Monday, March 24, 2014

Are we giving away the internet?

HERE's the best article I could find on the United States giving up control of the internet, which is rather an overstatement, but the best most can do, including me.  

Take a look at the link and tell us if YOU think this is as serious as some do, even some Democrats.
Even Pat Cadell, Democrat talking head on FOX Sunday, said "Nobody is sticking up anymore for this country....where is everybody?" when discussing Obama's acquiescing on the internet, the ICANN situation.  

Bill Clinton, who knows a lot more about this than most of the blogs I researched, and a heck of a lot more than you or I do, and probably a lot more than Pat Cadell, isn't for this situation which occurs in September of 2015, when our dominance contract expires.

Here is the most important and threatening rhetoric on this subject in my linked article from the WSJ; something I believe Clinton wholeheartedly believes:

So why is this happening? Couldn’t they just leave things the way they were? The main goal is to reassure other countries that the U.S. isn’t secretly controlling the structure of the Internet. To the extent American businesses have been damaged by the Edward Snowden disclosures, especially those offering cloud and other online services, this is a move aimed at repairing the relationship between the U.S. and other countries on Internet issues.

Make no mistake, this is a concession by the U.S. While the Commerce Department rarely intervened publicly in ICANN’s affairs, the implicit threat of its ability to do so will be gone. That could have an unforeseen impact in the future, particularly if cyberweapons continue to play a larger role in military and counter-intelligence activities.

It seems that Snowden's NSA revelations are weakening us in far reaching ways most people didn't realize.  And then there's this:

Putin called out America last week for what we think is our 'exceptionalism,'  following in the verbage of Democrats in their disdain for that.   Are you noticing how our enemies have learned to pile it on us in the same terms our Democrat media does?  interesting.

Anyway.........I suppose some could look at this ICANN situation as a good way to rid America of its nasty little habit of finding itself EXCEPTIONAL.   Do you?   How worried are you about this?  And please read the article first, there's a lot more in there than most of us know.  Thanks.

Z

38 comments:

Always On Watch said...

This change in managing the Internet makes me nervous. Frankly, most other nations (and other entities as well) don't believe in First Amendment rights as stated in the United States Constitution.

Like most things, the effects of this change won't be obvious immediately.

Ed Bonderenka said...

I don't like the idea of the US retreating from anything like this.
I'm more concerned with Comcast buying Time-Warner and limiting throughput in certain markets already.
There may be competitive forces in the ISP market on a national level, but in a local market, you either get DSL (slow connections) or cable.
And in almost every community, there is only one cable provider.

JonBerg said...

"giving up"

Yes, that about summarizes the spirit of Obama's America!

Fred Baron said...

This is all part of that whole presidential plan of "Yeah, America is special, just like Bangladeshis think Bangladesh is special."

Anonymous said...

There is a reason why Obama does not stand up to defend Western values. The difference between the US/Russia is the moral strength, of the countries leadership. Ours has no western values. In fact, I cannot think of one single thing that makes Obama one of us. He is as foreign to American culture as he can possibly get. And let me add this: IMO, there is very little difference between Barack Hussein Obama and Jim Jones: one of those assholes convinced Americans to reelect him to the White House in 2012, the other asshole convinced his followers to drink the Kool-Aid. This is what our kids are learning in college. When we have people like Kerry, Hillary, Reid, and Pelosie running things and making decisions, we are in lots of trouble, as we are seeing now.. I think Vladi has discovered that our Emperor has no clothes.
The reality that obama is clueless on Russia, looks foolish, which leads to his approval numbers falling resulting in the Dems efforts to retain the Senate in November less and less likely.

Sam Huntington said...

I am far from having any expertise on this topic, so I defer to others that comment here who do ... but regulating Internet addresses is a far cry form giving up control of the internet. But you see, this country could not even prevent Chinese masterminds from hacking into our largest and most secure data networks (which is why we spent billions creating the US Cyber Command), so I feel hard pressed to imagine that giving up the protocol for assigning addresses forecloses our Exceptionalism. I hope someone will come by an enlighten us all.

JonBerg said...

"Are we giving up the internet?"


OMG, I just learned that even Alan Colmes is against this idea!

Bob said...

Surrendering control of the use of Internet domain names will result in an increase in cost, and a decrease in the freedom of content on the world wide web.

Whatever the structure of an international body, there will be an increase in fees with a new regime. There will be differently worded contracts for the domain names that will adhere to some international standard rather than a US Constitutional standard.

What will this new international body look like? How about similar to the corrupt United Nations. Or, how about the third-world oriented World Bank?

Can't you hear the hew and cry, see the renting of garments, and feel the absolute passion to make Internet services free to third world countries, subsidizing that with added fees from rich westerners?

