Home / Blogs

Cruz Sees Himself as Protector of Internet Freedom

It looks like Senator Cruz’ letter writing campaign isn’t going to end any time soon. While previously the Senator and former US presidential hopeful was happy exchanging salvoes with ICANN he’s now switched gears and is instead focussing on NTIA and the US Department of Commerce.

The latest letter is focussed on a very strange interpretation of the IANA transition proposals. While yet again it’s very clear that whoever is helping to draft the letter has a deep knowledge of ICANN and the IANA transition, it’s also abundantly clear that either they don’t understand how the internet works or choose to ignore it.

While there is plenty in the letter to mull over and raise your eyebrows at, the bit about content regulation and human rights is particularly odd, so worth quoting in full:

Second, the proposal to insert into ICANN’s bylaws an undefined commitment to respect “internationally recognized human rights” would open the door to the regulation of content. Inclusion of such a commitment would unquestionably be outside the historical mission of an organization whose functions are supposedly “very limited to the names and numbers and the protocol parameters which are way down in the plumbing of the Internet.” However, any provision, such as human rights, that is included in ICANN’s bylaws automatically becomes an integral part of ICANN’s core mission and, in this case, could provide a gateway to content regulation.

As you know, many countries and activist corporations use human rights commitments as vehicles to limit individual’s freedom of speech by regulating and forcing the moderation of content. Perhaps most concerning is that this undefined “internationally recognized human rights” commitment is expected to be addressed during a process referred to as “work stream 2,” which is not required to be submitted to the administration or Congress for review and may very well be formally adopted after the IANA transition is completed. Currently, the best way to guarantee an individual’s online freedom of speech is to keep the IANA contract in place, which carries with it the protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t really see how this will lead to “content regulation”, in many respects it actually goes the other way entirely and goes towards protection of “speech” (in the broad sense).

You can grab the full letter here.

BLACK FRIDAY DISCOUNT - CircleID x NordVPN
Get NordVPN  [74% +3 extra months, from $2.99/month]
By Michele Neylon, MD of Blacknight Solutions

Filed Under

Comments

What Cruz means Larry Seltzer  –  May 24, 2016 6:58 PM

I’m pretty sure he’s suggesting to requests by a party or government to remove materials that would be offensive to someone, such as the Mohammed cartoons.

It’s not a completely ridiculous position. Consider also the EU requesting that their “right to be forgotten” be extended to the rest of the world.

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix