U.N. To Govern Internet? 1197
Falmarian writes "Apparently the rest of the world isn't happy about the US franchise on internet governance. A news.com article discusses the possibility that the U.N. will make a bid for control of such governing functions as assigning TLDs and IPs." From the article: "At issue is who decides key questions like adding new top-level domains, assigning chunks of numeric Internet addresses, and operating the root servers that keep the Net humming. Other suggested responsibilities for this new organization include Internet surveillance, 'consumer protection,' and perhaps even the power to tax domain names to pay for 'universal access.'"
Yuk (Score:4, Insightful)
get over it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cycle of the ages (Score:5, Insightful)
What a Great Idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, that's what we elected these people to do, right? Oh wait a minute. nobody elected the UN, it's a treaty organization.
I'm not trying to sound reactionary, but this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. The internet is fine the way it is. If the U.S. Congress has managed to keep its hands off it so far, the U.N. should follow suit, imo. The more politicians we get involved in managing the net, the worse it will perform for everybody.
Being Your Own Customer [whattofix.com]
The UN (Score:2, Insightful)
God help us all.
Internet Comes of Age (Score:1, Insightful)
Great Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
In communist Europe, the internet owns YOU..... (Score:3, Insightful)
let em build their own (Score:1, Insightful)
if the UN wants a big ass computer network, then start one.
Re:get over it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
While you are at it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone but the U.N. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's worse than the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a Great Idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say it's a pretty damn well run organization despite being run by the U.N.
U.N. is not just a bunch of incompetent politicians, although i'm sure a lot of americans like to think that.
When the UN adopts the first amendment... (Score:5, Insightful)
...then maybe. Not before.
Re:get over it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps Slashdot will reinvent itself on Gopher?
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:get over it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What a Great Idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, on the same hand, the US has no real reason to give up control.
Hence the suggestion to use the UN - it seems like a middle ground somewhat. The people that suggested it are simply trying to create a compromise so the *net doesn't fragment.
The UN is laughable (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, we know they can run programs.. (Score:2, Insightful)
It is funny. After the fall of the USSR I made a bet with a friend that we would see a strong unified world governing body within the next 50-75 years. At this point I have changed my tune. The US should leave the UN and form an organization of like mined democracies.
Re:get over it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously this is one Bad Idea. I'll keep my intarweb like I like my slaves. FREE.
Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)
Or wait, are you wanting to talk about high profile events that occurred recently, ignoring all of that? If so, bring it on.
* Weapons of mass destruction inspections? What do you know, they were right!
* Oil For Food: Widely distorted in the media, the OFF 661 committee did *not* have authority to block contracts on the grounds of suspected kickbacks. Only the members of the Security Council (such as the US government) had that authority. The 661 committee was setup to block banned goods from entering Iraq, something that they did largely successfully.
What was the scale? Around 3 billion dollars over 10 years was snuck to the Iraqi government through kickbacks (most of the "illegal" money came from oil smuggling, something even further from the jurisdiction of the OFF committee, and something that the US deliberately ignored to retain the support of Turkey and Jordan). For comparison, over 10 billion dollars has gone missing from Iraqi Oil, almost guaranteed to be in private hands in just two years of US occupation.
In short, unless you believe the silly "Al-Mada" list (a bunch of people who supposedly have been trading in illegal oil - it even makes claims as ridiculous as the Russian Orthodox Church and high ranking Catholics, as well as people who have already been investigated and cleared), you're looking in completely the wrong direction.
But, anyways, back to the main issue: The UN is more than the "high profile stories" of the last two years. Read up on the various UN agencies that aren't in the news before you comment, please. I would be happy to see the UN manage the internet if they can do as well as they've done with, say, UNICEF.
Re:Internet comes of age (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that it matters anyway - as the parent says, a country struggling for complete hegemony over any thing or any person will not keep it very long.
