A battle for Internet freedom as UN meeting nears

A year after the Internet helped fuel the Arab Spring uprisings, the role cyberspace plays in launching revolutions is being threatened by proposed changes to a United Nations telecommunications treaty that could allow countries to clamp down on the free flow of information.

For months, dozens of countries have been meeting behind closed doors to debate changes to the 24-year-old treaty. The US delegation to the World Conference on International Telecommunications to be held in Dubai this December has vowed to block any proposals that could permit online censorship or undercut the Internet's current governing structure. Yet those assurances have failed to ease fears that bureaucratic tinkering with the treaty could imperil Internet freedom and diminish its role in economic growth, according to legal experts and civil liberties advocates who have been tracking the discussions. The drafting and debating of proposals in preparation for the Dubai conference have taken place largely in secret. Public interest groups have criticized the process and said it runs counter to development of sound public policy. In response to calls for transparency, two research fellows at George Mason University's Mercatus Center launched the website WCITLeaks.org earlier this month as a way to make leaked documents available publicly. The secretive nature of the talks has sparked rumors the U.N. is plotting to take control of the Internet. Toure has called the takeover rumors "ridiculous."