There is nothing wrong, or discriminatory with the current system. This is just another kiss-ass program for Barack Obama to slick-up his legacy.

If you value your blog and our devotion to free speech, you will get on the phone to your Congressional representatives about this. Don't let free speech slip away!

Waylon said...

When I first heard the term "giving up control of the internet", I thought this implied that there would be some oversight committee from "central planning" for World Government being inserted into the position of monitoring internet usage and electronic communication.

I believe it's bad enough that the government of any country should insert itself into this jurisdiction over the rights of the citizens of that country. When it turns out that the country is handing off the allocation of internet addresses and domain names, I'm thinking I must have missed something in the seriousness of that. Shouldn't each sovereign country have the power to govern this part of the internet, without interfering in the right to freedom of expression?

Not sure the significance of attaching Edward Snow to this debate is, other than he's now public enemy #1 for showing what many already suspected in regard to the overreach of government snoopery.

Ducky's here said...

Strikes me as pure paranoia.

Net neutrality seems a much more important issue.
But people feel comfortable knowing that really swell folks like Google, Comcast or Verizon are in control of access speeds and personal data.

I'm sure Bob is not concerned with the fees Netflix was recently charged to get preferred access over telcom bands.
Not that their film selection is all that good but pretty soon the latest 3D dog poop will be available at high speeds while less well known stuff will be effectively shut out.
... but the market.

Anonymous said...

Z of Geeez:

AOW....that's right. The effects will build as decisions are made about websites and addresses by those who don't have openness and free exchanges of ideas at heart.

Ed...I agree...things are moving in a very odd and curious manner and we're mostly sleeping through it.

Stephanie...this is so off topic that if I was at home on my computer I'd be deleting.
Mustang, if you see this, could you please..?
We stay on topic unless it's something interesting or insistent on mentioning some 'other website' that's frequently mentioned here. If it's so offensive, don't look at it.
Thanks.

JB..it does, doesn't it? Where's the HOPE we were promised? :-) We've got CHANGE we never could have imagined.
Alan COLMES? I hope he talks a LOT about it to his lib listeners; though I believe most of them feel like what Fred Baron wrote....that we don't have the right to be 'exceptional' and rule some of the internet...man, is THAT attitude going to bite them (and all of us) in the butt. And I think it's coming sooner than we'd feared.


Fred; so well put. You really nailed it. So many liberals believe that, as well.

Anonymous...Vladi was just waiting till the right minute. The comments Obama made before the Olympics must have REALLY put him over the edge; not that I blame those on what's happening now, but there IS no diplomacy with two thin-skinned egomaniacs in charge of Russia and America...it's just mud slinging. Except one's really sharp and focused and loves his country...
(Now I'll be accused of preferring Putin for president, wait for it)

Sam, I felt a bit like you do until I read my link and various other websites that came up when I Googled (none of which were liberal,by the way...)

Bob answered you well. It looks benign but is NOT, particularly when we consider who might move in; we all have to remember that voids ARE FILLED.

The lack of God in our country now is being filled unpleasantly ...
this internet's less about us giving in than what's going to take over in that capacity.

Bob...you're right about contacting congressmen...but I doubt it'll help

Anonymous said...

From Z:

Waylon...please read the link; Snowden's less directly involved in this than he is in showing other countries we can't be trusted to do this or anything else.

Ducky, you need to read the link and research, too.
COlmes is against it.....surely that must change your mind. :-)
I'm a little less concerned with silly movies (by the way, your surmisal is nonsense, not everyone is a knuckle dragging cretin who only likes movies you deride) dominating than I am with those who think we're no better than Bangladesh.

Anonymous said...

From Z of GeeeZ:

By the way, JB, Ed, Fred, etc.; did you hear Putin say, essentially, that we have a lot of nerve considering ourselves "exceptional"...he's literally picking words from the leftwing lexicon....it happened another time, too, recently, where some dictator was using our leftwing terminology against America ...

Must be SO satisfying to do HUGE things like takeovers of Crimea and threats to Ukraine and all that Putin sees is talking heads screaming at each other about it on TV and in the news...imagine?
Just seeing us in COMPLETE and GREEDY disarray because we can't get it together and be of one mind in America...which should mean protecting America and our allies.
And, just for the record, I'll include here that by "protecting" I don't mean militarily.. we've been driven to the point of BROKE by this president and our military's mostly quitting and generals are being fired, so there isn't much there, anyway.

Anonymous said...

Off Topic, but it's my blog :-)...

Did you all hear that MSNBC had cameras on the young mother whose husband has apparently perished on the Malaysian flight?
Ronan Farrow, I think the guy's name is..? (any relation to Mia?)