--
Message from Airstrip 1
Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a Great Idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
But what about "managing Teh Intarweb"? The majority of politicians these days don't even understand that there is more to the internet than what Internet Explorer shows them. If they start throwing around regulations that are impossible to follow (like "ban all sites that might offend someone, but we can't give you a list because that would be offensive", how many times have we heard THAT now?) the majority of the politicians wouldn't figure it out until everything starts going down in flames, and if they can't see the rubble in Internet Explorer, they don't know that it's there.
And of course, being unelected, should they get an email saying the internet should be shut down for its annual cleaning and believe that it's true, there isn't anything obvious that can be done about it.
Re:get over it... (Score:3, Insightful)
The US invented the internet. The internet has to be controlled (to a degree) from somewhere. If everything is and always has been working just fine from where it is, why would anyone want to move it? Because they want to change it....that's why. It belongs where it is.
TV and the Telephone do not have one worldwide location of control. You can't control which country all of the billions of TV's are in... if there was only one, you could... do you get it now? Your argument is like saying the US wants to take all the server on the entire internet accross the whole globe and move them to the US, which is obviously not the case.
China would get a vote (Score:3, Insightful)
Call us cowboys, but a lot of the world doesn't want our freedoms, and would be more than happy to stop them for all of us. I don't think the spirit of the internet could survive a bunch of unelected corrupt dictators setting the rules.
Taxation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:get over it... (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of turf war is likely to happen with a UN controlled internet.
For example, what happens when countries like China, North Korea, and many more. Demand that the UN aid them in "filtering" the internet for their citizens.
The root servers are pretty stable and things are working fine right now. Theres no need for a change to a venue where politics will rule the technology (I know there are politics already, but were talking orders of magnitude difference here).
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to agree with most everyone else here: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I don't agree with the idea that "the US invented it, therefore we should control it". I don't think that's a good approach or attitude, but I also think that the internet has been humming along just fine without any real government control.
Really...what would *anyone* have to gain from allowing the UN to control the internet from a practical standpoint (no, "sticking it to the US" doesn't count)? I think it's pretty obvious that the cost/benefit ratio is really, really bad in that scenario.
Re:The UN (Score:4, Insightful)
Which one?
-b
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN doesn't even vaguely resemble a world government. It's more like a country club for national governments. There's no real money in helping refugees, feeding starving children, or vaccinations; the UNHCR, UNICEF, and the WHO are decent branches of the UN. There is staggering amounts of money in "overseeing" oil and other commodity sales and there's probably also staggering amounts of money and power involved in domain name control. Do you really want an organization made up of unelected and unaccountable politicos running another program with money involved given the UN's track record in that regard?
Re:Internet Comes of Age (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think they have any room to point fingers.
Oh and lets not forget that the solution is to take a system that has been working perfectly fine and give it to an unelected group of people with a incredibly bad track record. A group of people that have members who don't believe in little things such as freedom of speech, which is pretty darn fundamental to the internet.
As another person stated, do you really want China, responsible for massive censorship of the internet, to have a say in how its run?
This is a solution in search of a problem. The only real problem is political, and politics is something that the internet can do without.
Re:Yuk (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll usually tell you that they in general blame unfair trade practices. For example, even with their low labor costs, African farms often have a hard time competing with subsidized US and European ag exports. First world nations do a lot of pretty nasty stuff as far as import regulations go (for example, declaring the Vietnamese catfish as not being a catfish, to subsidize the US catfish industry)
Not that many of their problems aren't their own fault, mind you.
Ask the people of Darfur how the UN has failed to even try to protect them
Because they *weren't authorized to intervene by the Security Council*. What, are you picturing some huge security council debate over whether cmm.com is typosquatting on cnn.com? We're not talking about troop deployments, we're talking about the internet.
Re:What a Great Idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
That is what everyone with half a brain thinks. It is a joke of an organization. Libya was head of the human rights council! Other nations included Cuba (HA!) and Syria (HAHA!)
It is composed of European socialists and third-world zeros. If you want it to have any moral authority create the UDN (United Democratic Nations) and invite nations that respect the sanctity of human life.
--Joey
Re:get over it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Normally, I'm all about fair treatment of citizens across the world, regardless of their country of origin. But in this case, I really believe the US should retain control.
