Lawmakers to Obama: Don't globalize the Internet

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

President Obama's effort to transfer a final component of the Internet to international control amounts to an effort to "fix a system that ain't broke," critics in Congress charge, and put foreign states in a position to violate human rights around the globe.

 

"I think there needs to be, at least in the short term, a ripcord to pull so that we can fall back to the way things were in case we see some of these worst-case scenarios play out," Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner.

 

Critics have been voicing similar concerns since the Department of Commerce announced in March 2014 that it would seek to transfer control of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the administrative agency responsible for overseeing addresses on the Web, to the Los Angeles-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a global organization comprising more than 160 governments and some private stakeholders.