The Coleman Internet Resolution: Get an Up-or-Down Vote
Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota is on the right track, but needs to go further (HT Atlas Shrugs):
Senator: Keep U.N. away from the Internet
Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that’s scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.
“The Internet is likely to face a grave threat” at the summit, Coleman said in a statement on Monday. “If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on.”
If ratified, Coleman’s resolution would assure the Bush administration and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of political support on Capitol Hill during the negotiations at the World Summit on the Information Society. Similar support has already come from both senior Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Okay, it’s a non-binding resolution. Nevertheless, I’d like to see an up-or-down vote on the resolution, so that any senator who wants to give the Internet away to incompetent, corrupt, kleptocrats will be outed.
More likely, the vote will be unanimous or very close to it, just as the nonbinding resolution on the Kyoto “global warming” Treaty was in the late 1990s. Despite all the subsequent posturing (including Al Gore’s “symbolic signing” noted below–oh, how I DON’T miss them), that vote ended any chance that Kyoto would ever get through a future Senate:
On June 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was to be negotiated, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”. On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Aware of the Senate’s view of the protocol, the Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol for ratification.
A similar unanimous “keep the Internet” vote, though not a treaty situation, will go a long way towards ensuring that future administrations of either party don’t just hand control of Internet governance over without understanding the outcry that will ensue.
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Oct. 21: Outside the Beltway Jammer.
Which senator wants to give the .tw ccTLD away?
News from .gov.tw: Taiwan Deserves a Place in the United Nations
It is almost unimaginable that there is one country, with a population greater than 140 of these UN member states, which is still barred from joining the United Nations. A democratic country with 23 million people, Taiwan is the world’s 17th largest economy and 15th largest trading nation.
…
It is most regrettable that Taiwan’s international status does not yet reasonably reflect its admirable political and economic achievements. At present, not only the United Nations but also its affiliated organizations adopt a discriminatory policy of segregation by shutting out Taiwan.
Comment by Anonymous — October 21, 2005 @ 12:17 pm
#1, I don’t know. Which Senator?
The point of the up-down vote would be to identify senators, if any, who would give away control of Internet governance, and to force wafflers to think it through and go on the record, a la Kyoto.
Comment by TBlumer — October 21, 2005 @ 1:15 pm
I think that there is a bi-partisan sense that Americans will not (re-)elect a Maoist. So thinking strategically, the question becomes how clear we want to make it that the first amendment is just not negotiable at WSIS. If we make it too obvious that Ambassador Gross is just there to smile, nod appreciatively and look concerned, then we might as well tell him to stay home and instead spend money on hurricane relief rather than wasting it on a diplomat’s cocktail party in Tunisia.
Comment by Anonymous — October 21, 2005 @ 3:03 pm
#3, good thoughts. Have the up-or-down and Gross can stay home.
Comment by TBlumer — October 21, 2005 @ 5:09 pm
Re #4: I’ve just been told elsewhere, by a European, that American free speech/press concerns are “BS”. Let’s spend the money on hurricane relief.
Comment by Anonymous — October 22, 2005 @ 5:40 pm
Amen to that. Cancel his trip.
Comment by TBlumer — October 22, 2005 @ 5:48 pm