The Redhunter

The UN Plan to Control the Internet

The UN denies it, and I've read editorials in techie magazines at work whereby they minimize it, but the fact of the matter is that some at the UN want to assume control of the most important part of what makes up the Internet, the name servers. From StrategyPage:

The United Nations (UN) is campaigning to take over the one aspect of the Internet that can be controlled centrally, the DNS (Domain Name Server) system. This was one of the key ideas that make the Internet work. DNS is a system of server computers that contain the list of web site names, and the twelve digit long IDs that computers actually use to find sites on the net. Since DNS was invented in the United States, the organization ICANN, that supervises the assignment of web site names, is in the U.S. (as an organization independent of any government and staffed by an international crew.) But the UN believes that its American origins makes ICANN the creature of the U.S. government, and believes an international organization should control the DNS system.

Why is control of DNS so important?

Major members, or groups of smaller members, of the UN, can exercise considerable control over UN organizations. For example, uf DNS were controlled by the UN, China could insure that any site names China did not approve of, never appeared.

Now do you see?

The planners at the UN, of course, doesn't see it this way. Their stated goals, are, as you may predict, quite laudable. They "...include expanding Internet access in developing countries and fighting spam."

But given the UN's history, it is not the organization to take on these objectives. All it would likely create is a huge bureaucracy and lots of red tape. In other words, it would be hugely expensive and accomplish little.

The real danger comes from dictators who don't like to be criticized. Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky & Joseph Barillari, in an article posted on NRO in September, explain:

Only dictators, and, perhaps, the doctrinaire internationalists who so often abet them, stand to gain from placing the Internet under "international" control. If, for example, the U.N. were to control domain names, its component tyrannies would find it much easier to censor and repress. After all, "internet public policy" is subject to interpretation, and it is hard to imagine international bureaucrats resisting — as ICANN and the U.S. largely have — the temptation to politicize their task. At first, this could even seem reasonable: E.U. officials might seek to eliminate neo-Nazi domains. Inevitably, however, dictatorships would seek to extinguish undesirable foreign web content at the source. Given the U.N.'s penchant for condemning good causes, it is easy to imagine Tehran pushing to suppress "racist" (i.e. "Zionist") websites, or steady pressure from Beijing to eliminate Taiwan's ".tw" domain. (One China, one top-level domain.)

China, a major proponent of a U.N.-administered Internet, already operates the world's largest and most advanced system of online censorship. Thousands of government agents, including some from ITU Director Zhao's former Department of Telecommunications, make sure that websites, e-mails, and even search-engine results deemed threatening to the regime remain inaccessible to a fifth of the world's population. U.S. companies have shamefully participated in this system, as shown by China's recent jailing of dissident journalist Shi Tao based on information revealed by Yahoo!, Inc. Chinese Internet users are unable to access the websites of the Voice of America or, even, the BBC. The regime's filtering is so sophisticated that many sites, such as cnn.com, time.com, and, curiously, yale.edu, are filtered page-by-page, thus maintaining the illusion of openness. Other WGIG participants have similar policies. Like China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia also recognize that control over the Internet brings them closer to control over minds. It is unsurprising, then, that Mr. Zhao and his ilk support the U.N.'s drive to give them more of it.

Gotta keep an eye on 'em. For now, Bolton seems to be right for the job. But he is a recess appointment, who's term will be up in January 2007. The Democrats will likely object to him if he is renominated.

I've written about these UN plans before, but it seems a good idea to keep them in the spotlight. They'll sneak them in under the radar unless we keep a watch on them.