Posted on 09/29/2016 10:50:13 AM PDT by VitacoreVision
October 1 is D-Day for the start of the international takeover of the Internet, a scheme the Obama administration and the United Nations have been advancing for years. Why are GOP leaders AWOL as President Obama and the United Nations move to transfer critically important jurisdiction over the Internet to an unaccountable UN-aligned monopoly? Why are Ryan and McConnell doing nothing?
On October 1 — which is only hours away — U.S. oversight of the Internet’s domain name system is scheduled to be stripped from the U.S. and transferred to the new Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) designed by global “multistakeholder” activists. Members of Congress, national security experts, military professionals, constitutional authorities, privacy advocates, and human rights activists are warning that this pending transition to “independent” oversight by “the international community” is fraught with danger.
However, as on so many other crucial issues, the Republican-controlled Congress is acting as a rubber stamp for Obama. Although few Americans are aware of the serious threat posed by this impending transition, the UN’s Internet takeover scheme is not something that has sprung upon us recently or ex nihilo; we have been reporting on this growing peril for the past several years (see here and the articles linked below, following this story).
Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG), yesterday blasted House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for failing even to attempt to block the Internet giveaway, while at the same time caving in to threats of a government shutdown by President Obama and the Democrats if the Republicans didn’t give them all the funding they demanded. One of the key issues was a deal to provide the city of Flint, Michigan, a liberal Democrat stronghold, with $170 million in federal funds for their municipal water supply.
“So, Democrats block the continuing resolution, demand money for the Flint, Mich. water supply,” noted Manning. “House Republicans led by House Speaker Paul Ryan relent and agree to add it to the House water bill after that proposal was defeated in the House Rules Committee, and got nothing in return.”
“Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats were actively demanding extra add-ons for these bills, and they couldn’t even get a rider stopping the irreversible transition of U.S. oversight of the Internet’s domain name system," ALG’s Manning charged. “That, even though the Department of Justice has repeatedly failed to respond to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on a number of outstanding legal concerns with the Internet transition of U.S. oversight of the domain name system,” he said, referring to the most recent letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
In their September 21 letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the chairmen raised serious national security concerns and important constitutional matters that the Department of Justice has failed to address, despite repeated requests. The DOJ has failed to address, the chairmen pointed out, “how the transfer will effect free speech and the openness of the Internet, if U.S. control of the .mil and .gov domains will be compromised, if the transfer will open the Internet to undue influence from foreign nations, if the transfer will lead to the improper conveyance of United States government property, or if the transfer affects any existing antitrust immunity and increases the likelihood of significant antitrust litigation.”
ALG’s Rick Manning charges that “these issues risk either creating an unaccountable global Internet monopoly or a potentially fractured domain name system if antitrust does come into play. The transition proposal contemplates neither scenario, and these issues cannot be addressed once the transition occurs on October 1.” (See here for a detailed legal analysis by ALG’s senior editor Robert Romano of the anti-trust issues involved in the transfer.)
The letter by chairmen Grassley and Goodlatte asked Attorney General Lynch to answer “whether or not the administration has the constitutional authority to conduct the IANA transition without the authorization of Congress because of the United States property interests in the root zone file — or other similar components of the Internet that were created and financed by the United States.” The chairmen pointed out that under Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power “to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.”
On September 26, a stellar coalition of 77 generals, admirals, intelligence experts, cybersecurity professionals, and industry leaders sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford, calling on them to intervene in opposition to President Obama’s radical plan to jeopardize the security of the Internet, which is vital to national (and global) security.
“As individuals with extensive, first-hand experience with protecting our national security, we write to urge you to intervene in opposition to an imminent action that would, in our judgment, cause profound and irreversible damage to the United States’ vital interests,” the letter states. Of immediate concern, say these national security professionals, “is the prospect that the United States might be transferring to future adversaries a capability that could facilitate, particularly in time of conflict, cyberwarfare against us.” The letter continued, “In the absence of NTIA’s stewardship, we would be unable to be certain about the legitimacy of all IP addresses or whether they have been, in some form or fashion, manipulated, or compromised. Given the reliance of the U.S. military and critical infrastructure on the Internet, we must not allow it to be put needlessly at risk.”
Among the signers of the letter are Adm. James A. “Ace” Lyons, USN (Ret.), former commander-in-chief U.S. Pacific Fleet; Lt. General William “Jerry” Boykin, USA (Ret.), former deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence; Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret.), former deputy chief of staff, United States Air Force; Hon. Charles E. Allen, former under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for intelligence and analysis; Lt. Gen. C. E. McKnight, Jr., USA (Ret.), former director, Command and Control Systems for Nuclear Forces, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Lani Kass, former firector, Air Force Chief of Staff’s Cyber Task Force; Rear Adm. Philip S. Anselmo, USN (Ret.), former director of Command Control Communications Computers and Intelligence (C4I); Rep. Brian Babin (R-Tex.), Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Science Space and Technology Subcommittee; Jody R. Westby, CEO, Global Cyber Risk LLC and former chief administrative officer & counsel, In-Q-Tel.
