[kictanet] Article compares the misinformation about WCIT to the US stories about WMD in Iraq)

[alice at apc.org]

Chronicalhttp://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Greatest-threat-to-Internet-governments-3723621.php
 

Greatest threat to Internet: governments
Milton L. Mueller

 

When U.S. politicians and businesses tell us that the revision of the

 International Telecommunication Regulations could lead to a takeover of the Internet or global censorship, I think of

 Saddam Hussein.

Why Hussein? The invasion of Iraq was based on the claim that the Iraqi dictator held weapons of mass destruction, and thus posed a clear and present danger to this country and the world. Those who wanted a war played up the threats to manufacture political support. We now know that there were no WMD; we were rushed into war under false pretenses. The result, most agree, was disastrous. Here's the lesson I hope we all learned: a false diagnosis, inflated to provoke extreme, hasty action, leads to bad outcomes. Something very similar to the WMD claims seems to characterize our approach to the World Conference of International Telecommunications (or WCIT, pronounced "wicket").

Maybe the stakes seem lower. No one thinks millions of people are going to die because of an

 International Telecommunications Union meeting in Dubai.

But from another perspective the stakes are much higher.

The linkage of powerful information technology to free, open, global communications makes gigantic contributions to civilization and commerce. And it was the Internet - the ability to network computers across borders, free from nation-state controls and permissions - that opened up this new world for us. If that is truly threatened by WCIT, it is indeed something to rise up about.

But the claim that the revision of the International Telecommunication Regulations constitutes a mortal threat to the future of the Internet is absurd. It is even less plausible than the claim that Hussein was harboring WMD.

The simple fact is that the WCIT cannot possibly undo the Internet revolution unless all the governments involved, including the United States, agree to do so. The International Telecommunications Union has no police force, no army. It cannot make any state do something it doesn't want to do. It cannot even fine or tax corporations. There is no Internet-WMD hidden in its stately offices in Geneva. Internet governance is not even the main target of the current WCIT negotiations

…(read the full story on 

 http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Greatest-threat-to-Internet-governments-3723621.php)