From Drudge:
Senator Norm Coleman today submitted a statement into the Congressional Record denouncing a final report issued by the United Nations’ Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) suggesting that the U.N. assume global governance of the Internet. Since its inception and creation in the United States, the U.S. has assumed the historic role of overseeing the Internet’s growth and has overseen its development. The U.N. taskforce report suggests that in addition to terminating the U.S.’s leadership role, the authority and functions of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce, should be transferred as well. Senator Coleman strongly opposes these measures.
“My probe of the U.N. as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed management that was at best, incompetent, and at worst corrupt,” said Coleman. “The first priority for the United Nations must be fundamental reform of its management and operations rather than any expansion of its authority and responsibilities. The Internet has flourished under U.S. supervision, oversight, and private sector involvement. This growth did not happen because of increased government involvement, but rather, from the opening on the Internet to commerce and private sector innovation. Subjecting the Internet and its security to the politicized control of the UN bureaucracy would be a giant and foolhardy step backwards.”
“Recently, I introduced UN reform legislation with the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations, Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN), known as the Coleman-Lugar UN Reform Bill, to help put an end to a culture of corruption that was exposed by the Oil for Food scandal, peacekeeping sexual abuse scandals, and other instances of organizational failures at U.N.,” Coleman said. “Putting the U.N. in charge of one of the world’s most important technological wonders and economic engines is out of the question. This proposal would leave the United States with no more say over the future of the Internet than Cuba or China-countries that have little or no commitment to the free flow of information.”
The WGIG taskforce report will be discussed at the next World Summit on the Information Society Tunisia in November.
Reached for comment, newly-installed US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton deferred to Senator Coleman’s remarks, but his mustache, Regis, quipped, “it could’ve been worse. Word is an early draft of the report concluded Coleman’s wife, Bank One, and the Boston Red Sox’ spring training facility in Palms Park, FL, be turned over to the UN, too.”
The UN thought they were up to thier knees in it when the world caught wind of the Food For Oil Scandal. Wait till they try to get their crude-soaked hands on my internet. P-sha, from my cold dead hands. Give me free pr0n, file-sharing, and political snark or give me death!
The UN can have the internet, just as long as I get Coleman’s wife.
How do you laugh and say “go fuck yourselves” in diplo-speak? Because I’m thinking that’s the proper response, but God forbid we were undiplomatic about it.
“Please engage reflexively in sexual congress.” = go fuck yourself
“Please attempt airborne intercourse with a mobile ring pastry.” – take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
It’s probably no accident that in Brooklyn the UN’s biggest scandal is pronounced “URL-for-food”.
SeanH, mojo – Ha! We need your kind of dimplomacy.
Problem is the UN is already ahead on that front as well. They want everyone, everywhere to engage in sexual congress. Just one more area of human endeavor to reap a little profit from.
Oh, hell, if there was an acting gig involved Laurie Coleman would hand herself over to the UN. They wouldn’t have to ask twice.
No, wait! I get it!
Eminent DOMAIN! Internet DOMAIN names!
Clever…
I don’t know why this just occurred to me, but were Jimmy Carter president, this is just the sort of thing he’d be overwhelmingly eager to jump on–giving away America’s power, authority, and control over the internet–what little of it there is–to the United Fucking Nations.
Because what the internet needs most is decisions influenced by China and Saudi Arabia.
Follow-up comment to the “The ‘Were he a subjunctive gardener’ poem” post: The “Were Kofi Annan ever to get his greasy mitts on the Internet” poem
Kofi, being dictator apologists one and all,
we of course normally worship you as a god,
But were you ever to get
Your greasy mitts on the Internet,
You could expect that we open up
A can of whup-ass and
Beat You like a rented mule,
As the saying goes