Anyway...imagine? Just showing the grieving, screaming women days ago was over the top, in my opinion.

That this new widow would allow the cameras is also weird and rather exonerates Ronan ..is it exploitation when someone's permitted to exploit emotions so blatantly?

Frank Heartburn said...

Off Topic? That's terrible you should be ashamed of yourself.
I think that your post should be deleted !


Frank Heartburn

Susan said...

Am I the only one seeing a new sense of purpose in the old neoconservative crowd, an almost joyful welcoming of a good old-fashioned Cold War showdown with the Russkies? Nobody's saying they don't love the War on Terror, but let's be honest, it's getting a bit old. Obama is acting Stupid and vacuous and like a little fools and liar .. But this Ukraine thing is just like old times. It's us against them, a battle of the big boys! Well, sort of anyway. So now is the time for action! Aren't there some missiles left to use somewhere?

Waylon said...

Z, Snowden may well be right that the country can't be trusted in a lot of ways any more. A country founded on the ideals of individual rights and limited government power, that resulted in a country that surpassed the success of any other country's experiments in freedom and economics and politics, and today wallows in the muck of "progressive" government expansion, and has for the last century, falling further and further into decline, while always finger pointing at "the other" as the cause of the problems, has lost any resemblance to what was "exceptional" at it's founding.

Bob said...

@Ducky said, "I'm sure Bob is not concerned with the fees Netflix was recently charged to get preferred access over telcom bands."

That's a fair comment, one which would deserve an entirely different thread. Actually, I am concerned with fees but understand that we contracted with Netflix understanding how much they would charge, and the terms of their contract.

Also, having been in the telecom industry for part of my career, I understand the angst of the ISP's now having to supply bandwidth to Netflix customers at the same historical rates. In this case the ISP's are fighting back as we would expect.

The market will determine how the wholesale fees will fall, as it should. Part of the equation is that ISP's are not furnishing the quality of service they could/should, i.e., ultra-fast fiber service. Part of that problem is that we don't have an efficient market in ISP's. The telco's and the cable companies have franchises for their services, and if they are roughly equal in speed/quality, they don't have to upgrade their services.

All of this DOES NOT relate to the internationalization of the domain name, Internet address business.

When you buy a domain name, you pay a fee and agree to a set of terms and conditions, partly determined from the merchant that sold it to you, and partly determined by ICANN, the "whole-sale" source.

With the transfer of contracting power to some, as yet undefined, international organization, we automatically surrender to the terms and conditions of that organization. All countries doing business with that organization will have to agree to those conditions.

Of all countries that would be a party to those terms, the USA has the most to lose. First, there is no guarantee that you will have full freedom of speech to criticize any and all political leaders in the world. Secondly, you have no control over the eventual fees, or even there usage.

Ducky, it is not all about fees, which are necessary. It is the power to contract which we should fear the most. That is the ultimate non-violent control.

Anonymous said...

From Z of GeeeZ:

Waylon, I absolutely agree with you; but I mentioned it to illustrate my thoughts about how Putin's using "our own" words against us. He's smart; we're dealing with someone really smart. So, considering who's dealing WITH him, we're in HUGE trouble.

Susan; I don't think we have a bunch of neocons here...My commenters have almost all said they want nothing to do with war at this point. Anywhere.
I also don't think any of us is so tired and unobservant about the war on terror to suddenly want a new war.
If anybody thinks the war on terror IS over, they're not breathing.

You might know that a REALLY hilarious meme from the Left now is that Conservatives Prefer Putin :-)
All one has to say is how worried we are with Obama's actions on Crimea and Ukraine or Syria and we hear "CONSERVATIVES LIKE PUTIN!" it's unbelievable.

The other day a conservative on TV was arguing with a liberal named something like JIMUH Green...sp?...anyway, the conservative said something about feeling a little nervous about the exchanges with Obama and Putin and how bad things could go.
Jimuh suddenly says "OH, got your pompoms out for Putin again?"

This is how the leftist thinks. It's scary.
It's ALMOST as dumb, and very much alike, the meme that Conservatives don't like Obama so they're racist! You can't make that stupidity up, but the left does!

Mustang said...

Well Gee Susan, you guys elected Barack Obama, so which of us really wanted a return to the bad old days?

Anonymous said...

From Z of Geeez:

BOB! you explained it better than my WSJ link...Thanks SO much.
and you're right about Netflix.

I'm still of the old Netflix bunch who (as their president said) "just plain enjoys getting that CD in their mailbox!"
yup, that's me! Still in the Stone Age.

Anonymous said...

