Washington blunders again
I see that the guardians of our country in Washington are on the verge of yet another diplomatic blunder.
A lot of people around the world are saying that the stewardship of the Internet should no longer be an exclusive American province but should pass to UN control. As reported in a lot of places this issue is coming to a head. The Desktop Pipeline writes
Lately, however, several countries — among them Brazil, China, Cuba, and Iran — as well as organizations including the United Nations and the European Union have been pushing for a place at the Internet management table. In July, for instance, a U.N. report
not only called for the U.S. to cede control, but said that the United Nations should set broader Internet policy, including multi-lingualization of the Web and the power to tax domains to pay for universal access.“No single government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to international governance,” read the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) report.
With the EU recently withdrawing its support for U.S. management of the Internet, the issue is expected to come to a head next month in Tunisia, when the World Summit on the Information Society convenes Nov. 16-18.
Now, what is the response from Washington? Do they reply to this growing pressure diplomatically? No, as the Desktop Pipeline heads it, they draw a line in the sand.
The Bush administration answered the calls for handing over the keys with a definitive “no” in June, and President Bush reiterated the arguments as recently as last week with European Commission President José Barroso in a face-to-face meeting in Washington, D.C.
And of course members of Congress have leaped in also.
A trio of lawmakers in the House of Representatives has joined a Senate colleague in calling for the U.S. to retain oversight control over the Internet, as a showdown looms with countries wanting more say in how the Web is run.
One can understand the argument that the US government through ARPA was responsible for the development of the Internet and therefore has been the legitimate regulator. But now that hundreds of millions of people all over the world are using the Internet, it is going to be difficult to convince all of them that the US should retain sole control of the governance. Personally, I do not see how you can stop other countries from trying to control their pieces of the Internet.
But even if you do believe that the US should continue its present oversight role, it’s a mistake to get everybody’s back up by a flat “No†to their requests. That is not how foreign diplomacy is done. It may make you feel righteous to state exactly where you stand without equivocation but that kind of honesty gets you nowhere in international relations. Instead you agree that the question needs study, you propose a commission to study it, and you talk it to death for years. People may be fully aware that you are stonewalling but they don’t get put out in the same way that a defiant “No†causes. And as the talks drone on, you don’t get big headlines around the world that the US is once more being a unilateral bully. It appears that Bush is repeating the same mistake that was made with the Kyoto Accords on greenhouse emissions. That was a flawed proposal but could have been studied for decades. Instead Bush said “No, never†and now we are blamed for all the bad weather in the world.
What’s your opinion? Should the US retain oversight of the Internet? Even if we want to, can we?
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