Future of Internet Governance: Towards an Accountable ICANN. And Moving Towards An Internationalized Internet Governance.

On May 5th, Mrs. Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, posted a video calling for an oversight by the international community when the ICANN MOU with the US Government (JPA) expires September 09. She also sounded her serious concerns over the US Government's singular oversight over ICANN and ICANN's monopolistic stance with a call on President Obama to act. Will he?

"A moment of truth will come on 30 September this year, when the current agreement between ICANN and the US Government expires. This opens the door for the full privatisation of ICANN." she said . Her video was titled: Future of Internet Governance: Towards an Accountable ICANN.

Much of Mrs. Reding positions echo my many statements over the years regarding the ICANN / USG's monopolistic management of the as well as the JPA. As Chairman and CEO of MINC, The Multilingual Inyernet Names Consortium, I have called for the transitioning to an international community structure that is streamlined, effective with minimal bureaucracies possible at many international forums like the United Nations conferences of the WSIS, WGIG, IGF, at ICANN conferences, as well as thru US Government and ICANN consultations.

I always took the position that for any good, effective, representative and democratic Internet Governance to take shape the players and decision makers of the internet need to be accountable to not only a single government or organization but to the international community itself with transparency being of the highest standard.

With the authority to affect so many lives beyond traditional political borders there needs to be democratic and representative accountabilities beyond a single country control. And while I recognize that the US has performed this task admirably, I also believe that it is now time for the US government to replace its monopolistic role with ICANN and IANA in the management of the Internet with a leadership collaborative role with the rest of the international community.

I agree with Commissioner Reding’s points on ICANN and internationalizing Internet Governance. However, some parts of her proposal will need time and multilateral and multi-cultural collaborations with pressure to happen. Nevertheless, the foundation of what must be aimed at has to be crystal clear, and her position helps do that.

One of the challenges will be to show how this will not hinder innovation. I anticipate that those in the business sector who want a 100% private and business led ICANN model to continue unchanged, unregulated will claim this will hinder innovation and curtail freedom of expression - as if such freedoms should exist without personal, corporate and Multicultural Social Responsibilities.

Huge lessons should be learnt from the global banking and financial crisis where too much Laisser Faire and self regulation fostered greed and conflicts of interest at monumental proportions.

I recommend to readers to read MINC’s announcement on Mrs. Reding’s video and to send us comments about it at http://minc.org/news.aspx?id=410&lang=en. And remember to click on the read MINC in Arabic at the top of the page to see all MINC's announcements including the one about her video translated to Arabic in seconds, in front of your own eyes. This is what Arabic speakers who don’t speak English have been doing to follow on these developments.

What is alarming and should not go unnoticed is that the internet community has dragged its feet, by design or by ignorance, since the end of the WSIS summit in 2005. In the last 2 years particularly, no one seemed willing, at ICANN and IGF conferences to table any serious discussions and debates of significant levels on what to transition to, once the JPA expires this September 30th. It seems as if it was a white elephant that is sitting in the middle of your living room yet you go on pretending it does not exist.

I alerted and called on IGF Chairman Mr. Desai in February 2008 at the Geneva IGF conference that this subject should be tabled and made a priority at IGF, I am sad to say, it was not. This is also documented in MINC's announcement at http://minc.org/news.aspx?id=408&lang=en. Now we are in the 11th hour and there is too much to do, and very little time to do them.

EU Commissioner Reding’s address to President Obama is the correct diplomatic challenge and approach. President Obama has an opportunity to show that "Change" has come not only to America, which delivered him to the White House, but that this "Change" has come to the world to replace the divisive rhetoric of the Bush era.

I also believe, however, that this alone will not be enough to make President Obama act accordingly. International community support at Multi-cultural as well as, at grass root levels has to be coordinated and heard, especially from the non-English, non-Latin based language communities of the world (IDN communities) calling and supporting Mrs Reding and my repeated calls to Internationalize Internet Governance, and conducted with a serious sense of urgency befitting the looming deadline of September 30th, 2009 and the minimal change that await beyond it.

For example, the current Internet Governance is a non-committing and non-binding forum. So it cannot provide effective and regulated Internet Governance.

