HACKED BY CYBER-ATTACK - ALPERENBTN

[Big John]

The EU and other world governments are planning to take control of the internet from the USA. Here is the Wall Street Article dealing with this information.

"Beware a 'Digital Munich'

By NORM COLEMAN
November 7, 2005; Page A21

It sounds like a Tom Clancy plot. An anonymous group of international technocrats holds secretive meetings in Geneva. Their cover story: devising a blueprint to help the developing world more fully participate in the digital revolution. Their real mission: strategizing to take over management of the Internet from the U.S. and enable the United Nations to dominate and politicize the World Wide Web. Does it sound too bizarre to be true? Regrettably, much of what emanates these days from the U.N. does.

The Internet faces a grave threat. We must defend it. We need to preserve this unprecedented communications and informational medium, which fosters freedom and enterprise. We can not allow the U.N. to control the Internet.

The threat is posed by the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society taking place later this month in Tunisia. At the WSIS preparatory meeting weeks ago, it became apparent that the agenda had been transformed. Instead of discussing how to place $100 laptops in the hands of the world's children, the delegates schemed to transfer Internet control into the hands of intrigue-plagued bureaucracies.

The low point of that planning session was the European Union's shameful endorsement of a plan favored by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Cuba that would terminate the historic U.S. role in Internet government oversight, relegate both private enterprise and non-governmental organizations to the sidelines, and place a U.N.-dominated group in charge of the Internet's operation and future. The EU's declaration was a "political coup," according to London's Guardian newspaper, which predicted that once the world's governments awarded themselves control of the Internet, the U.S. would be able to do little but acquiesce.

I disagree. Such acquiescence would amount to appeasement. We cannot allow Tunis to become a digital Munich.

There is no rational justification for politicizing Internet governance within a U.N. framework. The chairman of the WSIS Internet Governance Subcommittee himself recently affirmed that existing Internet governance arrangements "have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day operations, and with innovation and value creation at the edges."

Nor is there a rational basis for the anti-U.S. resentment driving the proposal. The history of the U.S. government's Internet involvement has been one of relinquishing control. Rooted in a Defense Department project of the 1960s, the Internet was transferred to civilian hands and then opened to commerce by the National Science Foundation in 1995. Three years later, the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers assumed governance responsibility under Department of Commerce oversight. Icann, with its international work force and active Governmental Advisory Committee, is scheduled to be fully privatized next year. Privatization, not politicization, is the right Internet governance regime.

We do not stand alone in our pursuit of that goal. The majority of European telecommunications companies have already dissented from the EU's Geneva announcement, with one executive pronouncing it "a U-turn by the European Union that was as unexpected as it was disturbing."

In addition to resentment of U.S. technological leadership, proponents of politicization are driven by fear -- of access to full and accurate information, and of the opportunity for legitimate political discourse and organization, provided by the Internet. Nations like China, which are behind the U.N. plan to take control, censor their citizens' Web sites, and monitor emails and chat rooms to stifle legitimate political dissent. U.N. control would shield this kind of activity from scrutiny and criticism.

The U.S. must do more to advance the values of an open Internet in our broader trade and diplomatic conversations. We cannot expect U.S. high-tech companies seeking business opportunities in growing markets to defy official policy; yet we cannot stand idly by as some governments seek to make the Internet an instrument of censorship and political suppression. To those nations that seek to wall off their populations from information and dialogue we must say, as Ronald Reagan said in Berlin, "Tear down this wall."

Allowing Internet governance to be politicized under U.N. auspices would raise a variety of dangers. First, it is wantonly irresponsible to tolerate any expansion of the U.N.'s portfolio before that abysmally managed and sometimes-corrupt institution undertakes sweeping, overdue reform. It would be equal folly to let Icann be displaced by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union, a regulatory redoubt for those state telephone monopolies most threatened by the voice over Internet protocol revolution.

Also, as we expand the global digital economy, the stability and reliability of the Internet becomes a matter of security. Technical minutiae have profound implications for competition and trade, democratization, free expression and access to information, privacy and intellectual-property protection.

Responding to the present danger, I have initiated a Sense of the Senate Resolution that supports the four governance principles articulated by the administration on June 30:

• Preservation of the security and stability of the Internet domain name and addressing system (DNS).

• Recognition of the legitimate interest of governments in managing their own country code top-level domains.

• Support for Icann as the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS.

• Participation in continuing dialogue on Internet governance, with continued support for market-based approaches toward, and private-sector leadership of, its further evolution.


