Hours Before Obama's Internet Giveaway 'Irreversible', FCC Commissioner: 'You Should Be Worried'

Hours left before Obama’s Internet giveaway ‘irreversible’

Sen. Ted Cruz has posted online a countdown clock that reveals there’s just hours left before the U.S. gives away the Internet in a move critics have warned is “irreversible.”

It was the late Phyllis Schlafly who, earlier this year, characterized President Obama’s plan to give away U.S. oversight of the Internet’s domain name system as “like telling the fox to guard the chicken coop,” trusting the likes of Cuba, Venezuela and China to ensure the continued freedom of the Web.

The transfer of oversight to an obscure non-profit called the Internet Association for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, set for Saturday, “could be the most dangerous use yet of Obama’s now-famous pen,” the conservative icon said at the time.

On Thursday, after months of Congress has failing to halt Obama’s move, four states took action on their own.

The lawsuit by Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Nevada against the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Commerce and others seeks a halt to the plan.

The lawsuit isn’t the only opposition that has arisen in the fourth quarter.

A coalition of 77 national security, cybersecurity and industry leaders wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just days ago asking for intervention.

“As individuals with extensive, first-hand experience with protecting our national security, we write to urge you to intervene in opposition to an imminent action that would, in our judgment, cause profound and irreversible damage to the United States’ vital interests,” the letter said.

“Indeed, there is, to our knowledge, no compelling reason for exposing the national security to such a risk by transferring our remaining control of the Internet in this way at this time. In light of the looming deadline, we feel compelled to urge you to impress upon President Obama that the contract between NTIA and ICANN cannot be safely terminated at this point.”

Just a few days earlier, GOP senators, including Chuck Grassley, Ted Crux, Roy Blunt, Richard Burr and Ron Johnson, released a statement opposing the giveaway.

“It is profoundly disappointing that the Obama administration has decided to press on with its plan to relinquish United States oversight of crucial Internet functions, even though Congress has not given its approval. For years, there has been a bipartisan understanding that the ICANN transition is premature and that critical questions remain unanswered about the influence of authoritarian regimes in Internet governance, the protection of free speech, the effect on national security, and impacts on consumers, just to name a few,” they said.

“Without adequate answers to these questions, it would be irresponsible to allow the transition to occur in 15 days simply because of an artificial deadline set by the Obama administration.

“In fact, Democrats at both the state and national level have echoed many of these concerns. For example, former President Bill Clinton has warned that ‘[a] lot of people who have been trying to take this authority away from the U.S. want to do it for the sole purpose of cracking down on Internet freedom and limiting it and having governments protect their backsides instead of empower[ing] their people.’

“The issue of Internet freedom should unite us Americans – Republicans, Democrats and independents alike. Partisanship and political gamesmanship have no place when it comes to the Internet, basic principles of freedom, and the right of individuals in our great nation and across the globe to speak online free from censorship.”

"You Should Be Worried" Warns FCC Commissioner On Internet Giveaway

Pai said, "This proposal is to essentially give up the US oversight role that it’s had for the last 20 years, basically for the entire commercial lifespan of the Internet to a company called ICANN, which is an international organization, which includes a number of foreign countries. And, it’s an unprecedented move, and one that, as Mr. DeMint pointed out, is irreversible. Once we give up this oversight role, we can’t get it back."

He added that Internet oversight is a case of, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Pai further stated, “[I]f you cherish free expression, and free speech rights generally, you should be worried, I think, when there's — this oversight role's going to be ceded to potentially, foreign governments who might not share our values."

Pai, and others vehemently critizing Obama's Internet giveaway are not saying that as of October 1, 2016, readers will not be able to access their favorite sites, they are saying this giveaway is "irreversible" and the beginning of the end of Americans' free speech as we know it because control will be handed over to a global body, including many countries that have no free speech rights.

According to Epoch Times, a NY based newspaper owned by Chinese-Americans opposed to the Communist regime in China, "Over the last two years, Chinese leaders have drafted an authoritarian set of laws that governs every facet of the internet."

Senator Ted Cruz wrote on September 21, 2016, "ICANN is not bound by the First Amendment, which ICANN’s CEO and President Göran Marby admitted in a recent Senate hearing. The First Amendment applies only to the government. So if the government is out of the picture, the First Amendment is too. And that means that ICANN would be free to regulate internet speech by restricting which websites can gain access to the internet based on their speech."

John Bolton: Hostile Foreign Governments Will Use Obama’s Internet Surrender to Their Advantage

Breitbart Editor-in-Chief and SiriusXM host Alex Marlow asked Bolton about the impending surrender of Internet control to a multinational body, which Bolton saluted Senator Ted Cruz and some of his colleagues for making an “heroic effort” to block by inserting legislation into the continuing resolution for federal government funding.

“It didn’t happen,” Bolton said regretfully about Cruz’s efforts. “I don’t know why. I don’t know whether the Republican leadership in the Senate and the House were not receptive to it. It’s inconceivable to me, inconceivable, that we’re about to let this happen, because it is completely correct that once we let go, we are never going to get it back.”

It’s only a short period of time before the whole thing is taken over by the U.N., or U.N. specialized agencies, 190 members. The Internet as we have known it is about to disappear, and I think that has national security implications. It certainly has implications for freedom of communication internationally.

I understand why Barack Obama wants to take it out of the control of the United States and give it to the rest of the world. That’s consistent with the way he’s handled foreign policy for the last eight years – and, by the way, consistent with the way Hillary Clinton will handle it. What stuns me is that there wasn’t more Republican opposition.