U.S. tech firms urge Congress to allow internet domain changeover

[By Dustin Volz]
September 13, 2016


By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Major technology companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter are urging Congress to support a plan for the U.S. government to cede control of the internet's technical management to the global community, they said in a joint letter dated on Tuesday.

The U.S. Commerce Department has primary oversight of the internet's management, largely because it was invented in the United States. Some Republican lawmakers are trying to block the handover to global stakeholders, which include businesses, tech experts and public interest advocates, saying it could stifle online freedom by giving voting rights to authoritarian governments.

The years-long plan to transfer oversight of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is scheduled to occur on Oct. 1 unless Congress votes to block the handover. The California-based corporation operates the database for domain names such as .com and .net and their corresponding numeric addresses that allow computers to connect.

In the Sept. 13 letter, a copy of which had been reviewed by Reuters before it was sent, the technology companies said it was "imperative" that Congress does not delay the transition.

"A global, interoperable and stable Internet is essential for our economic and national security, and we remain committed to completing the nearly twenty year transition to the multi stakeholder model that will best serve U.S. interests," the letter said.

Other signatories include Amazon, Cloudflare, Yahoo and several technology trade organizations.

Former presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who leads the opposition against the handover, will hold a congressional hearing on Wednesday to review the transition, which he has criticized as a "giveaway of our internet freedom."

Tech companies, technical experts and academics have said the transition is overdue and necessary to keep the Internet open and globally oriented, and that the proposal includes safeguards against any potential abuse by any one country.

Cruz is right, we need to help stop the traitors from giving away the internet. If they succeeded in giving away control of the internet it will probably be the end militia forums and militia websites.

I could see ammo,gun and gun parts being taken off the web...

This would be an epic victory for the enemies of Liberty. And they will spin it (with the aid of the press) so that the sheeple see it as a logical "common sense Internet reform"...

Hillary and her vp have both made numerous comments recently that the alternative media "has no right to exist".

If she's elected we can expect free speech to take a serious hit.

Her camp is under the delusion that the alternative media won't hit back.

One complicating factor though is these click bait troublemakers who constantly put out speculative half truth at is "factual" but highly misleading and then they of course get protected free speech status. It's not at all like they are all meeting the Matt Drudge standards of integrity.

Hours left before Obama's Internet giveaway 'irreversible'

Time expiring for opponents of one world strategy for Net

Bob Unruh

Sen. Ted Cruz has posted online a countdown clock that reveals there’s just hours left before the U.S. gives away the Internet in a move critics have warned is “irreversible.”

It was the late Phyllis Schlafly who, earlier this year, characterized President Obama’s plan to give away U.S. oversight of the Internet’s domain name system as “like telling the fox to guard the chicken coop,” trusting the likes of Cuba, Venezuela and China to ensure the continued freedom of the Web.

The transfer of oversight to an obscure non-profit called the Internet Association for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, set for Saturday, “could be the most dangerous use yet of Obama’s now-famous pen,” the conservative icon said at the time.

On Thursday, after months of Congress failing to halt Obama’s move, four states took action on their own.

The lawsuit by Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Nevada against the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Commerce and others seeks a halt to the plan.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Galveston, Texas, the lawsuit argues the U.S. funded the foundations of the Internet and for decades has been managing it appropriately, including through contracts such as the NTIA’s agreement with ICANN to perform Internet Assigned Numbers Authority functions.

But that contract is expiring Friday, and Obama’s plan is to give up that authority to ICANN.

The lawsuit isn’t the only opposition that has arisen in the fourth quarter.

A coalition of 77 national security, cybersecurity and industry leaders wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just days ago asking for intervention.

“As individuals with extensive, first-hand experience with protecting our national security, we write to urge you to intervene in opposition to an imminent action that would, in our judgment, cause profound and irreversible damage to the United States’ vital interests,” the letter said.

“Indeed, there is, to our knowledge, no compelling reason for exposing the national security to such a risk by transferring our remaining control of the Internet in this way at this time. In light of the looming deadline, we feel compelled to urge you to impress upon President Obama that the contract between NTIA and ICANN cannot be safely terminated at this point.”

The signers included former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney Jr., former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin (Ret.), former Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, former Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency Vice Adm. Robert Monroe (Ret.) and former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Andrew McCarthy, among others.

They warned: “In the absence of U.S. government involvement in IANA, it seems possible that, over time, foreign powers – including potentially or actually hostile ones – will be able to influence the IANA process. Even coercing the delay in approving IP addresses could impact military capabilities. From a broader view, given the well-documented ambition of these actors to restrict freedom of expression and/or entrepreneurial activity on the Internet, such a transfer of authority to ICANN could have far-reaching and undesirable consequences for untold numbers of people worldwide.”

Just a few days earlier, GOP senators, including Chuck Grassley, Ted Crux, Roy Blunt, Richard Burr and Ron Johnson, released a statement opposing the giveaway.

