NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] ITU developments
----- Forwarded message from "Wack, Michael R" <WackMR@STATE.GOV> ----- Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:17:04 +0000 From: "Wack, Michael R" <WackMR@STATE.GOV> Subject: [WCIT] FW: Press Reply-To: "Wack, Michael R" <WackMR@STATE.GOV> To: WCIT@LMLIST.STATE.GOV Accept-Language: en-US Colleagues - Good morning. The press reports below turned up in my in-box this morning, and I thought you might be interested in reading them, too. n MW _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (The Hill) Official: US won't surrender Internet control to UN agency By Jennifer Martinez - 09/23/12 12:10 PM ET U.S. Ambassador Terry Kramer vowed that the United States will not compromise its principles on human rights, free speech and other issues during negotiations of an international telecommunications treaty in December. "If there are things that are completely objectionable, that violate our fundamental views about human rights, about free speech, about economic opportunities--if they fundamentally violate it--then we will just say no and absolutely we won't proceed," said Kramer, who is leading the U.S. delegation during the negotiations, at a press conference at law firm Wiley Rein on Friday. The International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) treaty will be reviewed for the first time since 1988 at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai this December. American companies and lawmakers have sounded alarm over the treaty after reports surfaced that countries like Russia and China plan to submit proposals that would expand a United Nations agency's control over the Internet and issues like cybersecurity and data privacy. Kramer has met with various officials, most recently in Dubai and El Salvador, to discuss the U.S. position on the treaty and called these conversations "encouraging," while noting that "we have a long road to travel" before WCIT. He will later travel to Beijing to meet with Chinese officials, then head to Tokyo, Europe and Russia. "We are establishing an environment of mutual respect that will serve as a foundation for negotiations culminating in the WCIT," he said. The U.S. has stated that it will advocate for various organizations to oversee the management of the Internet, signaling that it would push back against attempts to hand additional control over to the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Kramer told reporters that "decentralized management of the Internet is the best approach not only for the U.S., but worldwide." For example, Kramer argued that cybersecurity issues should not be addressed in the treaty, which will set principles that govern how voice, video and data traffic will be managed globally. "Ask yourself, 'Who's going to be able to best solve that problem?' Our view is multi-stakeholder organizations that have technical expertise, they're distributed throughout the world and they're at the end of the day agile organizations," he said. "Our argument is the ITU is a great organization, we work with them on a lot of areas, but any one organization isn't going to be effective in this. There are too many different types of issues and expertise that are out there," he said. Kramer criticized potential proposals that would suggest deep packet inspection--a method where Web traffic and content is monitored over Internet networks--as cybersecurity solutions. He called it a "completely worrisome, alarming technology capability." He also spoke out against a recent proposal submitted by the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association (ETNO) and said the U.S. would be keeping an eye on whether European governments' contributions to the treaty included any of the group's suggestions. ETNO counts Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and Orange as members. "We remain unconvinced by ETNO's arguments," he said. "We continue to believe their proposal for transfer pricing is impractical to implement ...and very likely detrimental to developing countries." The U.S. sent its first set of proposals to WCIT on the treaty at the beginning of August. Kramer said the U.S. will submit another set of proposals sometime in the next six weeks. He said governments have not called for more regulation over the Internet after an anti-Islam video produced in the U.S. incited protests across Libya, Egypt and other countries, adding that the clip was "completely reprehensible." "I mean everything we believe in the U.S. regarding religious tolerance was violated with a video clip like that, and our view is on religious tolerance the best way you advance people's understanding of one another, of different views, et cetera, is by having an actual dialogue," he said. "Shutting down sites is exactly orthogonal to that effort." Congress has taken a keen interest into the upcoming Dubai conference. The House unanimously cleared a resolution in August that opposed international efforts to increase the ITU's governance over the Internet. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a similar measure this week. Both Republicans and Democrats included language opposing any proposals to give the ITU more authority over the Internet in their 2012 party platforms. Kramer said these congressional resolutions are "very helpful" going into the Dubai conference because it shows other countries that the U.S. is united on issue, even during an election year. "As we go into an environment where there's 193 nations and, candidly, on many of these issues we're in the minority, it is absolutely imperative and critical that the U.S. is aligned," Kramer said. "And I have to say coming into this role, it's been one of the most positive aspects I've seen. It hasn't been a partisan issue in any way." "All of that sends a message to the rest of the world [that] they're not going to divide and conquer us." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Fierce Government IT) U.S. WCIT proposals gain regional support 23 September 2012 The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission supports U.S. proposals to exclude cybersecurity from International Telecom Regulations, the revision of which will be undertaken during an International Telecommunication Union treaty-writing conference set to meet in Dubai this December. "Having a proposal that mandates government activity or ITU activity on this, we think, is a very ill-advised approach," said Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation to the Dubai meeting, the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012. "Not because of bad intentions, per se, but because it doesn't work well," he added. Kramer spoke Sept. 19 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the outcome of a commission meeting in San Salvador, El Salvador. The commission, known as CITEL, also voted to support the American stance that traffic management should be subject to commercial agreement and "there should not be mandated routes," Kramer said. In addition, CITEL--an entity of the Organization of American States--agreed with the U.S. position that ITRs should be binding only on recognized operating agencies (.pdf), which the ITU defines as entities that operate an international telecommunications installation or are capable of harming international telecommunications. Country adoption of ITRs in the first place is voluntary, and in the United States is subject to ratification by the Senate, but restricting ITRs to recognized operating agencies would ensure that government and private networks are beyond their scope. "Are we pleased, coming out of CITEL? Absolutely. But, I would underscore in all of this we're at first base on a very long match here," Kramer said. The ITU has repeatedly insisted that WCIT-12 is not meant to imbue the agency with worldwide regulatory authority over the Internet, but Kramer said some countries have submitted "seemingly innocent proposals" that could be "a slippery approach to some very bad outcomes." "The more rights we create for government to manage traffic to look at where traffic is going, [the more that] opens up the opportunity for content censorship," he said. He also criticized a European proposal that would change international Internet billing to a sender-pays model. It would have the effect of limiting traffic, and is born from European telecom operators' limited ability to alter prices, he said. "Liberalized markets over time have historically proven the best ones that work," he added. ----- End forwarded message ----- --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad