Tag: NTIA

U.S. Senators introduce DHS Cybersecurity Bill to Protect ‘Dot-Gov’ Domain after breach

Staff Writer
Liquid Telecom

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday to give the Department of Homeland Security more authority to protect government Internet addresses in Cybersecurity bid. The goal is to prevent more cyberattacks like recent massive breaches at the government’s hiring office. Hacks targeting the Office of Personnel Management put the personal data of some 22 million Americans at risk and prompted the resignation of OPM chief Katherine Archuleta earlier this month. The cyberattacks prompted calls in Congress for huge improvements in monitoring and protection of government systems. Reports…

Read More

US Internet Regulatory Authority (USIRA) Proposed, “No Legal Basis for IANA Transition”

I believe that such proven methods from contemporary US Public Policy experience must be applied in administrating any Internet Governance structure that would result from the IANA Transition proposals. This further underscores the need for Congress to establish a US Internet Regulatory Authority (USIRA) which I had called for in my December 2014 article (See Congress will Oversight ICANN – CircleID). Written by Sophia Bekele on CircleID “No Legal Basis for IANA Transition”: A Post-Mortem Analysis of Senate Committee Hearing Only proper regulation by an independent agency with full Congressional…

Read More

DCA Trust Summarizes Year 2014, .Africa IRP and Internet Governance in its Seasonal Greetings

DCA Trust has summarized its entire year of activities in its annual 2014 seasonal greetings report focusing on major issues such as Internet Governance, .Africa IRP and its various expert commentaries to global organizations. “The year 2014 proved to be another eventful year for DCA Trust, and its technology sector affiliates; namely, DCA Registry Services (Kenya) Ltd., and the Internet Business Council for Africa (IBCA) says DCA.”  said Bekele in her year end message. The Seasonal Greetings touching on the IRP says “DCA Trust had filed its Official Notice for…

Read More

Vodafone admits some governments have a direct link to their network for snooping

LONDON (Reuters) – Vodafone, the world’s second-biggest mobile phone company, said government agencies in a small number of countries in which it operates have direct access to its network, enabling them to listen in to calls. Security agencies across the world, and in particular in the United States and Britain, have faced greater scrutiny since Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), disclosed the extent of their surveillance to newspapers. Snowden’s disclosures caused an international uproar, showing that U.S. and British agencies’ monitoring programs took…

Read More

House of Representatives vote threatens Obama Administration planned internet giveaway

For years, conservative activists have prodded the House of Representatives to use their unique Constitutional power of the purse to rein in Obama Administration excesses. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is doing just that through a series of amendments that will be considered to the bill that appropriates money for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, along with other science related agencies. One particularly important rider is being offered by Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI). The Duffy amendment prohibits the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from using any…

Read More

WSJ: Brace for increased domain registration fees should the UN oversight ICANN

Staff Writer

The Wall Street Journal just published a story by Karl Borden who is a professor of financial economics at the University of Nebraska who warns that if the US gives up its oversight control over ICANN and the United Nations winds up in that roll, expect that fees are going to be imposed on every domain registration to support not only ICANN but UN activities. The world may see history repeat itself with the Internet, and the unintended consequences are likely to be profound. The United Nations has long craved…

Read More

Critical ‘homework’ before the U.S. relinquishes stewardship of ICANN

Staff Writer

The Department of Commerce announced on March 14 that it will give up its last bit of control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2015. As is often the case with government decisions announced late on a Friday, this decision is controversial. The U.S. has exercised light oversight of ICANN since it established the organization and emphasized the need for a free and open Internet. Other nations do not share America’s perspective and have sought repeatedly to work through U.N. organizations such as the International…

Read More

US Commitee Chairs pledge to conduct aggressive oversight on NTIA announcement on future of the internet; Schedules hearing for first week of April

Staff Writer

Committee Will Hold Hearing the First Week of April as Administration Examines Whether Department of Commerce Can Turn DNS Functions Over to Internet Stakeholders. WASHINGTON, DC – House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) today pledged to conduct aggressive oversight following the recent announcement by the Obama administration on the future of Internet governance. The administration is looking to engage the multi-stakeholder Internet community to investigate future models for administration of the Domain Name System (DNS). The Department of…

Read More

BNA on Internet transition by US Ambassador Sepulveda and US DoC Assistant Secretary Strickling

Celebrating and Protecting the Global Internet By Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State & Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), U.S. Department of Commerce   The U.S. government, working through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), has played a critical role in the stewardship of the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS).  But now is the time to transition that role, based on the success and maturation of the multistakeholder…

Read More