UN Grabs for the Internet

[+OverSword]

From the article:

In a recent essay entitled, “The Strategic Significance of the Internet Commons,” former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff describes cyberspace and the Internet as a “global commons” that must come under “global governance.” This is the latest salvo in an ongoing campaign by a disparate congeries of internationalists, socialists, communists, and jihadists to turn over control of the Internet to some sort of regime under the United Nations.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, the effort to transfer that control to the UN — including Internet taxing, censoring, and surveillance powers — is already far advanced. As The New American reported in March of this year, the Obama administration has already begun the phased transfer of Internet control to a nebulous and uncertain governance structure that has been set up as an innocent-appearing transition platform that, ultimately, is set for transfer to UN control.

The Chertoff article, which appeared on the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) on August 14, was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of Strategic Studies Quarterly, a journal published by the Air Force Research Institute. In it, Chertoff writes:

Cyberspace, much like the high seas, air, outer space, and Antarctica should be viewed as the newest global commons.... Cyberspace is a strategic resource that is essential to today’s global economy yet poses unprecedented risk and vulnerability. Like the development of global governance for the high seas and outer space, cyberspace needs global governance that preserves its freedom and openness while strengthening its security to protect the shared economic and utility value of all nations.

Chertoff Cheers UN Law of the Sea Treaty

Chertoff seems especially enamored of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), citing it approvingly several times as the model for dealing with the cyberspace global commons. This is revealing, inasmuch as LOST has been a cauldron of controversy for decades, since it would: a) challenge the sovereignty of our inland and coastal waters; b )give the UN pretended legal authority over “all ocean space”; c) give the UN a huge constant revenue stream from seabed mineral rights and sea lane taxes ; d) subject our naval operations to UN interference; and much more. (See here, here,and here.)

So, how is it that former DHS chief Chertoff is now an expert on the Internet, and why is he stumping for “global governance” for cyberspace? The short bio at the end of his article that we quote above states that he is “the co-founder and chairman of the Chertoff Group and a member of the Global Commission on Internet Governance.” Following in the footsteps of many other “public servants,” Chertoff has parlayed the contacts and connections from his government career into a lucrative and influential consultancy business. We won’t take space here to go into his business conflicts of interest (as, for instance, his public promotion of full-body airport scans, while failing to disclose that his firm’s client, RapiScan, is the main producer of the technology and is making millions of dollars on the supposed “security” provided by the devices), but what about this Global Commission on Internet Governance. Sounds very official, no? So who commissioned this commission?

Chatham House Leads Internet Grab

According to a press release from Chatham House on January 22 of this year: "Carl Bildt, Sweden's Minister of Foreign Affairs, will chair a new Global Commission on Internet Governance, launched by The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House)."

The Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, also known as Chatham House) is the British cabal of globalists who serve as the de facto governing class of the U.K., in much the same manner that its New York-based sister house, the Council on Foreign Relations(CFR, also known as Pratt House), operates here in the United States.

Bildt serves on the International Advisory Board of the CFR. Another CFR luminary serving on the new Global Commission on Internet Governance is Nobel Prize-winning economist Michael Spence, author of The Next Convergence. And another is Joseph Nye, professor and former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, former chair of the National Intelligence Council, and current executive director at the CFR, chair of studies at the CFR, and current North American chairman of the Trilateral Commission. Chertoff’s aforementioned bio neglects to mention that he also is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a very rarified group of one-worlders organized by David Rockefeller(former chairman of the board and current honorary chairman of the CFR, as well as founder and current honorary chairman of the Trilateral Commission). The CFR, RIIA, and Trilateral Commission form the top tier of globalist think tanks promoting world government. Notable allied outfits in this effort include the Brookings Institution, Aspen Institute, Peterson Institute, Club of Rome, Club of Madrid, Rand Corporation (of which Bildt is also a trustee), and a host of the big foundations, such as Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, Soros, Hewlett, et al.

