Just Leave It Alone

"Like language, the Internet is one of the purist forms of self-regulating anarchy, which is why the control freaks wish to corral it." ~ Butler Shaffer

A n ongoing, noisy debate that is likely to get much louder in the coming years is the debate over who gets to control the Internet. The supposed problems it presents have long attracted the attention of bureaucrats and, as Mr. Shaffer describes them, "control freaks." There is a lot of hand wringing going on in Washington and elsewhere about the effects the Internet is having on traditional means of control. It is perhaps the most liberating technology ever developed and its potential to alter the way the world is organized is at this point limitless. This is true not only of the Internet as we know it today, but of the medium it will become and the tide of ideas it has and will continue to unleash.

To understand all the fuss we must first understand what the Internet means with regards to the state. It is in fact the ultimate anti-state weapon. The well-known phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword," is a profound commentary on the ability of words and ideas to subdue and overcome institutionalized violence. If this is true then the Internet is a weapon the likes of which the world has never seen. The power of the pen becomes exponentially greater when taken online. When it comes to ruling people, control of information is of the utmost importance. Most of the actions of the state are attempts to control information, and the more totalitarian a society is, the more its information mediums will be state owned and run. A large part of the American Bill of Rights was geared specifically toward protecting the spread and expression of information (freedom of press, speech and assembly.)

The free flow of information and ideas makes it very difficult for the parasitic class that inhabits the halls of power to keep their subjects subjugated. Governments legitimize themselves by propagating pro-government ideas and suppressing dissent. Without this ability, their deeds will be brought to light, the effects of their policies can be recognized and analyzed, and if better conditions exist elsewhere in the world, people will know about them. In the case of the Internet, the costs associated with transmitting information are in many cases almost zero. Under these circumstances, rather than having to swallow state propaganda, people are free to entertain, discuss and exchange ideas with others from all over the world. In this arena the state is forced to either compete with the ideas in circulation by creating and propagating its own, or to suppress ideas that it finds undesirable.

However, the problems posed by the Internet with regards to those who wish to control others are not limited to its ability to transmit information. One of the most important but perhaps least understood effects the Internet is having is the disruption of the concept of locality. It seriously complicates issues such as taxation, corporate law, and restrictions on certain types of speech, ideas and images (such as pornography, "hate speech" etc.) These laws are traditionally decided on a national or local level. They are tied to place and are only valid in the areas where they are passed. Because the Internet knows no boundaries, there have arisen disputes over laws restricting content in different locations.

For example, back in 2000, groups in France were trying to sue Yahoo (an American company) for allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold in its online auctions. This is clearly legal in the U.S., but because citizens in France can access the site, organizations such as the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Union of Jewish Students of France filed a lawsuit. There are laws against racism and "hate speech" in Canada and several countries in Europe, and they are attempting to apply these laws to Internet sites even when they are not hosted in that country. It remains to be seen how the concept of sovereignty will be affected by these cross-border disputes, but they will likely grow in number as Internet usage increases and content diversifies.

The Internet has been censored from the outset in countries such as China and Vietnam, whose governments are still very much totalitarian. Firewalls and the force of law are used to block out any kind of information that is considered inappropriate. This type of restriction is not limited to countries that have what we would normally consider heavy-handed regimes. Malaysia, for instance is one country where the government is trying to restrict access to pornography. In doing so they are being accused of blocking important health-related information such as how to prevent HIV and other STD's. The filters that are required are known to block out significant amounts of information that is useful in the fight against AIDS and unwanted pregnancy. But that isn't the only concern.

The head of the Malaysian Centre for Independent Journalism, Sonia Randhawa, remarked that "This is the first time that there's actually been a huge net cast to try and filter out a particular kind of information. The Internet is the only place in Malaysia where there are guarantees of freedom of expression... We're concerned that using the filter approach could easily be a temptation to filter out other sites as well." Uh......you think? Perhaps Sonia could use a few lessons in the history of the slippery slope that is government intervention. The phrase "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile," is a serious understatement here. This is especially true considering the fact that the Malaysian government has already been known to use sedition laws to suppress political dissent.

What is really worrisome however are the actions being taken and/or contemplated by the supposedly "free" nations of the world (the U.S. and Western Europe.) U.S. politicians have for years toyed with various ideas as to how they could tax and regulate Internet activity. So far in the U.S., those politicians who favor increased control over the Internet have been largely unsuccessful, but their numbers are growing. In Europe and the rest of the world the picture is far more bleak. The Council of Europe, a think-tank with great influence on European policy makers, has already taken strides towards outlawing "racism" and "racist or bigoted acts committed through computer systems" from the Internet. The UN seems hell-bent on wresting control over Internet ISP and address registration and administration from U.S. company ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,) and placing it in the hands of an international, UN committee.

If you're interested in this topic I would highly recommend this article by Jon Christian Ryter on newswithviews.com. He tells about how the president of ICANN, Dr. Paul Twomey, was escorted out of the preparatory session of the 2003 UN summit on internet control by armed guards because the participants objected to his presence. Afterwards he told the media, ""At ICANN, anyone can attend meetings, appeal decisions or go to ombudsmen. And, here I am outside a UN meeting room where diplomats—most of whom know little about the technical aspects [of cyberspace]—are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet. I am not amused." Neither am I.

An even more disturbing issue he raises is the fact that the UN's International Telecommunications Union, which hatched the whole idea for seizing control from ICANN during its 2003 World Summit on the Information Society, is headed by Houlin Zhao, a "former" senior People's Republic of China government official. He concludes that "China—which is trying to wrest control of Internet supervision away from the United States—is the worst online censor in the world. Virtually thousands of Chinese cybercops patrol the email boxes of those within their physical grasp, looking for political dissidents." He goes on to say that "The leaders of world's remaining totalitarian regimes want the ability to create impenetrable cyberwalls around their countries to prevent western demagogues from brainwashing their "subjects" with inflammatory, indoctrinational ideological propaganda that will incite them against their masters."

I agree that that has a lot to do with it. There are undoubtedly numerous other statist reasons for wanting to move control of the internet to the UN but they all spell bad news. In the words of a US State Department spokesman, the "...Internet is coordinated and led by the private sector and should [remain] private sector-led." Those in power always react negatively to what they perceive as threats to their authority. That which liberates mankind has always been opposed by tyrants and "control freaks." It is only logical to expect that opposition to and the struggle for control of the internet, which is perhaps the most liberating technology in existence, will be particularly fierce. Let's hope the tide of opposition is sufficiently strong to pry the statists' hands off.