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| International |
| Talks seek global Internet ground rules |
| 2003-12-08 |
By JONATHAN FOWLER ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER GENEVA -- Negotiators from 192 countries have narrowed differences on setting the global ground rules for expanding use of the Internet, but remain undecided on whether rich nations should help their poor counterparts pay for the increase. I can just about guess which "RICH NATIONS" Two days of closed-door talks, which continued into the early hours Sunday, have resolved most of the key issues to be tackled at a U.N. summit on information technology which starts Wednesday, said Marc THE Furrer, the Swiss official who brokered the discussions. They can’t figure out the wording on how to call it a tax on US "Unfortunately, we didn’t settle everything, but one has to be realistic. We’re probably at 98 percent," said The Furrer, director of Switzerland’s Federal Office of Communications. Negotiators will meet again Tuesday, on the eve of the three-day World Summit on the Information Society, he told reporters. The negotiators, meeting for the fifth round of talks already this year, have been trying to draft documents for the nearly 60 heads of state or government expected in Geneva. The New World Governance French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Cuban President Fidel Castro are among some of the leaders who plan to attend. Many of the leaders will be coming from developing countries. Good bye Freedom of Speech The key stumbling block remains whether and how richer nations should subsidize growth of the Internet in poorer countries. African countries support the creation of a special "digital solidarity fund" to pay for extending the Internet into remote villages, but European nations, the United States and Japan have been wary, saying existing development aid money could be used instead. "Some countries want to set this up now, others say they don’t want to have anything to do with it," said the Furrer, without identifying them. "It’s clear we need resources, but we should first check whether there are already resources, because some exist but are not used." On Tuesday, negotiators will focus on wording saying a further study is needed before any fund is created, said Furrer. "If the idea is good the fund will happen, if it’s not good it won’t happen." Furrer said the talks had resolved two other key differences: whether news media freedoms should be protected and whether and how governments should regulate the Internet. You Nazi commie bastards During earlier rounds, media and human rights organizations said they were worried that a draft of the final declaration to be issued at the close of the summit made little reference to freedom of expression. Countries - including China - which have clamped down on both regular and Internet media have been anxious to restrict references to press freedom in the declaration, campaigners and officials close to the talks said. However, Furrer said, negotiators have agreed to include wording maintaining the commitment to press freedom enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "It’s always a compromise," said Furrer. "However, as a former journalist, I can stand behind the wording. Countries that uphold the idea of a free media can live with it." Countries have been divided over whether to exercise more national control over the Internet. Some developing nations have said they would like a U.N. body to regulate the Internet, but industrialized countries reject international agencies playing a significant control. After the latest talks, "the political will was quite clear - we don’t want a big change on Internet governance," Furrer said. Key decisions about controlling the Internet’s core systems remain with the U.S. government and a private, U.S.-based organization of technical and business experts known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number, or ICANN. Some countries, particularly newcomers to the Internet which are afraid they could be ignored, seek a greater role for non-U.S. governments, perhaps through a treaty-based international organization. Rather than tackle the issue in Geneva, negotiators have agreed to ask U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up a group to study new ways to run the Internet, with its proposals to be presented at another information summit in Tunisia in 2005. ICANN president Paul Twomey praised the outcome, saying such a working group was more likely than the government-dominated summit to reflect the positions of business and civic leaders. But Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, said a greater role for government is inevitable. The discussions over the next two years, he said, would be over whether that role remains within ICANN or goes to "some other acronym." |
| Posted by:Ron in Colorado |
| #15 I'm all for chipping in to bring an unregulated (OK, OK, you can stop laughing now) internet to the people of developing countries. Let's start with the bucks we would save by stopping funds to the PLO, and "letting" Europe pay for it's own defense... |
| Posted by: Hyper 2003-12-8 3:07:20 PM |
