Clinton - Gore selling out Internet to ITU to Preserve Key EscrowEncryption?

--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 09:01:54 -0400 Reply-To: cook@netaxs.com Originator: com-priv@lists.psi.com Sender: com-priv@lists.psi.com Precedence: bulk From: Gordon Cook <cook@netaxs.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv@lists.psi.com> Subject: Clinton - Gore selling out Internet to ITU to Preserve Key Escrow Encryption? X-Comment: Commercialization and Privatization of the Internet A COOK Report Editorial Exceedingly strange events are underway inside the Beltway. By January of this year a coalition of industry figures had decided that IAHC was a cabal of internet old timers out to create a clique that could impose a DNS "socialist" solution. This solution, they claimed, would ensure the failure of any private enterprise led initiatives to open a true free market in DNS services. They convinced the Clinton Administration to intervene to stop the cabal from what they also alleged was its threat to American sovereignty. Namely that, in involving the ITU as the repository of its MOU, it sought to deliver control of the Internet into the hands of a stodgy bureaucracy which was in fact an enemy of the net. Fast forward through eight months of Clinton Administration meddling and we have some rather shocking results beginning to emerge. The Inter Agency Working Group on DNS issues is drafting a report that says IAHC was right after all and that just a few tweaks are needed to open up the process. The draft shows no understanding of the DNS issues themselves and comes up with no clear alternatives to the much scorned WIPO role in DNS dispute resolution. These matters are now coming out into the open. In an article yesterday in Communications Week International, Ken Cukier writes: "They [the IAHC] laid a decent foundation and [we] need to modify the plan to build on that foundation," said Ira Magaziner, a senior adviser on Internet matters to President Bill Clinton. The IAHC seems "open and flexible" to the idea of changing portions of the plan based on increased Internet community input, Magaziner added." The article goes on to explain how the Administration is embracing the hated IAHC process that its intervention was initially designed to halt. But we remind our readers that another concern that led to government intervention was not just anger over IAHC but also fear of the ITU. But no problem, the fear of the ITU seems to be no more. We quote below from a just published interview with Pekka Tarjanne, the ITU Secretary General from Finland. While the IAHC initially promised that the only role of the ITU would be to act as repository for signatories to the MoU on DNS, Pekka Tarjanne now foresees the ITU as the most likely repository for all internet governance functions - including getting into issues of content. Brian Kahin and Mike Nelson have turned the enemy into the friend. Why? Such are the wondrous ways of life in DC. NTIA has been given the green light to shape internet policy within the US. To hell with the Congress, the FCC and the NSF. [Speaking of collateral congressional problems, we'd certainly like to see someone sue NSI to prevent the return of the 23 million from the infratsructure fund to NSF for NGI use.] We expressed our dismay about this last week in an open letter to NTIA head Larry Irving. We must have struck some raw nerves, for when Dave Farber posted our original complaint to Irving on his IP list, we received a few days later the following delightful reply (posted by Dave again to his list.) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:14:52 -0400 From: "Gregory C. Simon" <simon@podesta.com> Cook: "Gregory Simon." Hmmm. Domestic affairs advisor to Al Gore? On the wrong side of privacy issues? Not much beloved by EPIC. On the wrong side of information issues. Point man for the administration a year ago at the WIPO meetings in Geneva, where the justly defeated treaty would have given publishers copy rights over virtually everything. See www.cic.org. Seems that Greg has left the White House and is working for the lobbying firm run by John Podesta's brother? Meanwhile John Podesta continues to work on the inside as one of President Clinton's most intimate advisors. In charge of Bill's daily schedule we are told. Greg seems to be offended that I am not a cheer leader for his ex-employer's policies. Simon: Dear All: The open letter from Gordon Cook to Larry Irving is profoundly misguided and uninformed. The basic premise is ludicrous -- that Henry Geller somehow set the parameters of NTIA's authority by his personal views. Cook: No. Wrong the premise was that Geller as first head of NTIA was fully in favor of the conditions agreed upon for its founding. That it could be an advocate for the desires of the President in telecom matters but that it would NOT make and originate policy. Simon: NTIA is the voice of the Administration on many matters but it is also part of the brain. During my tenure in the White House with Vice President Gore, we relied heavily on NTIA's institutional knowledge and analytical skills in formulating and executing policy decisions. Cook: In other words with NTIA as the brain, this administration, uses it to make policy. Simon: Larry Irving in particular has been astoundingly and unerringly prescient in identifying policy areas that will rise to the top of the public policy debate. His views have often carried the day with the President and Vice President. Cook: NTIA making telecom policy again contrary to the views of the original founders. I haven't talked to Elliot Maxwell at FCC, but Greg, you might like to give him a call. I am told