First off, no one is saying that the US is doing a bad job; they want change because they don't think it "feels right" that the US is controlling everything. This requires a certain amount of faith that a body like the UN can do as good of a job as the US has been doing. I would hate to have a switch take place, and then find that suddenly the services we take for granted are poorly managed and suffer outages.
Secondly, I wouldn't trust a lot of countries in the world to handle the internet in "the right way." One of the thing that makes the internet great is the freedom of speech that is granted by default, and is only selectively taken away based on your jurisdiction. That is a value that the internet has inherited from the US, and it would be a dark day if some international organization (be it the UN or another) adopted a stricter policy on monitoring, "consumer protection", etc. What has made the internet so amazing is the freedom associated with it.
Anyway, unless there is a legitimate gripe in how the internet is being run, I'd suggest leaving well enough alone.
Re:When the UN adopts the first amendment... (Score:2, Insightful)
Great. What next? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cycle of the ages (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yuk (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask the starving people in Africa how well the UN has managed things. Ask the people of Darfur how the UN has failed to even try to protect them from genocide. But given that the UN lacks any real enforcement powers, I for one am not too worried about them trying to tax the internet.
My dad worked in Africa "de-mining". Why not ask Africans whether they'd prefer life without the UN. My experience was many Africans (and this wasn't your Cairo/Jo'burg Africans, this was twenty-years-of-post-colonial-conflict-sponsored-b y Washington-Moscow-London-Paris-Havana-Beijing Africa, by the way) respected the limited work the UN was able to do in extremely difficult circumstances.
The UN may be shite, but it's better than nothing. And it's a lot better than the League of Nations, which in turn was a lot better than... bugger all international cooperation.
And regarding Darfur, I've been following this since long before it hit the mainstream media. The UN's been there a long time, dealing with entrenched resistence from the (sovereign) government of Sudan, and from neighbouring states. It's not always possible - or even desirable - to just move into and occupy a country to effect change.
Re:What a Great Idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yuk (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What a Great Idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Ohh wait, you can't right?
Exactly douchebag
...other suggested responsibilities... (Score:3, Insightful)
TLD for food program (Score:4, Insightful)
As a forum for international discussion, dialog and negotiation, the U.N. is a fine organization. The U.N. as a body is, though, not actually accountable to anyone. This is why the U.N. should not be thought of as a government, or even a meta-government (a government of governments). Any body that is not accountable to (as in, risks being voted out of office or power), eventually becomes corrupt.
How much money went to Sadaam Hussein in the oil for food program? How much was actually used for food? Little if any. How much money was skimmed off the top by people at the U.N.? A lot, but we can never know how much because these people neither represent my (or your) interests, nor are they accountable to me (or you)!
Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)
The UN isn't in the business of overthrowing governments. Neither is ICANN. The UN has, however, moved to stop abuses many times - including the oft American favorite, Gulf War I.
one dollar girls in Africa
Several *million* people have been killed in the Congo, and there have likely been equivalent numbers of rapes by various troops involved in the quite brutal conflict. And yet, in this one mission, of 16 worldwide, with 16,000 troops, with everyone accused thusfar already sent home (along with, in many cases, their commanders), the total sent home was 77. The fact is that even with those sexually-exploitave troops, their presence has probably prevented tens of thousands of deaths and rapes. And this is just UN troops in one location.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the UN bashing? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not overly effective in some respects (stopping invasions, oppression) but that's a fault of the countries involved not the organisation itself.
Without the UN, there might still be apartheid in South Africa. There would be lots more people starving to death. There would likely still be smallpox. Free and fair elections would be unavailable in many countries. AIDS (and tuberculosis and malaria) would be far greater problems. Those accused of warcrimes might not be tried.
While it's easy to knock the UN following recent scandals, get a sense of perspective. It's extremely difficult to coordinate things on a world scale without any real authority but the UN does do an extremely admirable job.
Whether it would handle the root servers well or not is a separate issue but don't critise out of a hand an organisation that has saved millions of lives.
