-Caveat Lector-
>From cato.org
>
> July 6, 1999
>
> The Internet Needs an Independence Day
>
> by Solveig Singleton
>
>
> Solveig Singleton is director of information studies at the Cato
> Institute.
>
> When Paul Revere rode out to warn that British troops were
> marching on the arsenal at Concord, he had a rough night ahead of
> him. Ambushed by British forces, he never finished his ride.
>
> Today Revere could just warn the colonists by e-mail. Indeed, if
> he were alive today, he would be warning of a new force on the
> march.
>
> While we sleep, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
> Numbers, ICANN, is creating a mechanism to subdue the Internet.
> The U.S. government created ICANN to administer a few technical
> rules. But ICANN seems poised to make itself an international
> government for the Internet, not a technical-standards body.
> ICANN's regime is neither democratic nor constitutional.
>
> The equipment that makes up the Internet is scattered all over
> the world. This decentralized arrangement makes the Net hard to
> govern. Some technical tasks are controlled by just a handful of
> people. For years, the Net was run by just one man, Jon Postel.
> Before his death last year, he worked quietly out of a California
> think tank, assigning the numbers computers need to find other
> computers.
>
> A single company under contract with the U.S. government, Network
> Solutions (NSI), matched Postel's numbers with .com, .net, and
> .org domain names. NSI hands out these addresses and keeps a
> "root server" updated to make sure all the computers around the
> world could find Internet addresses.
>
> This is the domain-name system.
>
> Whoever controls the domain-name system controls the Internet.
> Countries, companies, and individuals could vanish from the
> Internet overnight at the whim of the domain-name administrators.
> And as control passes from NSI to ICANN, the domain-name system's
> independence from the government is under siege.
>
> The U.S. government created ICANN to replace Postel and to insure
> competition for NSI. ICANN is supposedly a private enterprise,
> but its relationship with government is a cozy one.
>
> ICANN's legitimacy depends on government support but lacks any
> specific statutory mandate. Without a clear public/private
> boundary, ICANN quickly evolved into a mysterious elite of broad
> powers. On what authority were the members of ICANN's current
> "interim" board appointed?
>
> No one knows. The interim board was supposed to begin by electing
> a permanent board and then get out of the way. But the interim
> board has barely moved toward this goal. ICANN's last meeting was
> at a five-star hotel in Berlin, far beyond the reach of the
> average Internet user. The meetings of the board are closed.
>
> ICANN is influenced by a government advisory board -- in more
> closed meetings -- whose members include representatives from
> bureaucratic giants such as the International Telecommunications
> Union, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the European
> Union, and the European Council. Is ICANN becoming a puppet of
> this board?
>
> In Berlin, ICANN endorsed in principle a WIPO report on trademark
> issues at the urging of the board, and called for its membership
> to develop the controversial dispute-resolution mechanism of the
> kind supported by WIPO.
>
> That means that ICANN is willing to be pressed into top-down
> decisions on major policy issues, such as whether trademark
> disputes go to private arbitration or the courts.
>
> CommunicationsWeek reports that the advisory board has begun to
> mutter about how ICANN could be used to enforce an e-commerce tax
> policy for the Net. Now that the governing institution is in
> place, there is no limit to the projects it could undertake.
>
> Jon Postel did the job ICANN was supposed to do with a staff of
> two and a budget of $250,000. ICANN has a budget of $5.9 million,
> countless committees, and lofty and suspect ambitions.
>
> ICANN is now the government of the Internet. With its elite
> meetings and expensive retreats, it is not a democratic
> government. Nor it is a constitutional government. Where does
> ICANN's authority come from? How can abuse be prevented?
>
> Founding documents and institutions matter -- the ideas outlined
> in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution played
> a crucial role in shaping America's future. This basic guidance
> is completely lacking for Internet governance.
>
> Is technology the answer? A few pioneers have tried to route
> around the central domain-name system. It could be done. If ICANN
> squeezes too hard, it will. But technological alternatives that
> would require people around the world to abandon the current
> system are unlikely to catch on easily. ICANN is counting on
> exclusive -- and government-protected -- control of its domain.
>
> The promise of technological bypass offers little comfort to
> those trapped in ICANN's gears. And there is no need to
> deconstruct the Internet; it was working fine before ICANN. The
> Internet community should limit ICANN's authority while that is
> still possible. Maybe e-mail and Web sites like the forthcoming
> ICANNwatch.com will provide a bottom-up substitute for a
> constitutional right to petition.
>
> The Internet has given many people around the world the power to
> write their own Declaration of Independence. But they'll first
> have to wake up.
>
>
>
>
> This article appeared in the Journal of Commerce on July 2, 1999.
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
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> � 1999 The Cato Institute
>
>
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