No Deadline for the Open Internet

[Commentary] In a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal, Commerce Department official Lawrence Strickling complains about the “many salvos” this column has launched against the plan to give up US protection of the Internet in September 2015. The administration’s own arguments show why the President should withdraw his plan.

“No one entity controls the Internet,” he writes. That’s true -- but the reason authoritarian governments don’t control the Internet is that the US has kept them at bay. Strickling’s letter also fails to address a fundamental question: why the executive branch thinks it can act on its own. The Constitution says only Congress can transfer federal property, such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) contract. The Administration has not provided any legal argument to the contrary. Congress has voted unanimously to keep US oversight and should block unilateral action by the White House. The US can renew the ICANN agreement for another four years beyond September 2015. That would give everyone the chance to see if there is any way to protect the open Internet without US stewardship. We know for sure that there will be no protection on the schedule set by the Obama Administration.