INTERNET FREEDOM AT RISK

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   The tradition of free speech on the internet is in deep jeopardy due to next December’s scheduled United Nations World Conference on International Telecommunications. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are expected to strenuously push for the legal ability to control the internet beyond their own borders. As this article goes to press, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are introducing a resolution at the U.N. to establish an internet "governance" concept that would establish a form of censorship into cyberspace.

   Top U.N. officials have made statements praising the internet’s freedom of the press, and giving that medium credit for the “Arab Spring.” However, Secretary General Ban ki Moon has also echoed those who believe in censorship by stating that, "considering the immediate impact of information in the digital world, journalists must be much more responsible in their work to ensure accuracy, balance and fairness, and not use the media to disseminate hatred or conflict, or incite violence."  The fact that the definitions of "accuracy, balance, fairness and inciting" would be left to the same rulers who internet journalists may be opposing does not inspire confidence.  

    

    In 2011, a push began to develop a U.N. agency to manage internet policy, at about the same time that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin emphasized that “international control over the internet” was an important goal.

   Former U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who once served as chairman of the House's Subcommittee on Communications, technology and the Internet, and co-founded the Congressional Internet Caucus, believes that once the Pandora's Box of regulation is opened, the censorship impulse will continue to grow stronger. 

   The U.S. attitude towards greater internationalizing of internet control began to change in 2010. Critics maintain that under Secretary Clinton, the State Department hasn’t displayed a great deal of enthusiasm in fighting internet censorship, and that by signing the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or "ACTA," The White House has altered long-standing American revulsion for limitations on free speech. 

   The general intent of the treaty is, on the surface, laudable: to establish global standards and an international legal framework to enforce intellectual property rights, copyright laws, etc. However, both the means it uses to do so, and the manner in which the President imposed its provisions, has caused raised eyebrows in Congress and among journalists.

  To accomplish its goals, the treaty allows foreign entities to force internet service providers to remove web content within the United States.  This establishes a precedent for international governments to claim that censoring speech beyond their borders is conceptually consistent with prior agreements. 

   Washington "ratified" the measure in a rather unconventional manner.  The White House, perhaps seeking to avoid a fight with Congress and the uncomfortable publicity that it would bring, claimed the treaty was an “executive agreement” that didn’t require Senate approval.  

   Legitimate concerns such as copyright protection can be addressed in ways that do not threaten free speech on the internet, using internationally recognized laws already established. 

   It should be noted that threats to free speech on the internet are not limited to international treaties or Washington politics.  Here in New York, State Senator Thomas O’Mara (R-Elmira) has introduced the “Internet Protection Act.”  Again, the stated purpose of the legislation, to prevent anonymous cyber bullying, is laudable.  However, it establishes an overbroad ability that could be applied to any statement (including political criticism) that chills 1^st Amendment rights.

   It’s time that our elected officials were given a remedial course in the meaning of the 1^st Amendment.