The U.S. Congress is now preparing for the confrontation with U.N. groups in this October.
After refusing to sign a draft ITU treaty, which had the content to allow each countries to be able to censor and manage their own Internet, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has affirmed to push a draft of the policy that was said to belong to the United States, this policy is to conserve and advance the prosperous multi-stakeholder model that governs Internet. This resolution was brought up since last year and is now seeking its opportunity to be officially put on the constitution book before the important international meeting in South Korea this fall.
The proposed bill has shown some content that the internet’s neutrality current policy will be affected. However, the true meaning behind this act was to send a message to ITU- International Telecommunications Union who is the supporter and patron to U.N.
The ITU treaty, which the conference was held in Dubai on December 2012, was not accepted by the U.S. and the countries in Europe since they considered it to be a threat to their internet users and companies’ freedom.
There was a warning sent from Robert McDowell to the Congress members that ITU had planned some issues that will turn out to be a disturbance to U.S. as he said that “Last year’s bipartisan and unanimous congressional resolutions clearly opposing expansions of international powers over the Internet reverberated throughout the world and had a positive and constructive effect,”
For the conference this fall, in McDowell opinion, it will literally be “a constitutional convention to define the ITU’s mission for years to come. Its constitution will be rewritten and a new Secretary General will be elected. This scenario poses both a threat and an opportunity for Internet freedom. The outcome of this massive treaty negotiation is uncertain, but the momentum favors those pushing for more Internet regulation.”
The 1998 document which called the ITR Treaty has the content to control over television, telephone, and radio network, and now ITU is trying to get a hold over Internet as well.
Because of that effort it was stated in the treaty last year in Dubai saying that the Internet is the main constituent of the information economy’s foundation. Because of this it should be a proper thing for each country’s governments to have equality in taking an action and responsibility for international governance.
Though it was supported by Iran and African countries, it was strongly opposed by Terry Kremer, former U.S. Ambassador, which he said that without U.N. regulation, the things on internet have smoothly run for over two decades. This idea of Kremer was well supported by many important groups and people in America as they all thought that when it comes to access and tax, the internet should be kept free.
In some countries, in fact, has already put forbid to Web access, and actually, the official mandate of ITU treaty is just to help its committee to easily work on censor their internet.
It has been pointed out that all these efforts of ITU are just to snatch the power in controlling the internet from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). As it was well known that ICANN manages domains and controls the Internet’s core, and it operates at the direction of the U.S. Department of Commerce. By doing this, ITU can shake the influence of the U.S. government off the ICANN.
