@ISOCNY joins coalition of groups supporting the completion of the #IANA Transition #IANAsteward @CenDemTech
The Internet Society’s New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) has joined a coalition of groups supporting the completion of the IANA Transition. This, along with similar letters from ISOC’s Kathy Brown, another coalition, and more, amount to practically unanimous approval of the transfer plan from the Internet community. This outpouring is the result of some possible bumps in the road.
Some background:
After 18 years of steady progress since the formation of ICANN, and two years of intense negotiation within the multistakeholder community to come up with a plan, on Aug 12 2016 the NTIA declared that it intends to let the IANA Functions Contract expire on Sep 30 2016, “barring any significant impediment”. However, a significant impediment may indeed possibly arise in the form of congressional opposition. On the Senate side this is led by former presidential candidate Ted Cruz who, speaking on Sep 8 2016, vociferously spoke against it.
(transcript)
Cruz made several spurious claims – pretty much the opposite of reality – about the implications of the transfer, for instance, about the power of governments to control global content via ICANN, or that ICANN would leave U.S. jurisdiction. This prompted ICANN to issue a refuting FAQ.
Also on September 8, a bill opposing the transfer was introduced in the House, and several other prominent pols sent a letter to the DoC & DoJ raising anti-trust, jurisdiction, and accountability concerns. Cruz’s solution was to call for “continuing and strengthening” financial constraints imposed on the NTIA in 2015 via a continuing resolution, in effect de-funding the transfer in the imminent Appropriations Bill. If such were to happen, the only way the transition would go through would be via an Obama veto, and a resulting government shutdown. Something that did happen in the battle over Obamacare in 2013, but not seen as a likely prospect in 2016, despite it precipitating a Republican pratfall last time round.
However, transcendentally, whether such financial constraints do even in fact prevent the transfer taking place appear negated by a GAO report issued on Monday! The NTIA’s Larry Strickling immediately responded “We thank the GAO for its thorough analysis of the property implications of the IANA transition. We are pleased that GAO concluded that the transition does not involve a transfer of U.S. government property requiring Congressional approval.â€
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing – chaired by Cruz – Protecting Internet Freedom: Implications of Ending U.S. Oversight of the Internet at 10am EDT Wednesday September 14 2016. There should be a webcast available on that link, and also audio via CapitolHearings.org.
**  Video of the hearing is downloadable at https://isoc-ny.org/misc/2016-09-14_senate_iana.mp4 **
ron baione-doda, and 
imrananwar 6:55 pm on 09/13/2016 Permalink |
I have concerns about the US ceding control of the Internet. But, when a pile of f!lth like Ted Cruz opposes an issue, it means the issue needs our full support.
IMRANâ„¢
http://blog.imran.com
ron baione-doda 12:42 am on 09/15/2016 Permalink |
As you can see from the hearing, no one mentioned any whistle-blower process at ICANN past, present or future. Anyone who thinks that the so-called post transition “checks and balances” processes approved and presented to Congress by the ICANN-accountability working group will stand up to the sophisticated methods of intimidation and bribery used by foreign intelligence services is merely pretending to believe in a world of international human rights and respect that does not yet exist. A world of international human rights and respect may one day exist, and at that time a transition could be considered in my opinion. I would recommend at this time that any allusion to a fragmented internet is nothing more than a bluff on behalf of those foreign governments pretending like that would be somehow a beneficial alternative to the current status quo for their economies, and lastly I recommend that the functions of ICANN be transferred to an office in the Pentagon under military supervision, until such time as a world of international human rights and respect occurs. Globalists who benefit from globalism financially willfully promote that the bluffs of foreign governments are somehow worth worrying about, such as the UN gaining control of ICANN. The U.S. has veto power at the UN, so that argument is moot. Stop falling for the bluffs of foreign governments, pretending that those bluffs represent real risks to the U.S. so you can further your globalist agenda. Its like if you owned something that you wanted to lose and the first person who asked you for it you were like, “oh i better give it up because this is the way the world is going now and if I don’t it’s a risk.”. The ICANN whistle-blower process basically relies on some hero in ICANN discovering undue foreign influence and then leaking that to wikileaks. There is no guarantee that the GAC influencer within ICANN on behalf of the American people will have America’s interests in mind, more likely it will be someone put there to continue selling out America to the false idea that globalism as a governance model, governed by people far away locally unaccountable. Globalism works only as an economic and travel facilitator as it should be limited to, but power-seekers know no such reasonable limits, although there are some signs , as with Brexit and the good work of Ted Cruz that there are many people willing to argue for limits on globalism to prevent increasingly unaccountable non-localized government, the ultimate corruption.
joly 6:53 am on 09/15/2016 Permalink |
Ted vs Larry