Readers know this isn’t the first time I’ve reported on the United Nations’ attempt to control the Internet. Word’s out: the U.N. is moving one step closer to achieving its goal.
The International Telecommunications Union is set to hold a not-so-secret-anymore meeting in Dubai this week to implement amendments to an outdated 1988 International Telecommunications Regulations treaty.
And it is apparent to many that the Obama Administration is standing by the U.N.’s efforts in the guise of “protecting our freedom.”
“When it comes to Internet regulation around the world,” wrote Buck Sexton at The Blaze. Silicon Valley and the United States web community are among the biggest freedom advocates. They have launched campaigns to inform the public that the U.N. takeover of the Internet is not the plot of a fiction novel.”
According to the Internet Defense League, or IDL, this “obscure” international meeting could give a top-down, non-transparent U.N. body represented by several dictators almighty power to regulate the Internet.
“The ITU would literally give dictators like Syria’s Assad … a role in crucial decisions about the Internet’s future,” the IDL continued. “President Bashar Assad’s regime blacked out the Internet last week. Some speculate it was in preparation for a major offensive. Cell phone coverage in certain areas also was blocked.”
The IDL is organizing a worldwide effort to build a country-by-country presence to mobilize users in every country in the world against Internet takeover by the U.N. and other governmental organizations.
Conservative Action Alerts, a collection of conservative grassroots activists, schools us with this history and a warning: “Earlier this month, the United Nations held their Internet Governance Forum in Azerbaijan – a nation whose government is known to be hostile towards free speech – under the humanitarian-sounding name ‘Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development.’ Though this meeting was largely symbolic, and no binding decisions were made, the participating leaders used it to prepare for a much more dangerous meeting that is scheduled for December in Dubai.”
CAA continued: “At the ‘World Conference on International Telecommunications,’ a tiny and generally unknown U.N. agency will focus its efforts on destroying what you and I call free speech. The agency, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), will focus on passing resolutions to ‘reform’ – in other words, regulate – the currently free and open Internet.
“The ITU’s program of reforms, which was drafted in secret and made available only two weeks ago, outlines its plan to curb free speech worldwide and implement regulations that will affect e-mail, personal blogs, social networks and person-to-person calling programs, like Skype,” the CAA warned. “Further, the proposed reforms would not only imperil all Internet user’s speech content – from e-mail correspondences to political or religious writings on one’s personal blog – but will come with a price tag: Under the U.N.’s plan, there is wide space for mega-corporations to lobby the United Nations to end free online accounts, like e-mail. In other words, the U.N.’s plan for reforms will open the doors wide for mega-corporations to create data monopolies!”
“The United Nations wants to control the Internet completely!” the CAA insisted. “So much that they want a ‘kill switch’ to shut down parts or even the entire Internet at their whim.”
So here’s the deal if you want to protect the freedoms we enjoy on the ‘Net from dictatorships and statists “who want to siphon money from it to enlarge their own treasuries.”
You must call, e-mail, write, or visit your tax-paid representative in Congress – you know, the one who works for you – and tell him or her to stand up to the United Nations’ Internet power grab and defend our Internet freedom for we, the people. Demand they put a halt to the U.N. providing for Obama what he himself wants, an Internet “kill switch.”
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Headline: “Could it happen here?” Germany’s Parliament is considering imposing a tax on search engines like Google every time they link to copyrighted material like photos or news articles. It’s called the “Google Tax.” Read all about it.
Chill
If you’re a Facebooker, you’ve probably seen others posting some legalese copyright notice to prevent Facebook from “owning or commercially exploiting” their content. It’s all for naught – a hoax of some kind.
Facebook is addressing the issue with this formal “fact check” statement that refutes the claim.
“There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site,” Facebook announced. “This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.”
Case closed.
Bits & Bytes
Did Google get its way against Obama?
Fun stuff! A fascinating three-minute “morph sequence” of the life of Queen Elizabeth.