Lawmakers Need Unified Voice to Ensure Internet Freedom, Officials Say
Witnesses will urge lawmakers to increase their efforts to encourage a multistakeholder model of Internet governance, according to testimony published ahead of Tuesday’s joint hearing with three House subcommittees to examine the events that occurred at the December World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). The joint hearing will be in Room 2123 Rayburn hosted by the House subcommittees on: Communications and Technology; Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade; and Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. Invited to testify are: FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell; former Ambassador David Gross; Sally Shipman Wentworth, senior manager-public policy at the Internet Society; Harold Feld, senior vice president at Public Knowledge and Bitange Ndemo, the permanent secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communications.
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McDowell plans to outline the negative potential impacts from the December WCIT and urge lawmakers to take action to preserve Internet freedom, according to his prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/boeswf). The WCIT gave ITU “unprecedented authority over the economics and content of key aspects of the Internet” and “ended the era of an international consensus to keep intergovernmental hands off of the Internet,” he plans to say. “Pro-regulation forces succeeded in upending decades of consensus on the meaning of crucial treaty definitions that were universally understood to insulate Internet service providers, as well as Internet content and application providers, from intergovernmental control by changing the treaty’s definitions,” said his prepared testimony. “Those who cherish Internet freedom must immediately redouble their efforts to prevent further expansions of government control of the Internet.”
Gross expects to say he was troubled that the WCIT treaty sought to create an Internet governance role for the ITU that permits repressive governments to inspect and block Internet traffic that they determine to be spam, according to his prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/boesxi). “Simply stated, these types of policy issues should not be resolved at the ITU,” he is set to say. Despite the failures of WCIT, Gross plans to say he considered the conference an “important early chapter in the critical global process of discussing the political and policy future of Internet networks and services,” according to his remarks. Rather than withdrawing from ITU negotiations, the U.S. should “increase international engagement in light of the developing global dialogue on the important technological and economic issues,” his prepared remarks say.
Gross’s testimony notes that this year the ITU will host the World Telecommunications/ICT Policy Forum, the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS+10), and in the fall the Internet Governance Forum will be held in Indonesia. Gross plans to say it is critical that Congress intensify its effort to work together with industry and civil society to “marshal our facts, hone our arguments, and to reach out to everyone to make our case for the future of the Internet.”
The WCIT treaty was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to the efforts of the U.S., Canadian, Australian and other international delegations, Sally Shipman Wentworth plans to tell lawmakers, according to her prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/boesy2). The final treaty does not directly impose new routing regulations, IP addressing rules, or costly interconnection requirements, she plans to say. But “considerable uncertainty remains” on whether and how the ITU regulations will be implemented, she said in the prepared testimony, and U.S. lawmakers should “seriously” consider the lessons drawn from the WCIT or “continue to be faced with the kinds of divisions” that led to the new treaty.
"The danger to free expression online, and the possibility of a fragmented global Internet with tariffs and checkpoints at every national border, is unfortunately very real,” Feld plans to tell lawmakers, according to his prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/boes4d). He too expects to urge U.S. lawmakers to work together to oppose the agendas of other countries that seek to “supersede national protections on privacy, free expression and due process” by regulating the Internet. Ndemo will tell lawmakers that the divergence of views was “quite significant” during the WCIT and that Kenya will continue to participate in subsequent conferences “that could change a lot of opinions,” according to his prepared remarks (http://xrl.us/boes6f).