Biden: The internet ain't broke, let's not fix it

US Vice President Joe Biden has made it clear that America is not interested in the sort of global internet rules that China and Russia have been calling for. China, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan proposed a voluntary "code of conduct" for information security to the UN in September. Countries following the code would have …

[pip25]

Yay

And thus the US split-personality performance concerning Internet regulation continues. They should at least decide who is playing "good cop" and "bad cop" here; until now I thought Biden was the bad ("Intellectual property over everything!") and Hillary was the good ("Evil censorship!"), although considering the circumstances they might have simply made the mistake of Biden reading a speech originally meant for Hillary.

Oh well. It's not as if their real position concerning the matter at hand isn't obvious enough already.

[Anonymous Coward]

China called.

They want their moral high ground back.

[kain preacher]

"But they would have to curb “the dissemination of information that incites terrorism, secessionism or extremism or that undermines other countries’ political, economic and social stability, as well as their spiritual and cultural environment” as part of the pact."

Who needs the great fire wall of China. RIAA would love this. Piratebay and others wiped off the map. This proposal is freaking nuts.

[Stupidscript]

PROTECTIP

I guess Joe's not in favor of this currently proposed legislation, then:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111026/12130616523/protect-ip-renamed-e-parasites-act-would-create-great-firewall-america.shtml

[Armando 123]

That's a change

"if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it."

Odd, politicians usually take the view "if it ain't broke, we can fix that!"

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Now Canada isno longer a threat

Having just agreed to let the MPAA/RIAA write all their laws from now on, Canada has been removed from top of the list of internet terrorist countries.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5773/125/

[Frank Bitterlich]

What on earth does...

... "proliferate information weapons" mean? Telling people the truth? Yeah, we can't let *that* happen, I agree with China.

[Dadz]

Shakedown

Promise not to hack your internetz if you censorz them for us plz.

[RTNavy]

More Laws?

We don't need ANY stinking new laws for or about the Internet!

Government(s) have never been able to make things easier and more open. Regardless of the name of the legislation.

[Christoph]

You WHAT???

*Uzbekistan* is calling for “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms"?

Slave labour in the cotton fields and boiling dissidents to death is respect for human rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

@pip25

'...until now I thought Biden was the bad ("Intellectual property over everything!") and Hillary was the good ("Evil censorship!")...'

It's easier to figure out when you remember that Biden is (mostly) concerned with internal US affairs, whereas Hillary is responsible for rebuking foreigners. So they can quite happily pass diametrically opposite judgments on what are virtually identical proposals.

[J.G.Harston]

Whenever a politician calls for any sort of controls of the Internet, the response should be "how?", and onyl proceed if said politician can give a properly supported technical solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

How to control the internet at the borders?

For the US that is easy. Just change the NSA traffic monitors from a split feed to pass through and only pass through what the classifiers allow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would It Be Possible ...

I really wish that the people could totally take government out of the equation when it comes to the Internet, somehow totally decouple it from existing infrastructure and just run it for ourselves.

Every day it seems more and more like the various governments all over the World are realising what a threat it is to allow people to share ideas without their involvement and it's obvious they don't like it.

[Daniel B.]

Biden...

You should check the House. There's something called SOPA trying to lift the Great Firewall in the US!