Would-Be Internet Regulators Need Deleting

[Commentary] Andrew McLaughlin, a former deputy chief technology officer in the Obama administration who also worked at Google, urged President Barack Obama to "kneecap" the International Telecommunications Union, abolishing it rather than let it put the open Internet at risk.

"I hate to say this in such a stark way, but I will anyway: It strikes me that the Obama administration, coming from the left in the U.S., where I come from, has an opportunity to be the Nixon that goes to the China of trying to kneecap a useless, inimical, bloated, bureaucratic and corrupt international organization like the ITU. I hope they will take this challenge." A kneecapping sounds about right, and Mr. McLaughlin has given his former boss excellent talking points. He concluded: "There's also a symbolic importance to winding down a centralized, government-centric treaty organization in the context of a new communications network that doesn't need it, and in fact is harmed by it." A generation ago, President Ronald Reagan stymied similar efforts by another U.N. agency. Authoritarian governments had used Unesco to suppress free speech under the rubric of a "New Information World Order." The U.S., joined by Britain, delegitimized the effort by leaving Unesco. President Obama would be a hero if he took McLaughlin's advice to neutralize the ITU. Failing this, he could follow the Reagan precedent, minimizing the harm done by the ITU by having the U.S. leave.