Manta
Global Use != Global Ownership (Score:4, Insightful)
If the rest of the world doesn't want to be a part of our DNS, they can set up their own. But we already have ccTLDs that expressly give such authority to governments. What do you want for nothing, a rubber biscuit?
Re:I'm all for it (Score:1, Insightful)
The issue here is that, despite its successes, the UN has been generating lots of news for corruption and internal arguing (a good deal of which has nothing to do with the US). This is not the most positive place for control of something as important as the internet to be place, in many opinions.
The best UN successes, by far, have been the organizations they set up that are not under direct UN control (WHO is a prime example). It does not seem, however, that the countries pushing for this change would relinquish this power once it is taken from the US, it seems like many countries want to impose censorship and surveillance on a more accessable internet backbone.
Re:Yuk (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly... that and do we really want China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia determining ANYTHING about global Internet usage?
Thanks, I'll pass.
Re:Great. What next? (Score:2, Insightful)
The internet is a group of all the different national and slightly larger scale networks of the 70s and early 80s. It was mainly US inventors who developed TCP/IP, ethernet, etc. but the way you're talking it's a safe assumption you don't share the same intelligence as them, and can't really claim to be associated to them simply because you live in the same country by some random chance.
Also, the UN is the United Nations. You're probably thinking of the EU, the European Union. The difference is the US actually owns the GPS system, whereas nobody owns the internet, as it's an international cooperation project. Besides, the rest of the world is developing Galileo, a GPS-like system. (Which, BTW, the USAF have threatened to blow up if the rest of the world doesn't comply with what the US wants them to do with it.)
Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)
Internet: Development of the DARPA Labs (USA)
Internet: PHYSICALLY constructed by the US
WWW: later addon from MIT
email: created by the US
ftp: created in the US
TCP/IP: created in the US
Feel free to add on. The point of this is that the internet, as it started, was wholly concieved and created by the US. Yes other countries added to and by more people connecting, you get more content. However, the fact remains that the US created it.
Now, the UN is coming in after this wonderfully useful thing has been constructed out of many years of research, development, and deployment. They are in essence saying, "Wow! This is great work! Even though you invented and developed it, We don't think you're good enough to run it, so w're going to. Oh, you want to run it? Go ahead; we'll just setup our own stuff and hijack everything you've done. Don't like that? Oh, too bad. Have a good day!"
I can't tell you how much this infuriates me. It's like all our work was for nothing. Honestly, my gut reaction to this is "Go fsck off." This would be the same as all your customers(who aren't paying you anything) say, "ohhhh, this is nice! We'll just take it. bye bye now." GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!
Can't the UN leave the US alone for once? Jeeze, just cause you want to control something that just happens to span countries doesn't mean you are ABLE, or that you SHOULD. Once again I say, "Go fsck yourself, a$$hole."
Re:Internet Comes of Age (Score:3, Insightful)
On a serious note, if ICANN were making politically-motivated decisions, I'd be for taking that power away from ICANN and handing it over to someone less susceptible to political influence.
Even to the extent that ICANN may be tainted, the track record of the UN indicates (to me, anyway) that a UN-controlled 'net would be vastly more prone to political manipulation.
Personally, the scenario of fragmented roots would be just fine for me. You want the Chinaweb, use a DNS server that believes in China. You want the Amerinet, stick with the current servers. You want the Jesusnet, there'll probably be a root server in Kansas. You want the Afronet, go with the root servers controlled by Mugabe and his friends. Live in Saudi Arabia, no b00bies for j00. (And no j00z either :)
The networks with good policies ("good" being defined as "best able to serve the needs of their users") will survive. The bad ones won't. People lucky enough to live in free countries will be able to choose whichever network is "best" for them.
