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by Breitbart News
December 28,
2019
from
Breitbart Website
AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool
In
2016, I wrote 'Technocracy
- The Real Reason Why The UN Wants Control Over The
Internet' and explained why President Obama
purposely failed to renew the contract with ICANN to
serve U.S. Interests.
Now,
you see the result...
Source
The
United Nations on Friday 27th
approved a
Russian-led bid
that aims to
create a new convention
on cybercrime,
alarming rights groups
and Western
powers that fear
a bid to
restrict online freedom...
U.N. Approves
China-Backed Internet Convention, Alarming Rights Advocates
The General Assembly approved the resolution sponsored by
Russia and backed by
China, which would set up a
committee of international experts in 2020.
The panel will work to set up,
"a comprehensive
international convention on countering the use of information
and communications technologies for criminal purposes," the
resolution said.
The
United States,
European powers and rights
groups fear that the language is code for legitimizing
crackdowns on expression, with numerous countries defining criticism
of the government as "criminal."
China heavily restricts Internet searches to avoid topics sensitive
to its communist leadership, as well as news sites with critical
coverage.
A number of countries have increasingly tried to turn off the
Internet, with India cutting off access in Kashmir in August after
it stripped autonomy to the Muslim-majority region and Iran taking
much of the country offline as it cracked down on protests in
November.
"It is precisely our
fear that (a new convention) would allow the codification at an
international and global level of these types of controls that's
driving our opposition and our concerns about this resolution,"
a US official said.
Any new UN treaty that
spells out Internet controls would be,
"inimical to the
United States' interests because that doesn't tally with the
fundamental freedoms we see as necessary across the globe," he
said.
Human Rights Watch called the
UN resolution's list of sponsors,
"a rogue's gallery of
some of the earth's most repressive governments."
"If the plan is to develop a convention that gives countries
legal cover for internet blackouts and censorship, while
creating the potential for criminalizing free speech, then it's
a bad idea," said Human Rights Watch's Louis Charbonneau.
The United States argues
that the world should instead expand its sole existing accord on
cybercrime, the
2001 Budapest Convention, which
spells out international cooperation to curb copyright violations,
fraud and child pornography.
Russia has opposed the Budapest Convention, arguing that
giving investigators access to computer data across borders violates
national sovereignty.
The Budapest Convention was drafted by the
Council of Europe, but other
countries have joined, including the United States and Japan.
United Nations Press Release
A new UN treaty on cybercrime could render the Budapest
Convention obsolete, further alarming rights groups.
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