By Harold Feld – A recently released ITU document summarizing various proposals to modify the existing ITU regulations (“ITRs”) confirms what folks have been saying and leaking for some time now. The Russian Federation, various Arab states, and others have submitted proposals that would expressly ratify the right of member states to disrupt communication in the name of national security, and to limit the ability of parties to route around censorship or communicate anonymously by providing members states the authority to determine routing paths and to prevent “misuse and misappropriation of numbering resources.” (See, for example, proposed MOD 30 & 31A – but there are numerous other proposals that could achieve the same end).
Current international law does not explicitly recognize the same right of governments to disrupt Internet-based services as it recognizes in basic telephony. To the contrary, the trend in International law in the last few years has been to view widespread disruption of Internet networks as a means of suppressing speech as a violation of international human rights.
Adoption of any of the pro-censorship provisions at the WCIT does not automatically lead to Internet censorship everywhere. But it would represent the first material setback to the growing international consensus that disrupting networks and otherwise exerting control over Internet traffic flows for censorship purposes violates fundamental human rights. more> http://tinyurl.com/82hfbru
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