Eventually, some crazy loon will decide that they want to access all the networks. They'll come up with some sort of way of mediating requests between all the different root servers out there. It'll be a network of networks - sort of an inter-net, if you will. I'd probably pay a few bucks a month to access a network like that. Might even catch on outside the universities and research labs :)
Re:Yuk (Score:2, Insightful)
From a year ago for example, a large number of leading indicators showed progress in Iraq's infrastructure. Compare that to the Congo or Haiti in which the UN is running peacekeeping operations. While the US has made mistakes on the ground dealing with Iraqi and Afghani Prisoners and civilians, at least widespread allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of women, boys and girls havn't been happening like they are happening in the Congo.
"Didier Bourguet, a U.N. official from France, is pictured here in an image found on his hard drive, which was obtained by ABC News. Also on the hard drive were thousands of photos of him having sex with hundreds of young Congolese girls."
"...only a small percentage of the 11,000 U.N. personnel in Congo were involved." - So it's alright for UN Peacekeepers to molest kids in the Congo, but if a Koran gets wet in Gitmo people riot to death.
"Men from roughly 50 different countries make up the U.N. forces in Congo, and the United Nations does not conduct background checks. Furthermore, U.N. troops are exempt from prosecution in Congo."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0319/p01s03-woiq.ht
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/UnitedNations/story?id
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/UnitedNations/story?id
Re:get over it... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll tell you what. Nothing happens. So what if they demand? They can be voted down by A DEMOCRATIC PROCESS, involving more enlightened nations and the USA.
Your point doesn't stand. The UN is more democratic on any day than the USA.
The reason not is because the UN is ill suited (Score:4, Insightful)
Another problem is that the UN isn't an elected body. It's diplomats that are appointed and are not answerable to the public they supposedly represent. Politicians do enough shady shit when they ARE directly answerable, it gets far, far worse when there's no accountability.
I mean for a good example, see the receant Tsunami crisis. When the Tsunami hit, the important thing initally was getting basic aid there immediatly, food, water, and medical attention. A number of nations did just that. Both their military and civilian volunteers went over and worked their asses off to save lives. The UN, sent a group over to survey the damage and fact find, they gave some soundbites to the media, and whined that the troops over there should be wearing UN blue, rather than the uniforms of their countries. All the while people were in desperate need of immediate help.
That's just a good example of the general problem. Look at the UN office in New York. The oppulance is simply unbelievable for an orginization that is supposed to be a representitive of so many poor nations. Then realise they have offices like this all over the place.
Now for the US there's an additonal consideration in that the UN may decide they want regulations on the Internet that are unconstutional. The constution can't be overriden just by some treaty orginization, it overrides all other law in America (well, it's supposed to at any rate, politicans seem to forget that sometimes). So for example China might want to push a regulation that says no subversive political speech is allowed, and they'd have plenty of backers on that. Well, sorry, but that's unconstutional.
While I think we can work out a more equitable solution than the US running the Internet, having the UN run it isn't the right answer.
Re:Internet Comes of Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cycle of the ages (Score:4, Insightful)
However, lazy folks just prefer handing control over to someone else, and pay lip service to ideas like "freedom" and "liberty."
Re:Yuk (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN isn't in the business of overthrowing governments.
I think you might want to read up a bit on why, exactly, the United Nations was founded. This article [opendemocracy.net] may or may not be believed in its entirety, but the fact of the matter is one way or another, the UN was conceived during WWII and was officially founded directly afterwards specifically to prevent dictators running roughshod over their neighbors all over the world. That was the original mandate, and that's why the five permanent members of the security council are who they are.
Even the UN's official history [un.org] is perfectly up front about its origins as a tool of the Allies in fighting Germany and Japan during WWII.
Now you see why many people in the US (and other countries) think the UN has gotten so far off track from its original mandate that it is no longer relevant. It was intended to at least contain, occasionally fight and if necessary overthrow dangerous governments like those of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Whether you want to believe it or not, and whether you agree with that cause, that is the truth.
I am no neo-con (or even a traditional-con); I voted against Bush both times. But I get just as annoyed as anyone when people speak of the UN as if its purpose is to keep anyone from fighting, ever. That was not why it was created. It was created to keep rogue states in check - that is the entire reason it exists. It was created during wartime, with a mandate that specifically told member nations to keep fighting. Yet nowadays, it is only ever used as an excuse to do nothing because of competing political interests from those who have something to gain by standing on the sidelines.
