US, UK and Canada refuse to sign UN's internet treaty

[Marc Perkel]

Oh - and I forgot to mention how the Intellectual Property police would
love to get that kind of control of the Internet.


On 12/15/2012 7:29 AM, Amr Elsadr wrote:
> Thanks Marc. Couldn't agree more.
>
> Amr
>
> On Dec 15, 2012, at 3:26 PM, Marc Perkel wrote:
>
>> My problem is that no matter how benign a treaty might sound in the beginning it would lead to the creation of an infrastructure to allow enforcement. Once you have an international infrastructure of control who is to say the rules might change? So something might start out as the society for the protection of cute kittens organizing to stop child porn and end up with the thought police installing chips in your brain.
>>
>> And you can imagine where this would go when it comes to "religiously offensive" materials sent across the internet. There are many countries where not believing in God caries the death penalty, as well as believing in God the wrong way. I can imagine what would happen between Christians and Muslims on an Internet with a central control infrastructure. There was a story recently where a man who was a non-believer determined that a crying statue of the Virgin Mary was caused by a leaky sewer pipe and he's being prosecuted for it. Imagine what a threat it would be to realists if those views could be enforced across international borders.
>>
>> And what about uprisings? The Arab Spring was organized online. Would we be obligated to censor the cries of the oppressed and tortured because of treaty obligations of the oppressing country?
>>
>> The bottom line for me is that some criminality is the price we pay for freedom and it's worth it. Once you put in an infrastructure to stop the bad guys then that infrastructure can, and most certainly will, be used against the rest of us. So I support our resistance to any treaty or domestic law to centrally control the internet.