The stark conclusion from a report by Aaron Eitan Meyer at the Lawfare Project:
The three specific issues considered above serve to illustrate that the Internet is at a critical stage of development during its shift from a primarily American-directed creation to a multilaterally regulated entity. The Arab League and OIC have determined technological development and the Internet itself to be high-priority areas of development, and it is likely that gaining influence and/or control over Internet infrastructure, including through ICANN, is part of the apparent OIC strategy, though it has been the Arab League that has so far taken concrete steps to gain recognition and power at ICANN.Sultan Knish comments further on Lawfare’s report in Hijacking the Internet:
To this point, continued American control of ICANN and its critical subsidiary, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA),[33] have largely directed the development of the Internet. However, there is considerable pressure on the United States to cede control over IANA to ICANN when the current contract between the Department of Commerce and IANA expires on September 20, 2011,[34] including pressure emanating from the European Union, as expressed at ICANN’s meeting in Brussels held this past June.[35]
Should the United States prove to be amenable to the E.U.’s suggestions and allow the contract with IANA to expire, it would lose considerable influence over ICANN, and the power structures governing Internet expansion and evolution would shift considerably – and not necessarily solely towards a European-dominated model.
The OIC has already effectively used the UN to push its censorship agenda. But the UN is virtually toothless when it comes to the United States. However if the Muslim world can dominate ICANN the way it dominates the UN General Assembly, then free speech on the internet is dead.
If this succeeds then 10 years from now, not only will sites like Jihad Watch or Religion of Peace lose their domain names, and most discussion of Islamic terrorism have to ‘go on the run’ in pop up social media groups that constantly get shut down (already the situation on sites such as Facebook) functioning like rats in the walls. But even the sites of mainstream politicians and newspapers will be targeted. Mandatory filtering by ISP’s. The removal of Israel’s Il domain, are all possibilities. And if anything I probably haven’t gone far enough.
The internet will become what the UN General Assembly is, a voice that speaks the Islamic narrative as one and bans any discussion or debate. Or marginalizes it so far that it never gets heard. Is this already underway? Yes.
On September 25, 2010, ICANN’s board of directors removed a reference to “terrorism” from the fourth version of its Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG, or DAGv4), after complaints were received from several Arab individuals and organizations.
1) Until 2009, ICANN necessarily complied with applicable United States Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations regarding terrorism, and had no reason to specify such as the subject of a background check.
2) The term “terrorism” was included without any conceivably objectionable modifiers such as “Islamist.”
3) The Chairman of the (Pan Arab) Multilingual Internet Group Khaled Fattal declared that the term “terrorism” itself was objectionable because “it will be seen by millions of Muslims and Arabs as racist, prejudicial and profiling.” Fattal requested not only its removal, but an apology from ICANN.
The two-pronged approach of silencing dissent and unleashing terror is underway. This is why the internationalization of ICANN poses the gravest of threats not just to the thing we call freedom of speech on the internet, but to the entire global organization of knowledge and debate that has come to run through its networks. If ICANN goes IslamCANN then they will have captured the consensus.
This is a situation that few are talking about, even though in retrospect it may come to be one of the 5 issues that dramatically changes the world as we know it.
Meanwhile the UN is working along its own track.
The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.
Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.
At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet – specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.
The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a “takeover” of the internet.
But that’s exactly what it is. A unified set of laws with regard to the internet is not about policing criminal activity. That is already policed under existing laws. It’s about criminalizing dissent.
Brazil’s left wing regime, which just decided to recognize Palestinian Arab terrorists as a state, tried to help Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad get nuclear fuel, is acting as a stalking horse for the takeover of the internet.
India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.
The appearance of China and Saudi Arabia on this list is not exactly shocking. China wants to tightly control all content that its citizens access. And Saudi Arabia representing the Muslim world wants to control the depiction of Islam worldwide. Between the Muslim world and China and left wing regimes like Brazil, there is a common agenda. Censorship. Control.
US politicians have responded to moves from within the United Nations to form an inter-Government panel to regulate the internet, putting forward a resolution demanding the UN maintain a “hands-off approach”.
California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack has put forward a resolution that the United Nations and other international governmental organisations take their hands off the Internet.
Introducing House Resolution 1775 [see full text below], Mack argued that “the Internet has progressed and thrived precisely because it has not been subjected to the suffocating effect of a governmental organization’s heavy hand.
“The attempt of the United Nations to overtake something that is so central to our economy-like the Internet-is offensive and completely out of line,” she said.
“We have a hard enough time keeping the Federal Communications Commission’s hands off the Internet; imagine having to convince governments like Syria, Iran and Venezuela.”
A Republican congress is better position to oppose this, but the Obama Administration is committed to few things more seriously, than to weakening American power and collaborating with the ascension of the Muslim world.
The only real obstacle is likely to come from tech companies such as Google who benefit from open policies and don’t want to see the boot of dictatorships come down on them. Not just for ideological reasons, but for profit motives too.
4 comments:
Thanks Pastorius,
I just wrote to my representive in congress and told them to oppose this. I hope more people do the same. We've got to stop this thing.
If this succeeds then 10 years from now, not only will sites like Jihad Watch or Religion of Peace lose their domain names, and most discussion of Islamic terrorism have to ‘go on the run’...
I doubt that we have 10 years before we lose the web if this thing goes through.
Always On Watch,
You maybe correct, which is why we have to do all we can to stop this now!
Thanks TB. Great read. Go team.
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