On the heels of the latest jaw-dropping revelations about NSA surveillance capabilities, security expert Bruce Schneier implores the engineering community to:
…influence governance. I have resisted saying this up to now, and I am saddened to say it, but the US has proved to be an unethical steward of the internet. The UK is no better. The NSA’s actions are legitimizing the internet abuses by China, Russia, Iran and others. We need to figure out new means of internet governance, ones that makes it harder for powerful tech countries to monitor everything. For example, we need to demand transparency, oversight, and accountability from our governments and corporations.
Unfortunately, this is going play directly into the hands of totalitarian governments that want to control their country’s internet for even more extreme forms of surveillance. We need to figure out how to prevent that, too. We need to avoid the mistakes of the International Telecommunications Union, which has become a forum to legitimize bad government behavior, and create truly international governance that can’t be dominated or abused by any one country.
Finally, the mainstream press reaches a conclusion the IGP has argued for years. The preeminence of any one government is detrimental to Internet governance. And while we commend Schneier for raising the profile of this issue, he falls short in his proposed solution – we need to create global governance institutions that cannot be dominated or abused by any state or stakeholder.
What are the facts that justify the allegation that the ITU has become a forum to legitimize bad government behavior?
You’ll have to confer with Mr. Schneier. Our concern is that he apparently thinks a state-based, _international_ solution is the way forward.