that he shares these same views. And I am told this by someone who participated in the policy making at NTIA's founding with whom I have just had a conversation tonight. Simon: In my dealings with NTIA on the DNS issues I have detected none of the prejudice Mr. Cook asserts. Reading symbolism into such simple gestures as granting additional comment time and giving great weight to every bit of gossip emanating from a free give and take discussion within the government smacks of clinical paranoia. Cook: No Greg. It's having good sources who are so disgusted by the lack of cluefulness on the part of the administrations policy makers that they talk. I knew this was coming down the pike. Cukier's article published yesterday confirms it. Simon: Finally, is it necessary to wave the bloody shirt of encryption into every policy debate no matter how remote? Must everything be related to a government conspiracy to read your mail? Cook: Given the slipperiness of this Administration, I stand by what I said on this issue. If the minions of the administration, of which you are clearly one, can strip internet policy making away from NSF and Congress, then they can march ahead with their intent to give Freeh and Ft George Meade the keys to the private communications of every American citizen. And since Kahin and Nelson have decided to deliver the Internet via IAHC to the ITU after all, we could all wake up one day and find the keys to our most private correspondence turned over to an international organization called the ITU, which uses its treaty power like the World Trade Organization to overrule the sovereign power of the US Congress. The shame is that Ira Magaziner doesn't yet realize what Kahin and Nelson are doing to him. Note that the ITU also reflects the views of many European governments are far less willing than our own to even give lip service to the concerpt of a free Internet. Cook: Before you reply that I have lost my mind, Greg read the cogent paragraphs of the interview with ITU Secretary General Tarjanne below where the good man, sensing victory, says that he foresees the ITU playing a major role in Internet governance and foresees the possibility that the ITU may get involved not only in conduit but content as well. Someone exceedingly well familiar with ITU policy making noted in another conversation tonight that the ITU constitution has long allowed controls over encryption or in other instances has explicitly forbidden encryption and that the ITU has the tools for coordinating such restrictions internationally. Simon: Surely there must be a more honest way to disagree than to impugn everybody's motives all the time. And as for being cut off at the knees, I personally repudiate Mr. Cook for bringing that level of vileness and personal animus into the debate on a policy issue. Larry Irving has devoted his professional career to public service, he deserves respect, not threats. Cook: Rather than turn my accusations into a personal attack, why you tell us what the real policy of the administration is on these matters, if it is indeed other than what I allege? Cook: No I just put together what I hear from highly credible and distinguished sources who for their own reasonss cannot go on record.and reflect that against my belief that the government must never try to take control of the internet. If it means saying that the high and mighty have no clothes, so be it. No matter. The cozy dance continues. Don Heath has announced that next INET conference will be held in Geneva at ITU headquarters. Cook: Now it also looks like we owe Charles Pickering, the Republican Chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Basic Research, a debt of gratitude for the hearings of two weeks ago. Problem is the double dealing alleged there is not going on with IAHC. Sernovitz was wrong to accuse Jon Postel of wanting to ship US developed assets to Geneva. It would seem to be the White House that is the double dealer and the one ready to give American assets to the ITU. Sincerely, Greg Simon (In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Simon, President and CEO of Simon Strategies is a consultant to SAIC, the parent company of Network Solutions.) Cook: In the interests of full disclosure let it be said that we drank at the federal till for 18 months working for the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment and driving from NJ to a rented bedroom on Capitol Hill every week. Since March 1, 1992 we have published the staunchly independent COOK Report on Internet from our front porch making our living outside the beltway and fully independent of the interests that Mr. Simon represents. We must say we were amused at the Bellcore and NSI private mail that Greg attached. Clearly we touched a raw nerve. :-) Here with some relevant quotes from the Cukier article (at http://www.emap.com/cwi/192/192news5.html) and the Tarjanne interview. "The U.S. Department of Commerce, backed by a White House group studying the Net's vital domain name system, is set to accept a modified version of the plan for competitive domain name registrars devised by the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC), which comprises Internet organizations and United Nations-affiliate agencies. "They [the IAHC] laid a decent foundation and need to modify the plan to build on that foundation," said Ira Magaziner, a senior adviser on Internet matters to President Bill Clinton. The IAHC seems "open and flexible" to the idea of changing portions of the plan based on increased Internet community input, Magaziner added. The move will lay to rest months of uncertainty over the United States' role in freeing Internet institutions