| #14 I imagine that in the next decade we'll see an alternate internet built by/for China, Iran,Cuba, North Korea, and other police states, that would find a highly censored version of the internet highly useful. Why would folks in an outlying village in Africa really need/want internet access? Even if they can afford a computer the download times over those third world telephone lines would be madening. Oh, but if the US also paid for new phone equipment, and of course uninteruptable (and clean yells the green!) power to ensure the access isn't lost due to brownouts.That's the ticket. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2003-12-8 1:19:33 PM |
| #13 CF: Not quite right. In US law, a treaty has the same force as a federal statute (or "Act of Congress"). The Constitution is superior to both. As between a treaty and a statute which are in conflict, the most recent prevails. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-12-8 12:52:18 PM |
| #12 Dishman, Unfortunately Treaties which the U.S. enters have the same force as, and sometiems trumps, the U.S. Consitution. Sad but true. This was been used in the past by environuts to enforce restrictions. So if the U.S. enters a treaty with someone which regulates speech (which may potentially cross over into, say, China - can you say Websites? Blogs?) then it will have the same (or more) force of law as the U.S. Consitution - and voila! Rantburg is illegal (or rantburg is hate-speech). (Of course I am not a lawyer - dont even play one on T.V. so I may be blowing smoke out of my ass again.) So feel free to correct this if I am wrong. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-12-8 12:07:31 PM |
| #11 Well, at least U.N. Control of Web has been shot down: GENEVA — The United States, backed by the European Union, Japan and Canada, has turned back a bid by developing nations to place the Internet under the control of the United Nations or its member governments. But governments, the private sector and others will be asked to establish a mechanism under U.N. auspices to study the governance of the Internet and make recommendations by 2005. The move came in preparatory talks for the World Summit on the Information Society, opening Wednesday in Geneva. More than 200 delegates from more than 100 countries attended the talks. The draft declaration to be issued at the end of the conference Friday also includes strong references to freedom of the press and freedom of information online, despite protests by Vietnam and China, which pushed for more restrictions. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-12-8 11:12:17 AM |
| #10 It's time for the US to protect their own freedom of speech by implementing a public library-esque solution (so to speak) for the internet. It should follow pretty much the same ideology as a public library. We don't need no stinking UN, but what we do need the backbone for a free system that all US citizens (at least) can be guaranteed access without big corporations gobbling up all control. It doesn't need to be as fast or as private owned companies (aka bookstores) but just like public libraries, it needs to be funded and it's free speech rules protected. The servers could be managed by Universities. |
| Posted by: B 2003-12-8 9:21:35 AM |
| #9 Spot-on, Spot. It's just too juicy and important to pass up. Creating a new "fund" will just be a new opportunity for theft - especially in Africa. And no, it won't be anywhere near the free-spirited and free medium it is today after they get their grubby stinking paws on it. Truly sad. We'll be forced to replicate to an undernet so sites such as RantBurg can be read by those who have the misfortune to have been born in one of the wrong places. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-12-8 8:48:05 AM |
| #8 Why are these idiots involved at all? The reason the Internet has prospered is that it is unregulated. This would be the death-knell for the Internet as we know it. |
| Posted by: Spot 2003-12-8 8:36:08 AM |
| #7 Dishman - I hope so, but S.D. O'Connor's recent statements about "international law" don't give me warm fuzzies. |
| Posted by: PBMcL 2003-12-8 7:16:55 AM |
| #6 US courts have recently taken quite a fondness to the internet as a medium for free speech. I think there's a high probability of them throwing out any treaty that put it under foreign control. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-12-8 3:53:07 AM |
| #5 Hey, let's all just pay and pay and pay. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-12-8 2:41:38 AM |
| #4 "It’s always a compromise," said Furrer. "However, as a former journalist, I can stand behind the wording. Countries that uphold the idea of a free media can live with it." Until another compromise comes along. Drip, drip, drip. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-12-8 1:26:33 AM |
| #3 "...a private, U.S.-based organization of technical and business experts known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number, or ICANN." (hysterical laughter) Oh, yeah, no connection to the US gubbmint, no sir... |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-12-8 1:03:02 AM |
| #2 I thought Damian Penny linked to an article w/in the last year that Canada was toying w/the idea of taking over all ISPs. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2u 2003-12-8 12:56:00 AM |
| #1 Most everything the UN touches turns to s--t. This will be no different. A bloated bureacracy, taxes, squeezes on freedom of speech. Just another way to drain the money from honest working people and stuff already overweight bureaucrats, who produce absolutely nothing, never have, and never will. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-12-8 12:49:33 AM |