Here comes the punchline...Wait for it... Wait for it... "Anguilla Internet Governance!!!!" Bwahahahaha!!!! Cheers, RAH -------- <http://www.anguillian.com/article/articleview/4607/1/129/> The Anguillian Newspaper: - The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance - John F. Kennedy You are here The Anguillian Editorial The Internet: Choose The Good, Reject The Evil Publishing date: 20.04.2007 09:32 This week the Anguilla Government, much to its credit, has had the opportunity to host the Caribbean Telecommunications Union's Internet Governance Ministerial Briefing Seminar at Paradise Cove Resort. It has attracted some 40 delegates from 18 territories. As Anguilla prepares to observe the 40th Anniversary of its 1967 Revolution, there has been phenomenal growth in the island's telecommunications industry. While this development may have been greatly influenced by the demands of the regional market on a whole, Anguilla needs to be complimented for the great strides it has made in this field over the past 35 years. When the story of the Anguilla Revolution hit world headlines in 1967, one of the difficulties experienced then, and for the next few years, by regional and international reporters, was the problem of filing their stories. There were no telecommunications services available and so the journalists were obliged to travel to St. Maarten if not Puerto Rico to get out their wire transmissions. It was only in 1971 that Cable & Wireless, operating from a mobile truck, was able to begin a limited service to the people of the island, providing for them contact with the outside world. The present flurry and level of telecommunications services constitute a far cry from those days. Everyone is astonished by what is now available not only from Cable & Wireless which maintains its leadership role, but, as a result of the liberalisation process, the competitiveness of Digicel, Caribbean Cable Communications and to a lesser extent, Weblinks. The Internet, which, at its introduction was described as a 'super highway to information', remains the most versatile and top service. It is a telecommunications product with two extreme ends, one of good and the other of evil. When the positive usages are employed, the benefits are immeasurable and when the negative side is explored, the harmful vice is also immeasurable. Someone said it is like a knife, 'a handy device in cookery but a dangerous tool of violence.' At Tuesday evening's opening ceremony of the Telecommunications Seminar, the speakers emphasised the importance of Internet Governance in terms of access, its great value to public policy, private sector enhancement and society on a whole and other positive benefits. Nobody really touched on the need to police the Internet which is increasingly becoming a highway of evil for hackers, pornography and every imaginable vice in the home and in the society. Their avoidance of this negative side of the Internet is understandable because it would be a Herculean task to control it and to set standards for everyone. We must do so for ourselves and country. Good and evil walk the paths of life together. It is for all of us to choose which one we should hold hands with but the directional signs that line the way before us are clear: choose the good and enlightenment. Reject the evil. | Printer-friendly page | Send this article to a friend | -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'