ICYMI: The Wall Street Journal's Information Age Column Echoes Cruz's Call to Save Internet Freedom
September 12, 2016
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal’s ‘Information Age’ column, penned by L. Gordon Crovitz, highlighted Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) leadership in Congress to stop President Obama’s planned Internet giveaway. Crovitz detailed significant concerns about handing oversight of the Internet to authoritarian governments and cited growing support among lawmakers to save the Internet before the September 30 deadline.
Read the column in its entirety here. Excerpts are available below:
President Obama wants this to be the last month of an open, uncensored internet guaranteed by the U.S. government. His plan to end American stewardship would hand new power to authoritarian governments offended by the internet as we know it.
The good news is it appears congressional leaders have agreed to rescue the internet in time to prevent the Sept. 30 expiration of U.S. oversight. Sen. Ted Cruz, who has pushed hard against the plan since it was announced two years ago, told me last week he’s “cautiously optimistic” legislators will block it through a rider to the federal budget: “The basic proposition of keeping the internet free has united Republicans across the spectrum and should also unite Democrats with Republicans.”
Top Senate and House Republicans have signaled they will ensure U.S. oversight continues to protect the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, and its stakeholders. The leaders of the four congressional committees that oversee the internet—Sen. John Thune and Rep. Fred Upton (Commerce) and Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary)—sent a detailed letter last week to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Attorney General Loretta Lynch: “This irreversible decision could result in a less transparent and accountable internet governance regime or provide an opportunity for an enhanced role for authoritarian nation-states.”
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Icann’s stakeholders—developers, engineers, network operators and entrepreneurs—are free to operate an open internet because U.S. protection prevents Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and other authoritarian regimes from meddling. The Obama administration may not be comfortable with American exceptionalism, but the internet fosters free speech and innovation because it was built in the image of the U.S.
The administration has been reduced to arguing that having been promised an end to U.S. oversight, other countries will now be upset if this doesn’t happen. Too bad. Why make authoritarians happy by giving them the power to censor websites globally, including in the U.S.?
Sen. Cruz observed it was interesting that the Obama plan “doesn’t have much in the way of outspoken Democratic support,” though the Democratic platform supports the Obama handover, which the Republican platform opposes…
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