As for the UN taking over the internet... read any of what I just posted (either the two links or my commentary, whether you subscribe to the same view or not) and tell me how this would make a lick of sense.
It's always a red letter day when... (Score:2, Insightful)
And who wins here? No.
There is no Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now, almost everybody agrees that US-centric organization like ICANN get to govern top-level things like the root domain. But there is absolutely nothing keeping people following their own set of standards. Indeed, some already do.
I don't even worry that much about "fragmentation". The Internet is already horribly fragmented. It's no longer safe or consistent or well-organized, which you used to be able to count on. If, say, we end up with multiple conflicting namespaces, someone will create some meta-directory protocols or search engines or something.
Of course, it would be nicer if that didn't happen. No sense making things worse then they are.
Really ? (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, what is the UN qualified to have oversight on?
Re:When the UN adopts the first amendment... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. The UN pays lip service to the freedom of speech, but clearly states in the charter (have you read it?) that these "rights" are subject to abridgement or revocation by the UN itself. A right isn't a right if it can be taken away. That's why the US founding documents speak of inalienable rights, endowed by the creator. In other words, rights that transcend the power of government.
Re:I'm all for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Also remind the UN is more than the security council, for instance the World Health Org. and World Food Program are UN bodies with millions and millions of human lives depending on them on a daily basis.
I'm convinced the people working at the UN in the offices and in the field are higly motivated, skilled and professional workers, however, international politics is not giving them enough tools to act. This is mostly to blame on the leaders, full with self-interest, of our own countries.
(At this moment an fairly thourough UN peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo is doing the right thing, protecting the local population with aggressive force against militias with the little equipment they have in the region)
Re:Cycle of the ages (Score:3, Insightful)
My experience has shown that whenever a new area of freedom opens up, some group abuses it, requiring regulation/oversight.
Pardon me if this sounds offensive, I don't mean it to be, but my first (and second and third) impression from this statement is that you like control and telling other people what to do or how to do it. Some people prefer consensus and commonly held mores of behavior to authoritarian approaches with rigid rules and regulations, as in level 3 vs. level 2 of Kohlberg's stages of moral development [wikipedia.org]. However, from what I remember of my college psychology, the majority of people feel most comfortable with the concept that something is right or wrong because some authority says so. Your view may be most typical in the general population.
Re:Yuk (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to disagree with the main thrust of your argument, but which particular tenets of socialism do you believe the despot Mugabe adheres to ?
Re:get over it... (Score:4, Insightful)
I could just imagine the UN Security council trying to run it.... Wait, nothing would ever happen because you need unanimous consent of all nations involved to do anything. Getting some of these to agree is a far fetched notion.
Of course we could always let the general assembly run it. There's a brilliant idea. Give the United States as much say over the internet as every other tiny country in the world. Thats fair and democratic?
They could also do it by population. In that case China has a huge advantage. That would be great.
Under any system we'd allow the wrong people to get our hands on it. Is letting china, libya, cuba, north korea etc telling the rest of the wold what to do with the internet really the definition of DEMOCRATIC PROCESS?
A big part of the problem is the UN has no accountability. When the UN starts using it to push their viewpoint (as the topic said universal net access) what then. What do we do when the internet becomes a vehicle for corruption? Who do we call and say change this? Someone will be getting rich while the internet collapses. Currently ICANN doesn't have the power to tax the net like this, or to create filters etc. In the hands of the UN. . . who knows what power it'll have. The UN has zero accountability. If ICANN tryied this now they'd be stopped in a second.
What I find the most amusing about all of this is how so many Europeans are all about this idea. As if they'd actually have a say over it? It wouldn't be the EU's internet, it would be the world. Under the UN that means security council or general assembly. Tell France or Germany that Uganda has as much say over the nets infrastructure as they do. Or that China has more say (due to bribing other countries) or whatever. The EU would lose out on the deal, but the only possible thing that would make them like it is the fact that it hurts the US more than it hurts them (kind of like Kyoto). Stabbing yourself to hurt the US is not a good idea.
