The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit organization responsible for maintaining databases for Internet domain names, essentially the phone book for the Internet.
The Obama administration announced the goal of ending the U.S. contractual oversight of the ICANN in 2014, and asked ICANN to submit a plan to fill the gap of U.S. withdrawal and to implement stronger accountability measures to make sure ICANN does not abuse its authority.
After two years of negotiations and effort the Obama administration says that they are satisfied with the proposal even though it is incomplete. Many of the reforms deemed necessary by the ICANN community to make ICANN accountable absent U.S. oversight will not be complete before next summer. Likewise, important legal questions that could threaten ICANN, the transition, or the stability of the Internet remain unanswered. Finally, the new governance model is untested – we actually do not know if it will have the capability of governing ICANN and preventing it from abusing its authority.
Analysts at The Heritage Foundation warn that governments will gain new influence over the internet, that its freedom will suffer, and that the ICANN leadership (both CEO Göran Marby and staff) will continue its troubling pattern of ignoring bylaws without the community holding leadership accountable.
Lead Obama administration official Lawrence Strickling, administrator of National Telecommunications and Information Administration, has repeatedly said there’s not a hard deadline and that it’s better to get this right than get it done by a specific date. But if they really believed that, why would they sign off on this incomplete proposal when they could extend the contract for a year and allow all of the reforms to be adopted and actually test the new ICANN governance systems to make sure that they work like they are supposed to work?
It is quite simply reckless, but it will happen unless Congress intervenes. Absent specific instruction otherwise from Congress, the contractual relationship between the U.S. government and ICANN will cease this Saturday–Oct. 1, 2016.
A free and secure internet is not just the concern of Americans, but of people across the world, especially those living under despotic regimes. Congress must think long and hard about allowing Obama to give away the internet—because right now, that’s what he’s on track to do. Congress has the power to stop this. Will it?
This article originally appeared in the Heritage Foundation publication The Daily Signal, it is reprinted here at the request of The Heritage Foundation.
Submitted by chaplainpumc on Wed, 09/28/2016 - 13:10.
I just wrote my congressman and both senators.
This is extremely serious, and everyone should be flooding Congress with letters and calls.