ICANN Handover Will Result in Suppression of Free Speech

Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

Listen to the audio version here.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

We’re back. We’re joined by Rick Manning. He is the president of a terrifically important organisation in Washington, DC, Americans for Limited Government. Rick has been an operator in the nation’s capital for a long time, notably working with the NRA and also has served in government in the Labor Department under George W. Bush. He is one of the most, I think, creative and active and influential conservatives in Washington. And it is a privilege to call him a friend as well as an inspiration. Rick, welcome back to Secure Freedom Radio. It’s good to have you, sir.

RICK MANNING:

Frank, you are too kind.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Well, it’s heartfelt and it’s deserved. But let me ask you, you have been really one of those who’s understood most clearly and worked hardest on this issue of the surrender by the United States government of the last vestiges, really, of the control that is exercised since Al Gore – no, excuse me, since the Defence Department invented this incredibly important instrument. Talk about why you have been so concerned about what president Obama has in mind and the stakes, as you see it, in this debate.

RICK MANNING:

Well, it’s very simple. In four days, the US government’s oversight of the internet functions, the management of the internet, will pass to a multinational, multi-stakeholder group. And the US will then no longer have any more say in how it’s governed. And then in places like Algeria and Saudi Arabia. So we have effectively, in this transition, we’re changing the very – the very nature of the internet under US governance. The First Amendment and freedom of expression have been the watchword – that’s what’s causing it to grow, that’s what’s caused the internet to be. In many places, the reason why freedom has flourished. And yet the Obama administration is insisting on turning it over to this multi-stakeholder group. And the inevitable outcome of that is, within years, the United Nations will end up in control of the internet. What that means to listeners is, it will be a less free internet. It means that there will be content restrictions sometime in the future on the internet. We know that China is already imposing content restrictions on the internet as it runs in their country. And that’s the direction that they will take it. And the internet as we know it will be gone. And Frank, this matters because the internet is the Gutenberg printing press of the 21^st Century. And it is the single greatest democratization device that exists to break the stranglehold of those who would – who would oppress people. And when you fail to – by turning it over to the very oppressors, it is guaranteed to cease to function in the ways that it has, that has made it flourish in the last eighteen to twenty years.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

And Rick, there was a letter that I was privileged to participate in that went to the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday that described some of the national security implications of this idea as well. Specifically, the reliance of our critical infrastructure and, well, the military itself, to varying degrees, on the internet. Could you just stitch that in to the larger point you’ve just made about the inadvisability of sacrificing our oversight and control of this?

RICK MANNING:

Sure, you know, the internet was developed by the military and basically the rest of us have been allowed to use it. But it was initially a communications tool developed through the military for a national security function. And it – and because of that, that is a [UNCLEAR] one of the amazing parts of this debate has been, and this isn’t in your specific letter, but it is – it shows the lack of regard that the Obama administration has for these concerns, that there’s a specific URL, the .mil URL that is used by the military, and that is the same as a .com or .gov or .org. Except it’s exclusively used by the US government and they have exclusive rights to it. Well, as of a month ago, there hadn’t even been any guarantees that the .mil designation would be retained and would remain a sole and exclusive use of the US government. So you have a – so the concerns expressed in the letter which you signed are true. There is a – there is an overriding national security concern that exists related to this whole transition. But even, the most stunning part about this to me is that the Obama administration thought so little of it that they didn’t even secure, right up front, they didn’t move to secure the .mil. Now, they might have done that in the last few days, in a last minute thing, but there has been no planning related to this. There’s been no thinking about the implications of this. This move is a result based on FOIs that we’ve received, and I’m now piecing something together, it appears that this FOI is a result of a weekend meeting at the White House and the Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, continually pestering Obama to relinquish the internet and turn it over to this multi-stakeholder group. And so they said, sure, let’s do it. They didn’t – they didn’t anticipate anti-trust concerns that are going to be extremely difficult for them to overcome if they should move forward. They did not anticipate what would happen with .mil, to even think about it. They didn’t think about whether they legally could transition the internet without a vote of congress. They didn’t think about anything except for who are we going to give it to and won’t this be fun – can’t we have a bunch of parties around the world, celebrating it?

FRANK GAFFNEY:

This sort of trans-national agenda of the Obama administration very much in evidence here. Let me just ask you, Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government, why is it that the chairman of a company like Google, that you would think would be as much about internet freedom as anybody, why would an Eric Schmidt be pushing to give away the instrument that has assured all that?

RICK MANNING:

I’ll give you the answer that his advocates, his lobbyists have and his lobbyists say. That Google will protect it from China and the others better than the United States will. Which is absurd on its face and Google desperately wants to be in the Chinese market. And the Chinese have told them no. And say, Google – what I believe is actually the truth, is that Google wants to gain control of an asset that they can then leverage to enter the Chinese markets. And the asset is the capacity to control content to the whims of what the Chinese want. The Chinese have said – have told or told people that we’ll let you come in as an internet domain name, like a .com kind of group. We’ll let you have .coms in China, but you have to restrict these two thousand words so nobody can have TS-1989 as one of their websites. Meaning Tienanmen Square 1989 to them, not Taylor Swift 1989. So it’s a – but they have that as a, so that’s the construct that’s being set up in China. And I think it’s a business deal for Google. A straight business deal. If you’re a young, up-and-coming company, free and open internet is great cause you want to be able to create a better Google. But if you’re the top company, you’re protecting territory not gaining territory. So you need to control that space so you can maximize the space you already control and I think – so I think it’s control.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

You mentioned there are four days left. Where do things stand with respect to the congress which conceivably could prevent this from going forward?

RICK MANNING:

They can. And there’s a big debate about right now and every one of your listeners needs to call their senators in particular, the House members also. Senator McConnell is putting together a continuing resolution. The continuing resolution that he had, the deal he thought he had on Thursday fell apart. They are renegotiating things right now. ICANN is a big part of that puzzle. We are pressing hard for them to incorporate a language that would stop the internet giveaway. And every single one of your listeners needs to call their US senators and say, contact McConnell and urge him to stop internet giveaway. We have four days and if they don’t do it, we never recover.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Rick Manning, thank you for your leadership on this as on so many other things at the Americans for Limited Government. We appreciate your particular inspiring leadership on this matter and look forward to talking with you further about it in the days ahead. We’ll talk next with Daniel Horowitz of the Conservative Review about the debate and more, straight ahead.