My congressman responded for internet freedom

[Peace.Love.Liberty]

Not sure about how much value it has now, but here's what my congressman replied. 

 

 

[luxfelix]

Ditto. 

[SomniaScipionis]

I received the following from my Democratic congressman:

 

[Letterhead deleted since forum does not support the image extension]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 12, 2016

########,

 

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about the National Telecommunications Information Administration’s recent announcement on transitioning Internet domain name functions to the “global multistakeholder community.” I value your opinions and appreciate you taking time to write to me.

As you may know, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) performs a number of oversight functions for the domain name system (DNS) that connects each website’s domain name with the IP address. On March 14, 2014, the NTIA announced its intent to transition key DNS functions to the global multistakeholder community. As part of this process, the NTIA has asked the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to convene global stakeholders to develop a transition proposal. Importantly, NTIA has announced that it will not accept a proposal that replaces NTIA with a government-led or inter-governmental solution.    

Several pieces of legislation have been introduced to limit NTIA’s authority to transition these functions. Specifically, the DOTCOM Act, H.R. 4342, would prevent the Commerce Department from relinquishing its Internet oversight functions until the Government Accountability Office (GAO) presents a report to Congress on the transition plan. The GAO report would include a list of the advantages and disadvantages of a transition; an analysis of each proposal received by the NTIA; the processes used by the NTIA and any other federal agencies for evaluating proposals; any national security concerns; and a definition of "multistakeholder model" as used by the NTIA with respect to Internet policymaking and governance.

Another piece of legislation, the Internet Stewardship Act, H.R. 4367, would prohibit the Commerce Department from transitioning these Internet functions to any other entity without approval from Congress.   

H.R. 4342 and H.R. 4367 have been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where they await further consideration. While I do not sit on this committee, please know I will keep your views in mind should these bills, or similar legislation, come before me for a vote.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. If I can be of any further assistance, please contact me at 608-258-9800. If you would like to receive regular updates from me on this and other congressional issues, please visit my website at https://pocan.house.gov or sign up for my newsletter here https://pocan.house.gov/contact/newsletter, and follow me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/repmarkpocan) and Twitter (@RepMarkPocan). 

 

Sincerely,

[image deleted since forum does not support the image extension]

 
Mark Pocan 
Member of Congress

         

[virtue]

I've heard that the major backbone routers and switches in USA & Canada send a copy of every packet that goes through them to the NSA.

 

The NSA also intercepted routers and switches from Cisco to Cisco's customers to install backdoors.

 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/

 

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/internet-privacy/snowden--the-nsa-planted-backdoors-in-cisco-products.html

 

Cisco routers and switches basically run the internet. Another word for Cisco is "Ethernet" as one Cisco employee said.

[shirgall]

I've heard that the major backbone routers and switches in USA & Canada send a copy of every packet that goes through them to the NSA.

 

The NSA also intercepted routers and switches from Cisco to Cisco's customers to install backdoors.

 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/

 

http://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/internet-privacy/snowden--the-nsa-planted-backdoors-in-cisco-products.html

 

Cisco routers and switches basically run the internet. Another word for Cisco is "Ethernet" as one Cisco employee said.

 

If I saw that kind of traffic out of my routers, I'd notice. What is true that certain major switche locations (imagine the places where giant ISPs connect to the rest of the Internet) did have facilities in place for NSA and law enforcement to analyze the traffic. The broad extent of this was touched upon in the Snowden documents, but it was an open secret before then.