from government control. Significantly, the Department of Commerce will require the current monopoly registrar of the popular .com domain, Network Solutions Inc., to release information pertaining to the system's operation, say Clinton administration officials. However, officials caution that the department's approach is not universally supported in the federal government, and the internal tensions may set the policy back. Additionally, the IAHC's proposals that Geneva-based U.N. agencies be involved in domain name governance was attacked by Charles Pickering, the republican chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Basic Research, which sponsored the domain name system hearings. Jon Postel, the head of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the Net's central authority on certain standards (CWI, 30 June), remains cautious, however. "I just don't know," he said when asked whether the U.S. government will promote Internet self-governance. But Postel added: "Discussions have been fairly open in the administration about endorsing the [Internet] community's plan," as represented by the IAHC. The Trajanne interview is found at http://www.teledotcom.com/1097/features/tdc1097interview.html The ITU's involvement with the Internet may not end with the DNS. In fact, it may just begin there, especially if the ITU's DNS solution holds sway. In a recent interview, Tarjanne not only defended the DNS accord but also predicted a growing role for the ITU in Internet governance, at the invitation of the world's government and industry leaders. The ITU could eventually become involved in such content-oriented issues as pornography on the Internet, Tarjanne says. "We are not there yet, and I don't know if we will get there, but there is a clear possibility," he said. Some acknowledgment of the ITU's expanding role on the Internet could be written into the U.N. agency's bylaws when the ITU holds its quadrennial plenipotentiary conference--a kind of constitutional convention for the organization--in Minneapolis next October, according to Tarjanne. Still, the Internet issue is pivotal for the ITU's future; without a role in the Internet, the ITU would become less and less relevant to global communications. Tarjanne is moving quickly to secure the ITU's future before his tenure as secretary general ends in January 1999. Tarjanne: Traditionally, when we've talked about standardization in the ITU family it has been mainly technical standardization. But more and more we are involved in things that are called standardization but that have to do with, for instance, issues related to the generic top-level domain names or numbering systems--country codes are almost becoming viewed as a limited natural resource. As it relates to the Internet, we are facing a very interesting situation where questions concerned with conduit and content are being blurred. Basically, we have always dealt with conduit and have had nothing to do with content. But the situation is not that simple anymore. We, the conduit people, have to know what is happening on the content side, and vice versa, and there are questions that are very much interlinked. What kind of content issues do you see as possibly requiring the ITU's attention? Tarjanne: There are lots and lots of things. Probably the most famous Internet-related questions have to do with all the kinds of content that are not considered to be legally or morally acceptable. These are very difficult for the national decision-makers alone to deal with because of the global nature of the network. The problems are those related to child pornography or things like that. They have not reached the point where there's any need for us to do anything except follow what's happening. But that is already a change. To be prepared for the future, we have to know what problems different countries have with respect to the content of international communications. Have your members asked you to look into these issues? Tarjanne: Members have asked us to look into it and to follow it, but there are no concrete proposals for us to really take these matters up more seriously than that--than to follow them and collect information and be prepared to disseminate information. There's nothing on the agenda of our next few conferences, nor anything really serious in our study groups. What would happen if the Internet community rejected ITU governance? Tarjanne: It's a theoretical possibility, but I don't think it's very realistic. But if they find a better forum than the ITU, we don't have any monopoly. Things can be done outside the ITU, sometimes in a better way than within the ITU. That's not a big problem. We are here within our mandate to be prepared to participate and help when asked to do so. That's what we have done. To go a little bit further, if something were to happen outside the ITU that would lead to problems because of the absence of a neutral global organization covering these issues, then of course it's up to the members of the ITU to look at things more carefully. But we are not there. It's a rather hypothetical question for the time being. ************************************************************************ The COOK Report on Internet For subsc. pricing & more than 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA ten megabytes of free material (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) visit http://cookreport.com/ Internet: cook@cookreport.com New Special Report: Internet Governance at the Crossroads ($175) http://cookreport.com/inetgov.shtml ************************************************************************ --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>