“We Will Soon Find Out What True Censorship Means” – Obama’s Surrender Of Internet Control To Authoritarian Regimes Is Irreversible
Jeremiah Johnson
October 7th, 2016
SHTFplan.com
Saturday, October 1, 2016 was the day that Obama, using the Commerce Department ceded American control over the Internet to foreign nations and the UN. Naysayers can attempt to whitewash this maneuver and claim that ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is “simply a nonprofit corporation that contracted to manage the Internet when old obligations expired.” That is completely false. Once again Obama has utilized a unilateral action on an issue that should be left up to Congress if for just one reason alone: the complete compromise of national security by transferring control of the Internet to foreign nations.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other congressman wrote a long and detailed letter to try and halt the transfer and their words fell on deaf ears. The transfer is so heinous and so dangerous to the United States that four states, namely Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Texas filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Galveston, TX to try to prevent it a few days before the transfer took place. A federal judge ruled that the transfer could proceed. Why wasn’t this action stopped or even delayed? Because George C. Hanks, Jr., is the Texas federal judge who ruled on Friday there would be no delay regarding the transfer of U.S. control of the Internet to ICANN.
Judge George C. Hanks, Jr. was appointed by President Barack Hussein Obama II.
Why is the transfer heinous and dangerous? For starters, prior to the ruling by the Obama-appointed judge and the actual transfer, a letter was written to both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter two days before the ruling. The letter was composed by 77 experts in the fields of the Internet, cybersecurity, and national security and pleaded for intervention to prevent the transfer. Justification for stopping the move was explained as follows in excerpts from the letter:
“As individuals with extensive, first-hand experience with protecting our national security, we write to urge you to intervene in opposition to an imminent action that would, in our judgment, cause profound and irreversible damage to the United States’ vital interests. Indeed, there is, to our knowledge, no compelling reason for exposing the national security to such a risk by transferring our remaining control of the Internet in this way at this time. “In the absence of U.S. government involvement in IANA it seems possible that, over time, foreign powers – including potentially or actually hostile ones – will be able to influence the IANA process. Even coercing the delay in approving IP addresses could impact military capabilities. From a broader view, given the well-documented ambition of these actors to restrict freedom of expression and/or entrepreneurial activity on the Internet, such a transfer of authority to ICANN could have far-reaching and undesirable consequences for untold numbers of people worldwide. It is profoundly disappointing that the Obama administration has decided to press on with its plan to relinquish United States oversight of crucial Internet functions, even though Congress has not given its approval. For years, there has been a bipartisan understanding that the ICANN transition is premature and that critical questions remain unanswered about the influence of authoritarian regimes in Internet governance, the protection of free speech, the effect on national security, and impacts on consumers, just to name a few.”
The Rest…HERE
