Recently, a decision in Washington was made regarding the U.S. government ceding its last bits of control and power over the Internet. Over the years, the government has maintained its control over the Internet by keeping in contact with those who administer the Internet such as ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a non-profit organization based in Los Angeles. The decision to transfer the power is still up in the air, but as to where the transition is going is still unknown to the public.
According to a source at Fox News, this decision has been a topic for a number of years now, nearly two decades in the making. The recent acceleration in the transfer of control of the Internet to “global” communities has become more and more apparent because of the government’s invasion of privacy amongst US citizens and high amounts of pressure coming from foreign countries. The fear that the US faces with this transfer is whether or not that other nations will share the same concept of commitment to free speech and expression in the Internet and if these countries are going to have a significant influence on the Internet. President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Robert Atkinson came out on his organization’s website stating that the US is stepping back from its “bodyguard” role indefinitely and will remain that way if this push for control of the Internet comes to fruition.
Though the government does not have complete control over ICANN, they continue to oversee just about everything that the organization does for the Internet. ICANN manages many important areas of the Internet which include the domain name system and IP addressing. The government is concerned that with this loss of control will result in classified information being leaked, much like the WikiLeaks scandal that occurred several years prior.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-nsa-collects-all-phone-calls-from-one-foreign-country/
Original content written by: Judson Berger of Fox News (Published March 18, 2015)
Pictures taken from: Google Images
More on the this story can be found here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/18/us-transfer-internet-control-years-in-making-fueled-by-foreign-pressure/
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