US refuses to back U.N. treaty, saying it endorses restricting the Internet

The Obama Administration announced that it will refuse to sign a United Nations treaty under consideration at a major global telecommunications conference because of provisions that it says would give a UN stamp of approval to state censorship and regulation of the Internet and private networks.

“The United States has announced today that it cannot sign” the treaty’s provisions “in their current form,” said Terry Kramer, the U.S. ambassador to the World Conference on International Telecommunications, as the 12-day conference draws to a close. Representatives of several other of the world’s largest economies also spoke out against the treaty, causing it to collapse for all practical purposes. International Telecommunication Union officials had said earlier that the meeting, the agency’s first major review of a telecommunications agenda since 1988, was not going to be a referendum on Internet freedom. But late Dec 12, according to Administration officials, the conference chairman, Mohamed Nasser al-Ghanim, director general of the Telecommunications Regulation Authority of the United Arab Emirates, inserted a resolution in the treaty that broke open the deep divisions between the countries on Internet regulation. The U.S. delegation is concerned with measures that would give governments new authority to regulate spam on their Internet networks. U.S. officials fear that states could use that provision to monitor and silence dissidents and others under the auspices of U.N. approval. “One man’s spam is another man’s political speech,” said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, lacking the authority to discuss the matter on the record. The Americans also opposed expanding the definition of what the treaty covers from public telecommunications networks to any network, public or private, including Internet service providers and government systems. They also were concerned about efforts to include network security in the treaty.

ITU Secretary General Hamadoun I. Touré rejected the United States’ characterization of the treaty. “The new . . . treaty does NOT cover content issues and explicitly states in the first article that content-related issues are not covered by the treaty,” he said.

House Commerce Committee Republicans commended Ambassador Terry Kramer, Ambassador Philip Verveer and the rest of the U.S. Delegation’s decision not to sign an treaty that would expand the role for the UN on Internet issues. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) also commended “the hard work of our talented U.S. delegation led by Ambassadors Verveer and Kramer. The U.S. government is united with many other ITU member countries, industry, and leaders in civil society across the globe in supporting a free and open Internet. The United States has made no apologies for advancing this clear position, and I applaud this Administration for defending these core principles in Dubai. Though the WCIT negotiations have concluded, we must continue to engage with other countries and international stakeholders through the multi-stakeholder process to advance our shared goal of a free and open Internet accessible to all.“

Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell said, “As egregious as today’s action was, many of the anti-freedom proposals were turned back - but the worst is yet to come. The United States should immediately prepare for an even more treacherous ITU treaty negotiation that will take place in 2014 in Korea. Those talks could expand the ITU’s reach even further. Accordingly, Internet freedom’s allies everywhere should more than redouble their efforts to erase the damage that was wrought today. Freedom and prosperity are at stake. Let’s never be slow to respond again. Freedom’s foes are patient and persistent incrementalists. They will never give up. Nor should we.”