From What is the ITU?
We love the internet.
And we're guessing you do too. Think about all the awesome things it gives us: A vast communication network; innovative businesses; a platform to freely speak or challenge powerful governments; and hundreds and hundreds of hours of cat videos.
All this great stuff is available because the internet was designed in an open and inclusive way, with a multitude of voices being able to get a say on how it's governed.
But the internet is in danger.
There's a meeting between the world's governments in a just a few weeks, and it could very well decide the future of the internet through a binding international treaty. It's called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), and it's being organized by a government-controlled UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
If some proposals at WCIT are approved, decisions about the internet would be made by a top-down, old-school government-centric agency behind closed doors. Some proposals allow for access to be cut off more easily, threaten privacy, legitimize monitoring and blocking online traffic. Others seek to impose new fees for accessing content, not to mention slowing down connection speeds. If the delicate balance of the internet is upset, it could have grave consequences for businesses and human rights.
This must be stopped.
Only governments get a vote at WCIT, so we need people from all around the world to demand that our leaders keep the internet open.
There is an option to add your email address to get further information. I did.
More information from the Wall Street Journal:
The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom
On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish "international control over the Internet" through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.
If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet's flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.
More at The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
The Senate has to vote a 2/3rds margin for the President to ratify a treaty so contact your Senator's office and say that you oppose U.N. control of the Internet.