Considering the Obama administration’s contempt for the Constitution’s system of checks and balances, its record for ignoring Congressional requests and concerns, and President Obama’s penchant for “legislating” by executive order, it is not surprising that the administration has completely ignored these appeals by Congress, as well as military and cybersecurity experts. Nor is it a surprise that the Republican leaders have failed, once again, to fight for America’s vital interests. As ALG’s Manning notes, their failure even to engage Obama on this issue is inexcusable.
“Did they even try?” Manning asks. “Ryan and McConnell have not issued any public statements on the matter, so we must assume they actively agree with surrendering U.S. oversight of the Internet. They didn’t even put up a fight. House and Senate Republicans are not what they say, they are what they do. And what they are doing is allowing President Obama to give away the Internet to the international community, threatening the American people’s vital Internet freedoms. And don’t let any Republican tell you different.”
The clock is ticking; October 1 is only hours away. Opponents of the Internet giveaway are urging voters to deluge their U.S. senators, representatives, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with phone calls and e-mails urging them to take action to stop the transfer before the October 1 deadline.
Related articles:
The United Nations Grabs for Internet Control (Video)
U.S. Lawmakers Aim to Block Obama's Internet Giveaway
Internet “Governance” Summit in Brazil Advances UN Control
Chinese Communist to Lead UN Agency Seeking to Control Internet
UN, Islamists & Communists Push Global Internet Regime
Secret UN Document Lays Out Plan to Seize Control of Internet
Yeah everyone uses the dark net right? Ninety nine percent of people use the internet exactly like we used to use a phone, no technical ability required. If you only need to talk to geeks then maybe it won't matter. You do know of corse that Domain names have a small fee attached, what happens when it becomes a big fee?
Tellin ya, at worst, an inconvenience. A short one, too, as alternative DNS servers pop up.
The Democrats control it anyway.
Route around it and go where exactly? The ip address determines where you can be found and we would no longer have control over those addresses.
This not about the physical web, it is all about the control over traffic to ip addresses, which you don't get to pick.
I am sure they exist already the porn industry seems to be able to communicate, but driving freedom underground is not a step forward.
That is because a lot of Republicans are really democrats.
Call your representatives and senators.
Too late. This one is over. FRegards.
That is because a lot of Republicans are really democrats.
It’s not about ideology for Republicans. It’s about money. They are bought and paid for. Ryan was yucking it up last night because one of his top aides is leaving. Not retiring. Just moving over to a VP perch in a beltway lobbying firm. I’m sure they’ll still be in touch. LOL.
Yes, it will actually take some effort. But if the phones and internet are down...
So it’s really a Dim Congress. We could argue all day but I have to say I’m just frustrated with all these fascist machinations.
What about the Texas lawsuit to stop Obama giving away the Internet?
Won’t that stop obama?
With a monopoly over domain names Icann can charge whatever it wants and censor:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-internet-giveaway-to-the-u-n-1472421165
Without the U.S. contract, Icann would seek to be overseen by another governmental group so as to keep its antitrust exemption. Authoritarian regimes have already proposed Icann become part of the U.N. to make it easier for them to censor the internet globally. So much for the Obama pledge that the U.S. would never be replaced by a “government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.”
Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, called it “simply stunning” that the “politically blinded Obama administration missed the obvious point that Icann loses its antitrust shield should the government relinquish control.”
The administration might not have considered the antitrust issue, which would have been naive. Or perhaps in its arrogance the administration knew all along Icann would lose its antitrust immunity and look to the U.N. as an alternative. Congress could have voted to give Icann an antitrust exemption, but the internet giveaway plan is too flawed for legislative approval.
As the administration spent the past two years preparing to give up the contract with Icann, it also stopped actively overseeing the group. That allowed Icann to abuse its monopoly over internet domains, which earns it hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Earlier this month, an independent review within Icann called the organization “simply not credible” in how it handled the application for the .inc, .llc and .llp domains. The independent review found Icann staffers were “intimately involved” in evaluating their own work. A company called Dot Registry had worked with officials of U.S. states to create a system ensuring anyone using these Web addresses was a legitimate registered company. Icann rejected Dot Registry’s application as a community, which would have resulted in lowered fees to Icann.
Delaware’s secretary of state objected: “Legitimate policy concerns have been systematically brushed to the curb by Icann staffers well-skilled at manufacturing bureaucratic processes to disguise pre-determined decisions.” Dot Registry’s lawyer, Arif Ali of the Dechert firm, told me last week his experience made clear “Icann is not ready to govern itself.”
Icann also refuses to award the .gay domain to community groups representing gay people around the world. Icann’s ombudsman recently urged his group to “put an end to this long and difficult issue” by granting the domain. Icann prefers to earn larger fees by putting the .gay domain up for auction among for-profit domain companies.