And since we have mentioned the Aspen Institute, it is apropos also to mention that Michael Chertoff co-chaired Aspen’s Homeland Security Group, which produced the 2012 report entitled, “Homeland Security and Intelligence: Next Steps in Evolving the Mission.” As to be expected the Chertoff-led Aspen report advocated for evolution in the direction of centralized, nationalized control of police functions. That is always a given: In the CFR-RIIA world view, power — political and economic — must always “evolve” (with plenty of helpful pushes, shoves, and brow beatings by the CFR thought cartel) toward more concentrated and centralized power, first by breaking down checks and balances and transferring authority from the local to the national level, and then from the national to the regional and global levels.

So, it is not surprising that Chertoff is once again toadying for the CFR-RIIA globalist powers-that-be in asserting the need for "global governance" over another vital aspect of our lives. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, a CFR member, is a principal of the Chertoff Group. General Hayden served as a member of the CFR’s Advisory Committee that helped produce the Council Special Report No. 56 entitled, “Internet Governance in an Age of Cyber Insecurity.” The report was a project of the CFR’s International Institutions and Global Governance (IIGG) program, an ongoing project that is ever pushing for more centralized, concentrated global government.

Read the rest here

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Which boogeyman will they use to justify it I wonder?

"Dealing more effectively with paedophiles" or "keeping track of dangerous radicals"?

[Taun]

If they want to totally kill the internet... that's a good way to start - provided this report is as it seems...

Although I have to admit, that if they were able to totally stop the incessant adverts that deluge us 24/7 on even the most mundane items we click on... I just might be tempted to

look more favorably on this blatant grab at power over our minds and lives...

[StRoostifer]

This would not surprise me one bit. I enjoy the internet and all but if it came down to it I could easily live without it, just like I live without cable, TV, smart phone etc.

The reason the powers that be can even attempt things like this like this is due to so many people feeling they cannot live without these luxuries. Please notice I said luxuries and not necessities.

[theotherguy]

It's a necessity, not a luxury, for the modern college student, and I'm not talking about Facebook (which I don't use, as an aside). Many of my class communications and updates take place entirely online.

[Orcseeker]

This would not surprise me one bit. I enjoy the internet and all but if it came down to it I could easily live without it, just like I live without cable, TV, smart phone etc.

The reason the powers that be can even attempt things like this like this is due to so many people feeling they cannot live without these luxuries. Please notice I said luxuries and not necessities.

I think the Internet is a necessity for humanity. Never once has a man in south Africa been able to share an idea with a woman in the USA and another man in Russia simultaneously at such an accessible level.

If I want to learn something I don't have to scour through libraries of dated texts. I can grab the most current, up-to-date information from reliable Internet sources.

In the history of the world we have never been so connected ever before.

I know there is a lot of bad on the Internet but as a medium for education. I've found it unparalleled. A user has access to information and materials to satisfy his/her learning method (visual, practical, etc) that no other can provide an abundance and variation of.

The Internet is like a modern day library of Alexandria except more accessible to all types of people.

[StRoostifer]

I think the Internet is a necessity for humanity. Never once has a man in south Africa been able to share an idea with a woman in the USA and another man in Russia simultaneously at such an accessible level.

If I want to learn something I don't have to scour through libraries of dated texts. I can grab the most current, up-to-date information from reliable Internet sources.

In the history of the world we have never been so connected ever before.

I know there is a lot of bad on the Internet but as a medium for education. I've found it unparalleled. A user has access to information and materials to satisfy his/her learning method (visual, practical, etc) that no other can provide an abundance and variation of.

The Internet is like a modern day library of Alexandria except more accessible to all types of people.

I guess its just a matter of ones perspective and priority. I'll just agree to disagree because I stand firm behind my previous post. Humans lived many thousands of years before the internet and are capable of surviving without it, it is indeed a luxury.

[DecoNoir]

What a shameless power grab. As much as I hate to say, when can all of these old men put on the wooden coat? Nothing more pathetic than a bunch of morons trying to control something they barely understand.

Maybe its just me being of a younger generation, but I see the internet not as a luxury, but a vital part of the global community. If it were to be controlled by a single entity, especially one as hilariously incompetent as the UN, it'd be a disaster the like of the Mongol sacking of Bagdad, or the destruction of the library at Alexandria. It can only set us back.