Google, IBM, Microsoft, others show up at DC event to back status quo: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5931684.html EU claims to be "optimistic" that the U.S.'s role will be altered: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/79632/ec-aims-for-greater-internet-control.html Bush's "Monroe Doctrine" for the Internet: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20051101facomment84602/kenneth-neil-cukier/who-will-control-the-internet.html Larry Lessig on the situation: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3306 -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Why no blog swarm on Net governance? Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 10:27:11 -0500 From: Glover, Daniel <DGlover@private> To: <declan@private> I answer the question at NationalJournal.com's Beltway Blogroll: http://beltwayblogroll.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/11/the_un_as_a_thr.php November 07, 2005 BELTWAY BLOGROLL The U.N. As A Threat To Online Speech Bloggers of all political persuasions rallied online <http://beltwayblogroll.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/11/billblast_b log-.php> last week to defend their right to speak freely about American political candidates. But on the global question of who should oversee the Internet, an issue with potentially far broader ramifications on free speech, bloggers have been noticeably less vocal. ... Blog-like tech publications such as ICANN Watch <http://www.icannwatch.org/> and Slashdot <http://slashdot.org/> have covered the debate about Internet governance regularly, and tech-oriented bloggers like Andy Carvin <http://www.andycarvin.com/> of the Digital Divide Network and Steven Forrest <http://free2innovate.net/archives/cat_internet_governance.html> at Free2Innovate.net have opined on the topic. Carvin even created WSISblogs <http://www.edwebproject.org/wsisblogs/> , a clearinghouse for reports from bloggers who cover WSIS-related events. Instapundit Glenn Reynolds also has mentioned Internet governance <http://instapundit.com/archives/026077.php> periodically. But even with the heft of his influential blog, the issue has failed to gain the same traction as the blog swarm <http://beltwayblogroll.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/07/blog_days_i n_dc.php> against Federal Election Commission plans to regulate the Internet. Bruce Kesler called for more attention to the issue in a post at Democracy Project <http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/001913.html> , where he decried the European Union for aligning with "such stalwarts of smothering Internet freedom as China, Cuba, Iran and several African states." "This issue, this outrageous putsch attempt, deserves an uproar heard around the world on the Internet," he wrote. "I honestly don't know why the bloggers haven't been more active on this one," said Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, who has covered the topic at PFF Blog <http://blog.pff.org/archives/internet_governance/index.html> . "It's perplexing and frustrating." ... Reynolds said bloggers might not have rallied against Internet governance because they don't see the United Nations as a threat. "Perhaps it's a mistake, but I don't think that bloggers take the U.N. that seriously," he said in an e-mail that referenced the body's response to human rights abuses in Bosnia and Iraq. "Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam [Hussein] have made fools of the U.N., so bloggers don't think it dangerous." Kesler added that blogs tend to focus on domestic issues that readers see as more pressing. "The FEC potential regulations are a more immediate threat," he wrote in an e-mail, "but the U.N. interference is of wider import, as there are alternate means of and protections of free speech in the U.S. but not in many sad places abroad." He also noted that swarms demand consensus. Although most bloggers who have commented on the idea of U.N. oversight of the Web oppose the notion, that view is not unanimous. "You can see the U.S. conservative spin machine turning this into a battle between the democracy-loving U.S. government protecting the Internet from censorship from the dictators and thugs who run the United Nations," the blog Rikomatic <http://rikomatic.com/blogomatic/archive/2005/10/20/senator-coleman-draw s-line-in-the-sand-on-internet-governance> noted last month. "The reality, of course, is more complex." That complexity includes a general mistrust of the Bush administration when it comes to international relations. One blogger characterized the administration's emphatic dismissal of a global role in Internet governance as another example of poor diplomacy <http://tips.vlaurie.com/2005/washington-blunders-again/> , comparing it with the U.S. attitude in rejecting a treaty on global warming. Moulitsas argued that the administration's "international belligerence has given the rest of the world little faith that the U.S. will have global interests in mind when regulating what is, in effect, a global medium." He added that the U.S. government's decision earlier this year to warn ICANN against creating a .xxx Internet space exclusively for porn indicated that the administration "will impose its political agenda on Net governance." "The Internet isn't served well by having it controlled by the political whims of the sitting U.S. government," he said. ... _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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