[CCWG-Accountability] Washington Post -- Protect the Internet: Keep the contract with ICANN

Tue Jan 6 09:25:32 UTC 2015

Thanks Phil for forwarding.

Some quick comments:

In the IG space we deal with governments such as these on a regular 
basis - in so far as they are part of the GAC, or sitting in discussions 
at the UN, in the WSIS processes, etc., they are a part of the 
governance space.  Enhanced accountability and governance mechanisms at 
ICANN and independent IANA operator oversight should provide the 
necessary resilience and the resistance to capture by such regimes, or 
indeed any stakeholder group or subset, going forward.  This is why our 
work is so important.
The assertion that civil society is in bed with these regimes and that 
somehow the influence of these regimes is facilitated by civil society 
participation is just wrong.  If that is the intent of the editorial it 
is shamefully dismissive of the great work that civil society is doing 
to promote an open Internet and free expression around the globe.
And, somehow the editorial team have forgotten about the NTIA criteria 
for the transition - the transition won't (indeed should not) go 
anywhere if there is credible belief that the proposal will result in a 
system that will be subject to influence and capture by any of the 
stakeholders.

Matthew

On 1/6/2015 1:24 AM, Phil Corwin wrote:
>
> FYI--This is the lead editorial in the January 5, 2014 issue of the 
> Washington Post…
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/protect-the-internet-keep-the-contract-with-icann/2015/01/04/b1ff61c2-7bff-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html
>
> The
> Post's View
> Protect the Internet: Keep the contract with ICANN
>
> By Editorial Board January 4 at 7:12 PM
> LAST MONTH, China hosted the first World Internet Conference and gave 
> everyone reason to worry. At the last minute, Chinese officials tried 
> to ram through a declaration calling for governments to exert greater 
> control over the fastest and freest communications tool the world has 
> ever seen, using the chilling
> concept of “Internet sovereignty” to justify it.  Russia, meanwhile, 
> has crushed its most prominent Internet entrepreneur — Pavel Durov , 
> the founder of a major Facebook-like application — after he refused to 
> cooperate with the Kremlin.
> It’s bad enough that these authoritarian governments repress online 
> expression within their borders. They should
> not be let anywhere near the governance of the Internet’s global 
> infrastructure. Yet the Commerce Department is proceeding with a plan 
> to relinquish supervision of one crucial element of world Internet 
> governance to an international body, which may not be
> sufficiently resistant to influence from the world’s many would-be 
> censors. If the situation doesn’t improve, Commerce should halt the 
> march toward a formal turnover.
> The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is 
> responsible for a lot of everyday maintenance
> — essentially acting as the Internet’s phone book. Until recently, its 
> major policy dilemmas have revolved around whether to create new 
> top-level domain names such as .tv or .xxx. But now it is at the 
> center of a potentially perilous transition. It continues
> to operate under the  Commerce Department’s benign oversight , but 
> Commerce’s contract with ICANN is up next year . Relying on a global 
> community of Internet engineers, businesses and other nongovernmental 
> entities, ICANN wants to end one of the last vestiges of formal U.S. 
> control over the global
> Internet, completing the transfer of responsibility for maintaining 
> basic Internet functionality to a multi-stakeholder organization that 
> operates by consensus and independently of any government.
> The problem is that no one yet has a convincing explanation for how 
> the multi-stakeholder model will be immune to
> pernicious influences from governments. Independent voices from global 
> nongovernmental interests are supposed to suffuse the ICANN system and 
> provide a self-correcting ethos. But civil society in many countries 
> is deeply connected to the state, and those states
> will try to manipulate or control as much as they can. Details of the 
> technical transition are being hammered out, but the accountability 
> measures and controls that will be vital to establishing and 
> preserving a legitimate global Internet governance are taking
> longer.
> Commerce still holds a trump card: It can renew its contract with 
> ICANN. The Obama administration has said it will
> insist on adequate protections for freedom of speech before it lets 
> go, and it must stick to that commitment. That could be hard: The 
> Snowden revelations have put pressure on the Obama administration. Yet 
> the free and open Internet has thrived under existing
> arrangements. The United States should not allow other governments to 
> use the leaks as a pretext to gain control of Internet governance.
>
>
> *Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal*
>
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>
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-- 
Matthew Shears
Director - Global Internet Policy and Human Rights
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)
mshears at cdt.org
+ 44 771 247 2987

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