Obama Backs Off

Well, well.  Barack Obama is backing off from his plan to hand over the internet to totalitarian-minded governance.  Color me surprised.

Less than a month after announcing its plan to abandon U.S. protection of the open Internet in 2015, the White House has stepped back from the abyss. Following objections by Bill Clinton, a warning letter from 35 Republican senators, and critical congressional hearings, the administration now says the change won't happen for years, if ever.

"We can extend the contract for up to four years," Assistant Commerce Secretary Lawrence Strickling told Congress last week, referring to the agreement under which the U.S. retains ultimate control over the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann. If the administration makes good on that reassurance, it would punt the decision to 2019 and the next president.

How unlike the president.  Obama has never been bashful about shutting people up, insinuating that dark forces are at work buying up American democracy.  He may be right about that, but the dark forces are labor unions and billionaire progressives who somehow manage to extract billions in loan guarantees, grants and gifts thanks to Obama's federally financed kindness.  In return the progressive/labor coalition showers Obama and the Democrats with campaign cash.

Talk radio is a place where you might hear about these embarrassing connections.  So is the Tea Party, so is Fox News, and so is the internet.  Democrats have been complaining about talk radio and Fox News for years, and the Obama administration has even unleashed the IRS on the Tea Party.  But up to now nobody has taken on the internet, except for those occasional cracks about bloggers sitting around in their pajamas.  You have to give Obama his due.  He's proven himself ambitious enough to take on the World Wide Web.

The Commerce Department tasked Icann to come up with a plan to invite authoritarian governments to participate while still keeping the Internet open. This is likely impossible—and wholly unnecessary. Nongovernmental "multi-stakeholders," such as engineers, networking companies and technology associations, now run the Internet smoothly. They are free to do so because the U.S. retains ultimate control over Internet domains, blocking authoritarian regimes from censoring or otherwise limiting the Internet outside their own countries.

The Obama administration proposal would have treated other governments as equal stakeholders, turning the concept of private-sector self-governance on its head. Robert McDowell, a former commissioner at the Federal Communication Commission, pointed out at the Hudson Institute event that "'multi-stakeholder' historically has meant no government," not many governments.

It is vintage Obama, leading from behind again.  And up front could have been any number of dictatorial regimes willing and able crush inconvenient, embarrassing discourse on the net.  But apparently the outcry, even from the left end of the political spectrum, forced him to back off.  Some errant synapses, perhaps, firing in left leaning minds set off an epiphany about dangers of empowering somebody to silence your critics.  When they have it they'll silence you.  But who would ever have expected the left to get that?

Comments

[Jane]

I havn't been here in ages. How are you guys doing?

[Tom Bowler]

We're doing fine, Jane. How are you? And what happened to 'You Too, Congress'? I don't find it anymore. Have you got a new blog?

[Jane]

No new blog. Had an incredibly busy year last year so I left both the radio and the blog. Settled the case last April and now I have nothing to do at all.

[Tom Bowler]

Sorry to hear you're not doing the blog or the show. I haven't had a lot of ambition myself as far as blogging goes. What is the case that settled last April?

[Tom Bowler]

P.S. Typepad was down for a few days and I couldn't get on to reply to you.