联合国拟管控互联网

    虽然国际电信联盟没有权力在美国或者其它反对该方案的国家实行互联网控制，关注这一进程的人士还是担忧，一个隔离和受管制的互联网体系的建立将破坏信息和商务的全球自由流动，以及某些跨境技术的发展，如云计算。格雷内尔预测，如果未能阻止这些管制努力，联合国对互联网的管辖权将缓慢但持续地增强。“国际电信联盟可以发表报告，给出分享互联网商务收入的百分比目标，”他说。“它能够发布互联网商务的全球税收，允许贫穷国家受益于先进国家的电子商务活动。”

    互联网在由下而上、集中化、共识驱动的模式下繁荣昌盛，而对联合国由上而下地插手这一系统的担忧超越了政治分歧。联合国对互联网的管制（特别是这种管制只需要简单多数投票）威胁了“全球的自由和繁荣，”美国联邦通信委员会（Federal Communications Commission）的共和党委员罗伯特•M.麦克道维尔最近在华尔街日报发布文章写道：“即使互联网技术已经改善了数十亿人口的生活，还是有一些政府觉得他们被排除在外，想要加强对互联网的控制。”

    在美国众议院通信委员会中占多数的共和党员发布了一个备忘录，称联合国的努力威胁了互联网的分散结构里内嵌的“灵活性和创新”，那是互联网在技术平台和拓展商务和思想的自由流动的媒介的双重身份下，迅速演化和生长的动力。

    与此同时，民主党出身的联邦通信委员会主席朱利叶斯•格纳考斯基告诉参议院委员会，提议中的互联网管制新方案是个“糟糕的主意，损害全球经济，损害全球自由和民主。”高级政府官员也敲响了警钟，他们在白宫科技政策办公室（White House Office of Science and Technology Policy）的博客上写道，联合国的计划将“把互联网的未来交予政客、而不是创新者和专家来主宰。”

    然而直到现在，这一威胁并未引起公众广泛的关注。如同格雷内尔指出的：“互联网已经成为我们日常生活的一部分，人们无法想象某个国际官僚机构能完全接管它。”国际电信联盟的使命是“连接全世界…保护并支持每个人的基本通讯权力。”

    确保联合国兑现誓言需要公众的努力，最起码需要去年冬天对《禁止网络盗版法案》（Stop Online Piracy Act，SOPA）的群众抗议所引发的那种规模的公众动员和关注。

    While the ITU may not have the authority to impose controls over the Internet here or inside other resisting nations, those following the process fear the establishment of a separate, regulated Internet regime that would disrupt the global free flow of information and commerce, as well as the development of such cross border technologies as cloud computing. Grenell predicts a slow but steady gain of U.N. jurisdiction if these efforts aren't blocked. "The ITU can put out reports and mandate goals of what percent of commerce to share," he says. "It can issue a global tax on Internet commerce to allow poorer countries to benefit from those more sophisticated."

    Fears over top-down U.N. meddling in a system that has thrived under a bottom-up, centralized, consensus-driven approach cross the political divide. U.N. regulation of the Internet -- which requires just a simple majority vote -- threatens "freedom and prosperity across the globe," Robert M. McDowell, a Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "Even though Internet-based technologies are improving billions of lives everywhere, some governments feel excluded and want more control."

    A memo issued by the Republican majority of the House communications subcommittee argues that the U.N. effort threatens the "flexibility and innovation" built into the Internet's decentralized structure, something that has enabled it to "evolve and grow so quickly, both as a technological platform and as a means of expanding the free flow of commerce and ideas."

    Meanwhile, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, told a Senate committee that this proposed new layer of international regulation is "a bad idea, bad for the global economy, bad for freedom and democracy across the world." And senior administration officials sounded the alarm on the White House Office of Science and Technology blog, arguing that the U.N. plan would "put political dealmakers, rather than innovators and experts, in charge of the future of the Internet."

    So far, though, the threat hasn't caught widespread public attention. As Grenell notes: "The Internet is such a daily part of our lives that people can't fathom the idea that an international bureaucracy would be able to take it over." The ITU's stated mission is to "connect all the world's people..[to] protect and support everyone's fundamental right to communicate."

    Holding the U.N. to those words will require, at the very least, the kind of mobilization and attention generated by last winter's mass outcry over SOPA, the ill-fated Stop Online Piracy Act.