Russia, China, inventing the internet, losing control…but Trump leaves it there.
Last night’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton certainly was spirited. And there was a brief moment where it looked like the ICANN/IANA transition might be mentioned, at least at a high level.
My ears perked up when moderator Lester Holt asked this question:
Our next segment is called “Securing America.” We want to start with a 21st century war happening every day in this country. Our institutions are under cyber attack, and our secrets are being stolen. So my question is, who’s behind it? And how do we fight it?
This would be the time for a candidate to interject with something about the IANA transition, and the most likely person to mention it would be Trump given that his campaign has released a statement about it.
And for a second, it looked like Trump might go there. He mentioned the trigger words Russia and China, the U.S. creating the internet, and losing control. Referring to the DNC hacking, he said:
Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know, because the truth is, under President Obama we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control over.
We came in with the Internet, we came up with the Internet, and I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the Internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS.
But he didn’t end up going there. He concluded:
So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is — it is a huge problem. I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable.
But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them.
kd says
Funny, I thought the same thing when I heard that. It surely sounded like he was going to say … “And now you are giving the Internet away”.
Aaron Strong says
It’s easy to see why cyber warfare and cyber security would be a natural lead into the internet transition subject….
John says
Not looking good now, Aaron:
http://dailysignal.com/2016/09/25/house-conservatives-resort-to-spending-plan-b-to-avoid-government-shutdown/
“The Senate’s continuing resolution doesn’t contain any language barring the White House from relinquishing U.S. control of ICANN, the nonprofit that functions as the directory of the internet by curating website domain names.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he was “profoundly disappointed” in McConnell’s final spending bill. The Texas senator had quarterbacked an effort to stop the transfer of ICANN to an international body for more than a month.”
Robert Bell says
Here’s a new article on the ICANN transition:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/24/obama-admin-wants-to-surrender-us-control-over-internet-to-global-bureaucracy/
Drew Johnson and Jeff Baron are quoted in this one.
janedoe says
Trump wants to get better at cyber?
Well that opens up all sorts of jokes.
Joseph Peterson says
In Trump’s mind, the internet is a confused jumble of Twitter, 10-year-old kids who are “unbelievable” geniuses because they “have computers”, and 400-pound hackers – the stereotypical nerds from a bygone era.
As a political tradeoff for mutual support, Trump’s campaign issued a statement in support of Ted Cruz’s efforts to block the IANA transition, but I doubt Trump would even recognize the terms ICANN or IANA.
This isn’t an issue he knows enough to talk about. It does fit in with Trump’s jingoism and xenophobia, though; so he’ll probably say something about it later on, if somebody tells him to.
Ted Cruz is fighting the IANA transition based on fears of censorship. Even those who disagree with Cruz can appreciate those values. But Trump is PRO-CENSORSHIP, threatening to revoke The New York Times’s press credentials simply because journalists there had criticized him.
So it will be hugely ironic if Trump begins waving the flag for freedom of speech. Ditto internet security, since Trump literally invited Russia hackers to compromise that very security.
John Berryhill says
“he’ll probably say something about it later on, if somebody tells him to.
Well, he has until Saturday, when the contract expires. I get the impression that some people think some kind of “action” is required for the transition. The way the contract is structured, it expires absent renewal.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for internet censorship. He believes Bill Gates runs the internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcmiHx5Yf2I
“We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet,” Trump said. “We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some way. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people.”
Okay, so Trump wants to censor the internet, and thinks that people who claim “freedom of speech” against internet censorship are “foolish people.”
While management of the root zone does NOT provide the technical ability to censor individual domain names, and certainly not content through various internet protocols, if President Trump got wind of the ability to, say, turn off .mx, there is no question he would use it.
So, yes, you are correct. The notion that people who see following the course set in 1999 and the consistent policy of every administration to get the US government out of the loop and have the IANA function under multi-stakeholder administration are either naive or opponents of free speech, is merely rhetorical well-poisoning.
You might find the set of cases of “Seven Words LLC v. Network Solutions” to be interesting. In that case, and a related case, parties had argued that NSI, as a registrar under the authorization of the US government, was violating their First Amendment rights to register domain names based on George Carlin’s “seven dirty words”. At that time, in 1999, NSI did not allow registration of those words. While that set of cases had a variety of different procedural circumstances, the upshot, as far as the “First Amendment” claim was concerned was that NSI had every right to refuse registration of those words – regardless of US government administration of the root.
Naturally, there are those who are utterly ignorant of the actual case law on the subject of whether domain registrars have some sort of “duty” relative to the First Amendment.
Joseph Peterson says
@John Berryhill,
Even after the contract expires, politicians (including Trump) can continue to talk about the “internet giveaway”. Long after an IANA transition, the topic remains a rhetorical cudgel with which to flog dead horses.
Politically it may even be useful to strike a pose of challenging what’s already occurred – as if it could be overturned or even as if it hasn’t happened. Donald Trump has never been under any pressure from his fans to limit himself to reality.
Ignoring or denying what’s already proved or finished is no obstacle to a demagogue with a large popular following. Already, Trump has been sowing the seeds for suspicion about rigged elections. In case he doesn’t win the presidency, even that result is likely to be dismissed by him and his adherents as a fraud and a conspiracy. He’ll probably challenge that.
If Donald Trump feels like disputing the IANA transition or the Law of Gravity, he will. Global Warming is a Chinese Hoax. The IANA transition, even if it happens, hasn’t really happened.
Joseph Peterson says
Bear in mind also Trump’s predilection for NOT honoring contracts. When he’s been able to stiff investors or the workers who build his buildings, he’s happily found loopholes to avoid paying them.
Plus, he wants to discard our treaties with foreign nations in order to begin charging them RENT for the military protection we’ve enforced upon them by building our bases on their sovereign territory … as if the USA were running a Mafia-esque protection racket!
If he’s willing to tear up all our international treaties from the end of WW2 until now, what would Trump care about honoring the IANA transition? Or anything, really?
Might is right. Laws, civil rights, obligations – dispensable.
krish says
I think this is a lost cause. Bill that will be passed in a few hours doesn’t contain a language that would prevent the IANA transition. I don’t think there is anythng that stops the transition now.