“It is profoundly disappointing that the Obama administration has decided to press on with its plan to relinquish United States oversight of crucial Internet functions, even though Congress has not given its approval. For years, there has been a bipartisan understanding that the ICANN transition is premature and that critical questions remain unanswered about the influence of authoritarian regimes in Internet governance, the protection of free speech, the effect on national security, and impacts on consumers, just to name a few,” they said.

“Without adequate answers to these questions, it would be irresponsible to allow the transition to occur in 15 days simply because of an artificial deadline set by the Obama administration.

“In fact, Democrats at both the state and national level have echoed many of these concerns. For example, former President Bill Clinton has warned that ‘[a] lot of people who have been trying to take this authority away from the U.S. want to do it for the sole purpose of cracking down on Internet freedom and limiting it and having governments protect their backsides instead of empower[ing] their people.’

“The issue of Internet freedom should unite us Americans – Republicans, Democrats and independents alike. Partisanship and political gamesmanship have no place when it comes to the Internet, basic principles of freedom, and the right of individuals in our great nation and across the globe to speak online free from censorship.”

In the lawsuit, the states warn that .gov addresses are at risk.

“The NTIA currently has the authority to authorize changes performed by ICANN. Should NTIA fail to renew the contract and relinquish its approval authority, ICANN could take unilateral actions adversely affecting the .gov address. The sole control that the U.S. government would have to safeguard .gov and .mil is through an exchange of letters, which are non-binding and lack the certainty of a legal contract that would guarantee U.S. control and ownership in the future.”

ICANN could, for example, the letter noted, “eventually delete the .gov top-level domain name or transfer it to some other entity, cutting off communications between the states and their citizens and forcing the states to use ordinary top-level domain names (such as .com) to try to community with their citizens.”

ICANN also “could charge additional fees,” the states noted.

Congress already has acted twice to prevent the move, adopting “appropriations riders prohibiting any use of taxpayer funds ‘to relinquish the responsibility of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration … with respect to Internet domain name system functions, including responsibility with respect to the authoritative root zone file and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority functions.'”

Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., has been especially critical of the transfer.

His interview with Greg Corombos of Radio America:

“Is this move going to strengthen America, or is this move going to weaken it? I think it’s very clear that if we do what President Obama wants to do, it’ll weaken America’s stance again,” said Yoho, who is a strong supporter of the DOTCOM Act.

That bill passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly last year but didn’t get action in the Senate.

“The U.S. has been in control of the domain names of the Internet since its inception. If we relinquish this control, it goes possibly to the U.N. Then you have countries like Russia, China and Iran and any other country that wants to play, and [they get to] determine how to regulate those domain names within their countries,” Yoho explained.

He warned of authoritarian leaders controlling what their people can access.

“I think you’re going to see a decrease in access to the Internet, a decrease of freedom over the Internet to an extent we have never experienced before,” he said.

Judith Bergman of the Gatestone Institute said the move could “spell the end of the current era of free speech on the Internet, as well as free enterprise.”

Authoritarian governments around the world already have bolstered Bergman’s case. China issued a statement saying, “It is necessary to ensure that United Nations plays a facilitating role in setting up international public policies pertaining to the Internet.”

The Russians weighed in, arguing, “We consider it necessary to consecutively increase the role of governments in the Internet governance, with strengthening the activity of the International Telecommunications Union [the UNs telecommunications arm] in this field … in the development of ethical aspects of Internet use.”

Last month, a coalition told leaders of both parties in Congress that it already has ordered the NTIA “not to let lapse the government contract.”

But the Obama administration is doing exactly that.

“It is, by its own admission, doing so as part of a drawn-out process resulting in the decision to let the IANA contract lapse – precisely what Congress forbade NTIA to do,” coalition members said.

“If NTIA allows the contract to lapse, it will have violated federal law,” the letter said. “The decision to abandon an 18-year contractual relationship governing the Internet has obviously consumed significant NTIA resources, both to fund outside experts and to pay for time spent on the issue and on NTIA employees making a decision about whether the extend the contract.”

Very few things are irreversible and this is not totally irreversible.

The United States could take back control at least as far as within the United States.

Let the Foreign bastards do as they wish in their own Countries and the Control of the Internet can be returned to the way it currently is within the United States.

All it takes is a Congress and President with the Balls to do it.

This is off topic but even if Clinton were to appoint a Progressive Scum Sucker to the Supreme Court another Administration could restore the Court to a Conservative Balance.

The way this could be done would be to use a Constitution Convention to change the makeup of the Court.

Currently there are Nine Justices, but what is to prevent the number of Justices on the Court to be changed to 11, 14 or even 16 or more Justices.

Then the New Administration could appoint extremely Conservative Justices to fill all the New Positions.