While maybe some more international control could be used for the internet, I would say that there is no reason for the UN to have any say over it. The UN is corrupt and getting worse. There's zero accountability. Whats the best option then? Well tell us legitimate problems with the internet as its being run and maybe we'll examine them on that basis.
Phil
Re:Last time I checked... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why the UN bashing? (Score:1, Insightful)
The US has by far the most influence in the UN and is thus by far the most responsible for it's actions.
Re:Yuk (Score:2, Insightful)
And by the way, those inventions were and are freely available to all. Not just to the US people. You shouldn't think with your gut.
Re:Internet, meet Hobbes (Score:3, Insightful)
When someone says "People are incapable of governing themselves", they are silently adding to the end "except for me".
Re:get over it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When the UN adopts the first amendment... (Score:3, Insightful)
The UN's charter , however, says (from your link):
Article 29.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
So, you get all those rights as long as the UN doesn't decide that they are being "exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." Or that suspension of some or all of your rights is critical to "meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."
So, yeah. Those rights are subject to the whim of the UN.
That's what he was saying, smartass.
Re:NPR Slave (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people make this point, indicating that they don't understand what really happened. The US didn't go to Iraq so that you could have cheap oil. It went so that a few greedy bastards could have more control over the oil supply and profit off it even more than they are. Why shoul they care if you have cheap oil? They also went to profit off the war as they never have been able to before, what with all the no bid contracts and military outsourcing of basic services.
Even if the weapons were there and were moved, which is unlikely, whatever the Republican mouthpieces at Faux News say, you have to admit that before we went, we knew where they were, they were contained in an area far away with little chance of ever being used against us. Now, according to your logic, all we have done by going there is lose track of them. Great!
You are seriously brainwashed by the right wing media. Yeah, you heard me. The rich own the media, they are right wing, therefore, the media is right wing. No matter how many times you and people like you want to lie about the 'left wing media' there's no such thing. Just more propaganda from the rich, trying to brainwash fools like you into thinking that their interests are your interests so you spread their propaganda, fight their wars, and basically do what you are told so they can keep on profitting off of you. Chump.
Re:When the UN adopts the first amendment... (Score:2, Insightful)
See the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular articles 18 - 21... So. You were saying?
Now read article 29: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." In particular, if I exercise my free speech to call for the dissolution of the UN, say, then I've violated article 29, and am not covered by that "right".
Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)
This says the MIT start W3C, not that they invented WWW and that at some point Tim joined them, which HE was part of the team that created WWW. Tim worked a CERN when he invented it, check my links in my parent post.
Re:Yuk (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It isn't broke... (Score:2, Insightful)
Something like ITU - Not UN (Score:1, Insightful)
Think about that before turning controls over to the UN.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yuk (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you want an organization whose consituents are mostly corrupt pseudo-democracies or flatout dictatorships to control anything?
Re:get over it... (Score:4, Insightful)
aren't oppressive countries (i.e. against freedom of speech and though in this case) part of the UN? The USA anyone?
Living outside the US, all I can say is that having the US control the Internet is a bad thing.
they ate their milk producing animals (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought I'd seen it all on slashdot, but your summation of hundreds of years of colonial exploitation and invasions, arbitrarily defined states (often encompassing many ethnic groups) which war with each other over resources, corrupt government, civil war and finally skewed trade laws which make it impossible to climb out of poverty as
'they ate their milk producing animals'
really does take my breath away.
If the UN know what they're doing, they'll surely be rushing lots of well informed teenage geniuses like yourself over to sort it out right now.
The language is not as forcefull as ammendment I (Score:3, Insightful)
Then follows up with ammendment 10,
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
and 9,
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
To specifically deny certain powers to the government. It does not explicitely state what the rights of the people are, only that there are certain rights endowed by the creator, which the document is designed to protect.
