Freedom-crushing govts close to ruling our web, fears FCC boss

Foreign governments are lining up to wrest control of the internet from freedom-loving hippies, thunders FCC commissioner Robert McDowell in a call to arms in the Wall Street Journal. In the piece the commissioner claims the International Telecommunications Union is planning to make a play for control as soon as next week, …

[Christoph]

Obvious danger

I'm not surprised that the US is terrified of someone taking over the Internet. After all, there's one group that has made it very clear that it is entirely determined to do exactly that.

Err, it's the US government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Obvious danger

As opposed to the UK government, which just wants stop you seeing great chunks of it, jail you for trying to see great chunks of it, and monitor whatever you do on the rest of it.

Freedom!

[Vic]

Re: Re: Obvious danger

> Freedom!

Don't you have to be a crustacean eating a flag to shout that these days?

Vic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Don't you have to be a crustacean eating a flag

Damn! I must cover that web clam.

Sorry for the typo - it's hard typing with claws

[kellerr13]

Re: Obvious danger

6 Thumbs up for that. The question is, how long is everybody going to wait until actually doing something about it.

[Anonymous Coward]

ITU set up in 1865?

Are you sure?

[Bumpy Cat]

Re: ITU set up in 1865?

30 seconds on Wikipedia would have answered that for you:

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

Founded in 1865 as the Int. Telegraph Union.

[/\/\j17]

Pot / Kettle

"Foreign governments are lining up to wrest control of the internet from freedom-loving hippies..."

So tell me Mr McDowell, how IS the US Gov. SOAP bill coming along...?

[Big_Boomer]

Wheres my tin hat gone?

Oh no, the basts have stolen it.

Once they have the internet and TV then they will control the WORLD!

Oh wait, if I don't watch TV or browse the web, then I won't need my tin hat will I?

Can they beam thoughts into my head? Is that what 4G really is?

Mr McDowell sounds like he has been bitten by the paranoid bug.

Methinks he needs to spend some time in a quiet room.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wheres my tin hat gone?

Unfortunately, if you don't have any TV, and no Internet then you also have no means of mass communications to or from.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Re: Wheres my tin hat gone?

> Unfortunately, if you don't have any TV, and no Internet then you also have no means of mass

> communications to or from.

So true. Mass communication did not exist prior to the invention of television. Any communication happening in the millennia prior to that was solely interpersonal.

[Ken Hagan]

Is there no end to their perfidy?

Foreign governments might end up controlling those parts of the internet whose supporting hardware lies within their own territory. Well bugger me with a rusty ten-foot pole. You'll be telling me they have their own legal systems next.

I don't care about the possible conspriacy theories. Anyone willing to make a public statement of such perfect idiocy should be quietly shunted from office. Still, I suppose that's a matter for the Americans.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Is there no end to their perfidy?

Obama has been giving more and more control of the Internet to other countries. He is doing everything he can to dismantle America.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Re: Is there no end to their perfidy?

Yeah, trying so hard, and yet his predecessor managed so much more on that front.

[JohnG]

ITU

Given that the ITU has managed to keep politics out of international telephony, they might be the right people to keep DNS, IP allocations and the like from subversion by large corporations or politicians with an axe to grind. Like the article says, the ITU aren't going to do anything without the agreement of their members (governments around the world) and a budget.

[kellerr13]

Re: ITU

Don't count on it. It's a big power grab and it's gone too far.

[shoelace]

Did I misread that?

"..but the internet still brings in a lot of money to the US, as the ITU has pointed out before.

Which is, sort of, fair enough: they invented the thing, ...."

Are we talking about internet peering or the internet itself?

I hope it means internet peering....

[Tom Maddox]

Re: Did I misread that?

No, they mean the Internet. You see, back in the Dawn of Time . . . no, you know what, go read a book, or even a Wikipedia article. Here's a hint, though: look up ARPAnet.

[Al Jones]

It's an election year

McDowell is a Republican, and any talk of the UN and "World Government" is like throwing chum into shark infested waters. Get's them all excited and liable to attack anything that moves.

[wayward4now]

Re: It's an election year

Just tell them that the Internet is a big truck and then they can turn it over to Motor Vehicles, who could proably do a better job of management. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Either:

a) Random person outside the US screams bloody murder about the US trying to take over the internet and pee in everyone's swimming pools. Result: El Reg & commenters froth at the mouth, excoriating the United States.

b) Random person inside the US screams bloody murder about someone other than the US trying to take over the internet and pee in everyone's swimming pools. Result: El Reg & commenters froth at the mouth, excoriating the United States.

Sigh.

[txpatriot]

Of course the UN wants to regulate the Internet

Don't take my word for it:

UN mulls internet regulation options

"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."

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/242051,un-mulls-internet-regulation-options.aspx

Even Vint Cerf told the UN to back off:

UN talks on Internet Regulation labelled "offensive"

Vint Cerf, widely regarded as the father of the internet, also hit out at the United Nations plan. "Today, I have signed that petition on Google's behalf because we don't believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance," Cerf said on Friday . . .

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/242264,un-talks-on-internet-regulation-labelled-offensive.aspx

[John Smith 19]

This sounds like a smear campagn.

So what's the *purpose* of spreading this blatant lie?

[2cent]

Censorship, plain and simple

If perception of governments is skewed by the revelation of truth. (Wikileaks)

Kill the messenger...

or at least make it so far a journey that the truth becomes irrelevant or inconsequential. (control the source)

Every man for himself or himself for every man?

Ahhh, the subtlety and nuance to justify the fallacies of good representation for all.