Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers

Newsmax:

By: Bradley A. Blakeman

Without the ingenuity of America’s brightest minds and the investment of
U.S. Taxpayer dollars, there would be no Internet, as we now know it today.

Now, the Obama administration has quietly moved to cede control of the web from the United States to foreign powers.

Some background. The Internet came into being thanks to the genius work ofAmerican's, Dr.Robert E. Kahn and Dr. Vinton G. Cerf. These men while employed by the Department of Defense in the DARPA office, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), in the early 1970’s, went to work conceiving, designingand implementing the idea of ‘open-architecture networking’. This breakthrough in connectivity and networking was the birth of the Internet.

These two gentlemen had the vision and the brainpower to create a worldwide computer Internet communications network that forever changed the world and how we communicate in it.

They discovered that by providing a person with a unique identifier,
(TCP/IP), which was able to be recognized and interact through a network of servers, all users then could communicate amongst themselves and with
others. The servers would recognize the identifier and connect networks-to-networks, (utilizing a series of giant servers), that would pass on information from computer to computer in a seamless real-time exchange of information. This new process of communication became know as the
'information super highway', a.k.a., the Internet.

Now for the bad news - in an effort to show the World how 'inclusive',
'sharing', 'cooperative' and 'international' America can be, the Obama administration set off on a plan to surrender control and key management of
the Internet by the U.S. Department of Commerce and their agents.

The key to control America has over the Internet is through the management
of the Domain Name System and the giant servers that service the Internet.
Domain names are managed through an entity named IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. The IANA operates on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The IANA is responsible for the global coordination of the DNS, IP addressing and other Internet protocol resources. In short, without an IP Address or other essential Internet protocols, a person or entity would not have access to the Internet.

For years the International Community has been pressuring the United States
to surrender its control and management of the Internet. They want an International body such as the United Nations or even the International
Telecommunications Union, (an entity that coordinates international telephone communications), to manage all aspects of the Internet in behalf of all nations.

The argument advanced for those seeking International control of the Internet is that the Internet has become such a 'powerful', 'pervasive', and a 'dependent' form of international communications, that it would be dangerous and inequitable for any one nation to control and manage it.

Just this past spring within months of Obama taking office, his administration, through the Department of Commerce, agreed to relinquish some control over IANA and their governance. The Obama Administration has agreed to give greater representation to foreign companies and countries on IANA.

This amounts to one small step for Internationalism and one giant leap for surrendering America¹s control over an invention we have every right and responsibility to control and manage. It is in America¹s economic and national security interests NOT to relinquish any control we currently are responsible for regarding the control, operation and functionality of one of
the modern world's greatest inventions and most powerful communications
network.

What better country to protect the Internet than the United States? We
invented it, and we paid for the research and implementation that made it
possible. We are the freest most tolerant nation on earth, we believe in the
fundamental right of free speech, and practice a free market of commerce and ideas. America has always been against censorship and has shared its
invention with the world without fee or unreasonable or arbitrary restriction. The user fee to operate on the Internet is not one paid to the U.S. Government; a consumer pays it to private Internet companies, who provide access to the Internet through servers for their subscribers.

Look no further than the recent move by China against Google to censor the
Internet and you can envision what can happen when other nations less free
than the U.S. seek to control the Internet beyond even their own borders.

America needs to wake-up. If we lose control over the management of the
Internet, we have given away one of our Nations greatest assets with nothing
in return to show for it. The Obama Administration¹s current actions will
set in motion a slow and complete take-over of the Internet by the U.N. or
some other equally U.S. hostile and unfriendly international body. And, once
it is gone, it will be gone forever.

The surrender of the Internet will spell disaster for our nation, financially, as well as for a safety, security and our standing as a great power that values freedom and the free exchange of ideas and information.

As far as I am concerned, America is still the last best hope for a more
peaceful and prosperous world and our president should be not looking for
ways to weaken us, his job is to work to strengthen us and protect our
nations greatest asset our people's creativity and ingenuity.