And Icann rejects the community application for the .cpa domain made by the American Institute of CPAs, which along with other accounting groups argues consumers should expect the .cpa address only to be used by legitimate accountants, not by the highest bidder. An AICPA spokesman told me he has a pile of paperwork three feet high on the five-year quest for the .cpa domain. The professional group objected in a recent appeal: “The process seems skewed toward a financial outcome that benefits Icann itself.”
The only thing worse than a monopoly overseen by the U.S. government is a monopoly overseen by no one—or by a Web-censoring U.N. Congress still has time to extend its ban on the Obama administration giving up protection of the internet. Icann has given it every reason to do so.
If they are down, they are down and we will have bigger things to worry about. Personally I am counting on cans and a string.
OK, yes. I stand corrected. If you control the dictionary of how traffic is routed and which addresses are “authorized”, then yes, the globalists can effectively stop people from finding your website or sending you email.
Fortunately, if that happened, I think an alternative internet would be born. Rogue and “illegal” networks would rise up. It would take a long time for those new rogue networks to scale, but they would, and they would probably grow out of US-based networks first.
Look at Twitter. It’s steadily losing its credibility as it tries to censure people’s free speech. It’s stock value has tanked and alternatives to Twitter are being given a chance to take power from Twitter.
My example is perhaps a bit simplistic. Remember that “the Internet” as you all know it is a conglomeration of things you access through a web browser. It’s a digital library, much of which is filled with porn, selfies, and pictures of cats. It’s the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
All of this is cataloged by ICANN and IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). This of them as the digital equivalent of a card catalog at a library or an atlas for the highway analogy. You could wander around a library for long enough that you’d find the section housing your particular interest, but it’s a lot faster to use the card catalog. Likewise, you could very easily plot a travel plan that avoids interstates and/or highways, and unless you travel up to the banks of Lake Okeechobee or the foothills of the Rockies, you won’t have much of an issue making your way. There are long-standing guides, think of them like digital compasses, that can keep you on some sort of track.
Where a magnetic compass could keep you traveling in a particular direction, so too could you use tools to traverse the Internet to find information. This “handover” isn’t giving over anything other than a very big phone book. It’s ceding control of the card catalog. The most they’ll do is rearrange the library or mess up our atlases. If you are of a mind to go back to old ways, you can still find your way around.
I’ll be more concerned when they start talking about configuring global firewalls “for our safety.” This is merely taking the publishing of a phone book away from your local papermill and handing it over to some international body. It’s likely we’ll just see a lot more mistakes in the catalog than anything insidious.
Well there’s always the Tristero...
;))...
Yay! You've made my point for me. Thank you!
The point here is that FR was never "down" in that the servers were still humming and could still produce a graphical product to an endpoint. Remember 20 years ago when you had your best friend's, your parents', your girlfriend's/boyfriend's phone numbers memorized? I personally drew a mental map of the numbers and made pictographs to memorize 7-digit numbers. I still do it to this day. But you know what? If you asked me my brother's cell phone number, I couldn't tell you. I have my wife's cell number memorized, but could tell you my father's or my best friend's number.
Why is that? Because we've become accustomed to having data repositories at our fingertips. Our phones are personal digital assistants. When I was a teenager, I had a "little black book" in which I'd write down everyone's number and address. Now, I have a small computer I tote around everywhere, but I still have the number for my wife banked away. If I lose my phone, I can still reach SOMEONE.
FR as well as CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, Reddit, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, YouTube... they're not going anywhere. This ICANN stuff isn't going to simultaneously shutter political dissent. It isn't going to mean that you can't access anything. What it might mean, at some indeterminate point in the future, is that you have to start memorizing addresses. FR's is 209.157.64.200. As so long as JimRob is drawing breath, I can assure you that he'll fight to make sure that we can get to this wonderful venue for free discussion, even if that means we have to use numbers instead of words.
We do have the ability to create our own personal catalogs on our local computers. Both Linux and Windows machines have what's known as a hosts file. This file is the first stop in your TCP stack and can be used to force network connections to specific IP addresses without regard for what might be in an Internet-based DNS database. If you wanted to, you could put FR's address in it right now and never have to worry about a DNS-based issue. For Windows users, it's a text file found at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. That's it. No extension, just hosts. Instructions in there are pretty straightforward.
My point in all of this is that this is one, small bite the globalists are taking to try to take away our freedom. I'm not saying it's innocent or nothing to worry over. This is a big handover of sovereignty, something for which Obama's famous. Fact is, most policymakers and global elites have zero understanding of how networking really works. They just think that consuming American sovereignty of the public Internet naming roots is going to mean they can control everything. When they realize it's just a phone book, they'll start looking for the next block to consume. Be ever vigilant.
Pynchon? God it’s been 15 years since I’ve heard that name.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.