March 14, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement blasting the Obama Commerce Department for turning over control of the Internet to United Nations International Telecommunication Union*:
“Congress needs to prevent the Obama Administration from giving away U.S. control over the Internet to any international body. To allow the free speech rights of U.S. citizens to be threatened by international bodies that don’t recognize these fundamental rights is dangerous and a threat to our national sovereignty. Perhaps this latest egregious action by the Obama Administration in their quest to deconstruct the United States will finally wake Congress up to their power of the purse responsibility as a co-equal partner in government.”
* Editor’s Note: Initial reports by Politico indicated that the UN International Telecommunication Union could be taking over ICANN’s role in lieu of the U.S. A subsequent reading of Commerce’s proposal indicates that the agency’s intent is to “transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community” and “to convene global stakeholders to develop a proposal to transition the current role played by NTIA” and “ICANN will work collaboratively with the directly affected parties, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), top level domain name operators, VeriSign, and other interested global stakeholders” and “international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance”.
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.
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