On the other hand, if unchanged, the ICANN Business led model that failed will continue to fail to deliver on many of its mandates of transparency and accountability. The new gTLDs program has become so contentious, supporting communities like the Trade Mark Association, the Business Constituency (BC), and the Intellectual Property Community (IPC) to name a few, and which have always been traditional ICANN supporters are now some of its biggest critics.

New mechanisms of cooperation are much needed between national law enforcement agencies around the world to combat current and future cyber wars, cyber terrorism, child pornography, spam, IP protection, and many others international challenges. It is true some of these are not part of the ICANN mandate, but nor are they the mandate of anyone else at present. Clearly, new enforceable mechanisms of cooperation and treaties will have to be created to replace and / or add to a new JPA. The US Administration may wish to consider mandating other international coordinating bodies to do some of these roles to minimize the ICANN monopolistic position it is in today.

Despite all these let downs, ICANN supporters who don’t want any change to the current ICANN model which has served them well insist on using statements like: " if it ain't broke, don’t fix it".

In closing, I believe we must aim at delivering a Truly Internationalized Internet Governance that is Representative and Democratic, but most of all, Accountable to all those it stands to Represent, Govern and Impact.

Failure cannot be an option, if we are to prevent what happened in the global banking and financial sectors from happening to the Internet. This will pale in comparison when we factor the prospect of cyber wars and cyber terrorism ramifications. Nations and citizens who depend most on Internet stability and security will be the ones at most and greatest risks.

Torture Advocates will Set the Military Back for Generations

This Article is posted in support of and courtesy of Brandon Friedman, Author of The War I Always Wanted, and Vice Chairman of VoteVets.org:

Know what these photos are?

These are Iraqi troops surrendering by the thousand to U.S. forces during the first Gulf War in 1991. These drafted Iraqi fighters chose to turn themselves over to Americans in droves because they knew they'd be treated better by U.S. troops than by their own government. They had faith in us that we wouldn't execute them, that we'd feed them and give them water, and that we'd provide them with shelter. To them, facing capture was a much better option than either retreating back to the care of Saddam and his sadistic sons or of fighting to the death.

This worked out well, because it meant that we, as Americans, wouldn't have to face a determined, cornered enemy that could've drawn out the war and inflicted unnecessary casualties on our side. It was seen as a great victory.

Know what this is?

This is a shot of German troops surrendering to Americans during World War Two. At the end of that war, German soldiers were so desperate to surrender to the Americans or the British that they actually fought to break out of areas on the Eastern Front just so they wouldn't have to surrender to the Russians. They knew that inhumane treatment, a long train ride to Siberia, and a likely miserable death awaited them if they didn't make it.

This also worked out well for us, because it meant that we, as Americans, had a much easier time in Germany than the Russians did. The Russians--battling men who were literally fighting for their lives during the push to Berlin--suffered 80,000 troops killed. On the Western Front, however, U.S. forces never faced that level of resistance.

Once upon a time, America was known around the world for its powerful, benevolent nature when handling captured enemy fighters. Even our adversaries knew they could hoist the white flag and expect to be treated humanely. In turn, this made them more likely to give up sooner. And it not only kept American soldiers out of countless bloody fights, but it made victory and success all that much easier for our troops.

For years, rank and file soldiers and insurgents around the world viewed surrender to the Americans as a reasonable option when finding themselves outgunned.

And then we went and did this:

Now, our opponents won't feel secure in surrendering to U.S. forces. In fact, I wouldn't expect to see images like those of the surrendering soldiers above for decades. It's just not going to happen anymore. If a hot war breaks out in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, or anywhere else, we can expect to face an enemy that simply won't accept surrender. No Taliban fighter, no starving North Korean soldier in his right mind will surrender willingly if he thinks he's going to be tortured or beaten to death. Instead, he'll prefer a fight to the death, even as he becomes cornered. And this will get Americans killed.

This is what Bush administration torture policies have wrought. We no longer hold the moral high ground. We borrowed against it in an effort to get a few false confessions from Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, Abu Zubaydah, and others. And the next time we face an organized fighting force in the field, the cost of doing so will become readily apparent.

Not only does torture not work, but it directly endangers our troops fighting now.

This is Posted in support and courtesy of Brandon Freidman.

This posting can be read at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-friedman/torture-advocates-will-se_b_194316.html