I also intend to seek hearings in advance of the Tunis Summit to explore the implications of multinational politicization of Internet governance. While Tunis marks the end of the WSIS process, it is just the beginning of a long, multinational debate on the values that the Internet will incorporate and foster. Our responsibility is to safeguard the full potential of the new information society that the Internet has brought into being."

Mr. Coleman is a Republican senator from Minnesota.
_________________
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke and hungry the rest of his life!

John Sullivan
Native Corpus Christian
Currently Displaced in San Antonio

[mastergunner]

Have they been talking to the CC city council? I saw on the news last night the area around JFK bridge is going to be developed, those poor bait stands on the north side will find out what iminent domain means.
_________________
Hardheads should be the state fish of Texas

[Big John]

Yep, I saw that too. What concerns me most is that they are gonna fill in 70+ acres of tidal flats to build it. You know, the one's where you see people stuck as the rising tide comes-up around where thay parked while they were out wade fishing.

How many yards of dirt are gonna have to be hauled in for that? What will the effects of the runnoff from that dirt be? Isn't there a protected species of bird that nests there? Won't the tidal inflows and out flow eventually wash out any imported base dirt from under the constructed buildings causing sink holes (we get them in Corpus all across the south end during rainy season because much of this area was ponds and swamp land).

Anyway, with the city's development plans and this going up, it looks like Padre Island is all but lost to us now. Anyone who hasn't signed that beach closure petition needs to do so now.
_________________
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke and hungry the rest of his life!

John Sullivan
Native Corpus Christian
Currently Displaced in San Antonio

[Guest]

That project can be stopped in in tracks. All someone needs to do is say that they have seen that little bird called THE PIPING PLOVER. By the way that little bird could stop the parking lot the city wants to build.

[FireLine]

Big John,

Can someone from San Antonio sign the petition, or do I have to live in Corpus to sign it?
_________________
FIRELINE WILL " GET ER DONE!!"

[tyler]

[Big John]

You have to be a rgesiteres voter of Corpus Christi. But thanks for the report anyway! You can always write your state politicians and tell them to support the TOBA as it was written and keep beaches open to vehicles!
_________________
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke and hungry the rest of his life!

John Sullivan
Native Corpus Christian
Currently Displaced in San Antonio

[Mudflap]

I cannot believe how fast cities are moving to steal peoples properties from them and giving them to other private entities all in the name of increased tax dollars. This is a sham and the founding fathers are rolling in their graves. It will not stop until we stand up or someone chains himself to his property and dies in a shoot out with authorities trying to remove him. People that have had their property for decades are having it stolen from them now.

This internet thing is no joke either. If the United Nations gets hold of the internet, freedom will take a big hit. The fact that countries that have repressive governments are taking control of the UN is scary and the UN has lost all credibility. It needs to be disbanded. I predict within 20 years we build a great big wall around this country as freedom seems to be a bad thing to the rest of the world. The world is becoming a scary place and we maybe in the early stages of WWIII. This whole internet thing is about the control of information and the U.S. better hold our ground or we are in trouble.

[FireLine]

Right on, Right on, mudflap, I agree
_________________
FIRELINE WILL " GET ER DONE!!"

[unlucky_larry]

I think if the U.N. wants the internet then they should offer up some money, maybe in the neighborhood of oh lets say 950 trillion dollars ? A YEAR! Its only fair since us hard working Americans spent our tax dollars devolping it.

[jbonorden]

It wasn't us hard working Americans that developed the internet, Remember, It was Al Gore.

[Johnny French]

GLO's been trying to peddle the old spoil area, AKA The Village, southeast of the JFK Bridge for years. Most of it's wetlands, for which the Corps of Engineers requires good reasons to permit filling if the purposes of the fills aren't water-dependent. That includes hotels, condos, restaurants, and their parking areas. The Corps might cut some slack for a dredging activity, like a boat ramp, and for a marina's docks, etc., but even then the damage to the wetlands would have to be mitigated. And, as others have posted, there's the little matter of the threatened piping plover, whose presence on the site was documented by a scientific survey years ago. Doubt there's much developable upland in the area outside of the footprints of the existing bait stands, marinas and restaurants. It would take so much money to spruce up or to replace those that it would probably price the existing lease holders right out of business.

My advice would be to withdraw the plans to stick a new boat ramp in the dangerous blind spot on the north side of Packery Channel and just east of the 361 bridge over Packery. Use the money instead to improve the two existing ramps on the south side of Packery at the JFK Bridge, and to pave the area under the bridge to provide parking for boats and trailers in its shade.