The article you mentioned implies that the source of the rights is the document itself, which grants the signors a certain elasticity wrt changing those rights for you.
That is the difference between the US constitution and so many other founding documents worldwide; It is there delineate the bounds beyond which government may not go. Other documents seek to declare certain rights to the people.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
And then break all the links! URLs weren't designed to handle translation over several differing namespaces.
Re:Yuk (Score:2, Insightful)
(Disclaimer: I am not an economist, accountant, nor an expert in tax rates and policies for other countries, or how they compare to tax in the US, my only point was to provide an explanation for the opinion posted above. I'm not responsible for the opinion's relationship to reality)
Re:American's also have cheap farm labor (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I heard it first from Amartya Sen, an economist from India. You probably have not heard of him, but he's very smart. Some people in Europe even game him a medal for being so smart. You can use a search engine to learn more. The medal was called a "Nobel Prize".
Prof. Sen showed us that famine is caused by (... wait for it...) illiteracy. Drought, disease, pests, and poverty are all proximate causes, but they don't cause famine.
You're probably wondering who drought is not the cause of famine. Sen (who had considerable experience with famine in India, years ago), showed us that illiteracy is the real cause. (Let's leave out civil war for a moment--this is obviously another cause of famine, but is also a much more efficient killer than famine.)
The brash young man you took offense to demonstrated a real fact about Africa. The improper management of agro economies is what lets minor variations in production yields turn into famine.
Need another example? Look at what's going on with the displaced Zimbabwean white farmers. There's now a very real threat of famine, because of the land reforms. But this famine was not really caused by the land reforms, communism, corruption or anything else. The real cause is that the white farmers were simply better at growing crops than the new black farmers.
Now, control your blood pressure. I'm not saying the whites are better, superior or whatnot. In fact, the white farmers were better merely because they had education (at the expense of the blacks), and better agro management (again, at the expense of others, historically speaking). They knew how/when to apply fertilizer. They knew what crops to rotate in/out of what fields. They knew how to till, etc. They're not geniuses. They just knew how to do this, because of their education and training. If you took kids from New York City, and had them farm for a living, they could probably feed themselves with great effort. But if they had to feed everyone else, New York City would starve. You simply cannot appreciate how important education and training is for agriculture until you've tried it. Growing a crop to feed hundreds of people is very hard . Get a few steps wrong, and your yield is low. So you eat a little seed corn. And plant less next year. Lather, rinse, repeat, and in 10 years you have a crisis.
So, when the brash young man criticized the farmers for eating their seed corn, he was right on the money. This is exactly the type of problem I encounter in my missionary work. It's not that the villages are greedy, love to eat too much, or anything else. They just did not have the education/training to get enough crop yield to replace their seed stock. After a few years of that, your seed stock is gone, and you're into the spiral of eating livestock, subsistence farming, etc. You can feed your family if you're the farmer, but everyone else is gonna starve.
The truth is that you cannot provide agro aid without also providing an educational basis for its maintenance.
Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)
Were the inspectors wrong? Yes, they were, and I don't blame them. Saddam's obfuscations -- intended to keep the illusion of WMDs inside and outside Iraq -- would've confused anybody. It became apparent, that the inspections/sanctions regime was ineffective many years before Bush's "warmongers" got into their offices... Remember, that Iraq was supposed to clear up within 12 months -- by 1994.
They were supposed to find evidence of there NOT being any such weapons. Per the 1992 seize-fire agreement, the burden of proof was on Iraq. Absent (or insufficient) evidence to the contrary -- Saddam was guilty...Did Bush really want to overthrow Saddam? Yes. Do I agree with him? Yes. Should Clinton have done it much earlier? Yes [bbc.co.uk]. Did we have sound reasons to it? Yes, and plenty...
Oh, that poor guy, don't we all feel sorry for him?.. But you are wrong. Saddam's downfall came from trying to convince UN, he had no WMDs, while maintaining the conviction among his neighbors (and Iraqis), that he had. He managed to walk this tight line for a while, but finally slipped.Re:Yuk (Score:3, Insightful)