From Z of GeeeZ:

Mustang...well said. I wonder if Susan had known we'd have as high a debt as we have now, so MUCH MORE than under Bush, an amount we'll never EVER get out from under (which can't escape the notice of other countries who mean us harm...or is that okay to say in the leftwing world?), she'd have voted for him?
Ya, probably.

After all, someone will pay it....maybe all those hard working Republicans she loves to hate? right? :-)

Anonymous said...

Mustang; And thanks for that deletion.

Z

JonBerg said...

Z,

Of all of the Liberals that I've seen appearing on Fox News, Jehmu Greene's drivel transcends all others by, at least, two-fold. She, alone, epitomizes the absurdity of Liberal confusion like few others even dare!

FROM WIKIPEDIA:
"Greene served as an advisor and national surrogate to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign"

Always On Watch said...

I'll say this: the Internet seems to be working better than ever the past two years. Those of who have been on the web for over 10 years know what I mean. We used to have slower-than-molasses download times and glitches that we absolutely maddening.

Now -- the vast majority of the time -- the Internet works just fine and dandy (with the usual threats of Trojan viruses and the like).

So, "if it ain't broke, why fix it?"

Maybe I am paranoid, but I long ago learned to look beyond the obvious and consider possible agenda.

Mustang said...

Bob is right ...

Take a moment and send an email to your elected representatives and let him or her know how you feel about this ...

Anonymous said...

from Z:
Mustang, emailing is a very good idea versus calling, though that might help, too. I will definitely email my congressman; henry waxman (STOP LAUGHING, he;s FINALLY RETIRING...not sure what lib rube the Dems here have planned to fill his place...if 'fill' is the right word! ???)

AOW, I'm not sure anything will be 'fixed' by this new arrangement, IF it happens, but we will not be assured of privacy, getting web address,etc. I have a feeling whoever takes over will make it very difficult particularly for Americans......wait for it.

EMAIL YOUR POLITICAL WASTES OF TIME...it could be worth it??

Always On Watch said...

Z,
I have a feeling whoever takes over will make it very difficult particularly for Americans......wait for it.

I concur. And, as I said above, probably not immediately. Isn't it tragic that Americans as a whole have such short memories? When "it" happens, they'll look around and wonder, "How did this happen?"

Anonymous said...

I am not getting the paranoia. Domain names are a name for basically something similar to a phone number. It makes sense that each country manages the domain names of their countries.

I've heard idiots on TV say the internet was an American invention when everything started at the CERN and that therefore the names should be managed in the US is like saying Bell invented the phone and that the US should manage all the phone numbers.

If countries prevent their people from getting and managing domain names, then it's a local issue, not an American issue.

FrogBurger

Bob said...

FB: So far as we are concerned, the Internet started with DARPA, then ARPANET, a US defense funded project that rapidly spread to educational and other government institutions.

The Internet Protocols were invented by Americans, period. The stuff done by CERN is that they basically invented the web browser. CERN was one of those institutions on the net early as they are a government, and educational outfit.

Please correct me if I am in error.

Bob said...

FB: It turns out that there's been development on both sides of the pond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

Z said...

FrogBurger, I'm hoping you've read my link and looked into it a bit. It sounds very innocuous until you dig deeper.



So y'all hear that the G8 has become the G7?
Yup...you heard it first here the other day when I hypothesized and here today when it actually happened.

Most of you didn't think it was important; think it is now that they've decided Russia's "on suspension:?"

Anonymous said...

Z, the article doesn't say much unfortunately. I still stands by my point of view that it is similar to managing phone numbers.

As far as the invention, I forgot ARPANET and the TCP/IP stuff. My bad.

I still think this is not worth to be paranoid about. I'm exhausted by knee-jerk reactions on both sides these days.

FrogBurger

Z said...

FB... you don't need to be exhausted.
I didn't make up, nor did anybody here or in the article, concern for what's going on.
Everything I've read points to long term situations we may not want to encounter; I just think it's safer coming down on OUR side than whoever is going to fill our void.

I believe there's a lot that Obama's doing to open voids in America which most Americans will not want filled by people who might do just that.

No one's freaking out here; nobody's throwing himself off a ledge over this, but it's certainly worth discussion.

Kid said...

All part of the communist activism. Yes, we are giving up the internet to a bunch of hacking parasites.

Kid said...

ED, Japan has 2 Gig per second download speeds. America, as usual, is on the slow marketing train of selling us crap at an inch a day.

Kid said...

JonBerg "
OMG, I just learned that even Alan Colmes is against this idea!"

Look Out !

Always On Watch said...

I just found this: Don't Give Away the Internet by Frank Gaffney, Jr.