Japan and Canada, has turned back a bid by developing nations to place the Internet under the control of the United Nations or its member governments.

But governments, the private sector and others will be asked to
establish a mechanism under U.N. auspices to study the governance of the Internet and make recommendations by 2005.

The move came in preparatory talks for the World Summit on the Information Society, opening Wednesday in Geneva. More than 200 delegates from more than 100 countries attended the talks.

The draft declaration to be issued at the end of the conference Friday also includes strong references to freedom of the press and freedom of information online, despite protests by Vietnam and China, which pushed for more restrictions.

More than 60 heads of state and government and about 12,000
delegates are expected to participate in the conference, aimed at
advancing the management and worldwide use of the Internet, especially in meeting needs such as health and education in developing nations.

Major differences remain between developed countries and African countries led by Senegal over the creation of a "global digital solidarity fund." Talks on the issue will continue today and tomorrow.

Ambassador David A. Gross, the chief of the U.S. delegation,
applauded the decision on control of the Internet.

"For the first time, we see governments internationally recognizing that which we have talked about for many years -- that the Internet is a responsibility not only of governments, but also primarily of the private sector, civil society and others both in the developed and the developing countries," he said.

"So we see now a consensus around the U.S. position, which is that multistakeholders all play an important role in the process."

The nations agreed Saturday to ask U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up a working group on Internet governance "in an open and inclusive process that ensures a mechanism for the full participation of governments, the private sector and civil society ... to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, by 2005."

The decision was welcomed by Paul Twomey, president and chief
executive officer of the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which coordinates such matters as servers and domain names.

"This has been a victory for the pro-business model," he said. "I think this language is actually very pleasing. ..."

"We think the action plan reflects the sort of argument we've been making for the last months. The partnership of the private sector and civil society has actually helped build the Internet, and we think that's the right sort of partnership for going forward."

Civil society refers to foundations and private organizations
independent of government or business.

Senior diplomats familiar with the confidential talks said the compromise stemmed from the firm stance taken by the United States and compromise language offered by Canada and the Swiss chairman of the talks, Marc Furrer. The latter is the director of Switzerland's Federal Office of Communications.

"The Swiss were good at cooling things down," said one diplomat who participated in the talks. "At times, things got quite feisty between China, Brazil, South Africa, the U.S. and others."

Given the dramatic growth of the medium, developing countries have been pushing for a greater role in managing and setting policy for the Internet. But the United States and its supporters have argued that government interference could retard growth of the Internet.

Many developing countries remain skeptical.
"We feel as the system gets more complex, we don't want the whole question of Internet governance to be concentrated around the existing ICANN, which is closely linked to the U.S. Department of Commerce," a senior Brazilian diplomat said.

Carlos Achiary, national director of Information Technology
Argentina, said many governments are frustrated because the Internet is having a tremendous effect in their countries, but they have no place to submit their requests, complaints or suggestions.

"The key point is, can a government work with an organization like ICANN? How a government deals with ICANN is not the same for the United States as for Mali. There should be an entity where all governments have the same rights somewhere inside the U.N."

But in the end, one Latin American ambassador said, "No one wanted to challenge the real power of the private sector of the rich countries."

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I see your news story about the UN talking about stuff - that's what they do: they talk about stuff. It's been a while since they actually agreed about anything or did anything...

So the internet is US controlled and the UN wants to change that?

So... more of the same? Let's get 60 heads of state together along with 12,000 delegates and talk about this for the next 20 years, while in the meantime people continue to starve to death, to have their civil rights violated, and to be slaughtered - this will give all those UN delegates something to do while they're busy ignoring all that.

"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled."
-- Barnett Cocks

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Minstrel you left out your first sentence

I don't know about the rest of you but sites with names that end in "z" or contain words like "nuze" don't fill me with confidence as to the accuracy of their content (or intent for that matter).

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That's true. You were right about that - the UN is evidently talking about it - and will no doubt continue to do so.

so... are you ready for this?

Janeth was right.. :o)

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I was very new to WPW at the time that the UN Conference was going on and reading about it in the news, etc., and didn't realize that this thread existed -- the Chicago Conference about Search Engines was happening during the same week, and most of the focus on this site was over that and the Google Dance, etc.

The UN Summit in Geneva was actually a fairly important conference for a number of reasons and will not really be going away as there are some fundamental issues that deeply affect the true globalization of the world -- haves vs havenots, industrialized nations vs emerging nations. The UN has become the forum for emerging African nations to at least whine and bellyache--not to minimalize some very real and pressing issues that Africa faces.

One of the strangest issues of the internet is that nations afflicted with poverty and all of its attendant companions of disease, starvation, and civil war have little or no infrastructure for being online. Yet, they perceive that they are being left out and left behind. Which they are. It does require electricity and telephone lines at the very least -- in otherwords, it requires a level of urbanization.

It also requires literacy, literacy in any language, and many of the smaller ethnic groups do not have a translated language that is part of the computer world. There is a profound issue of whether or not bringing literacy to the Third World will require that they learn English, Spanish, or Fremch as these are the primary languages of the net.

China, which not only has a huge proportion of the world's population, has over a 100 ethnic languages; however, it learned at least 2,000 years ago a method of bridging this divide -- Mandarin. It's considering starting it's own internet as much of what is relevant to the Western world isn't relevant to them; so, why bother to translate.

The internet is a dagger to the heart of many countries and cultures that didn't even have a centralized government 40 years ago, let alone a government based on any Western principles that include free exchange of information. This is not an easy topic for them to grapple with and has profound possibilities.

It's quite possible that what we'll see as the next wave for the internet in non-urbanized regions will be conducted through the cellphone. Just as some of us bypassed 8-track tapes -- went from vinyl discs to cassette tapes, in the ever-changing world of media format; they may