United States Should Reverse its Decision to Give Up Internet Controls: U.S. Will Do a Much Better Job of Maintaining Internet Freedom of Expression Than Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and Other Nations Who Lock Up Their Own Citizens For Saying What’s On Their Mind

President Obama made a major mistake in giving up control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which controls how users can access websites all over the world.

It’s not too late to reverse this decision.   Until every nation on the planet guarantees freedom of speech to their citizens, and establishes a history of respecting those rights, AND stops locking up those same citizens for daring to disagree with their governments, we have no business surrendering control of it to any international body.

American ingenuity and treasure was spent on creating the Internet, and it should rest permanently with the same department in the United States government that it has been with so far.

The Democrats talk about having an Internet free of government control, and that’s fine and dandy if all world governments agree to the same thing in a legally binding contract.   I don’t see us agreeing with Russia, Iran, China, or other regimes that have poor records on free speech.

Congress needs to reverse this decision before it’s too late.   The last thing we need is Vladimir Putin or one of a dozen despots around the world to decide that they want to shut down sites that report on what they’re doing.  Information is power, and these leaders who desperately want control of the web know it, and fear it.

That’s reason enough to keep the controls under U.S. jurisdiction permanently.