U.S. lawmakers want to make it clear that they’re against a takeover of the Internet by the U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union and member governments.
In 2012, Congress passed resolutions opposing proposals at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) to allow the ITU to regulate the Internet, but a House of Representatives subcommittee will debate a new resolution essentially saying the same thing during a hearing next week.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee‘s communications subcommittee will debate a bill to make the language in 2012’s resolutions official U.S. government policy during a hearing starting on Wednesday and continuing Thursday. If passed, the bill would make it official U.S. government policy to “promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet,” according to a draft bill released by the subcommittee.
The draft bill takes aim at the ITU, which convened WCIT in December. During the meeting, several countries pushed for the ITU to take over governance of the Internet and for resolutions that critics said would allow widespread censorship of Web content.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld