The Internet was born out of a U.S. military project to ensure reliable communications in the event of nuclear war, and it has been nurtured in the public domain for over a decade without any guiding political hand.  So why now does the UN want to put it under the control of a global body and subject it to international law and guidelines?  Because free speech and expression by all is a serious threat to their goals.  How can the globalists silence Christians, conservatives, and people who don’t like them, as they’ve done in schools and the media, if they don’t have control?  They can’t. 

So, the UN mission to control the Internet has begun.  The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in Geneva at the beginning of December, 2003, to discuss and draw up a plan for putting the Internet under United Nations control by 2005.  More than 6,000 delegates representing 61 states and government organizations were in attendance for the summit.  The summit’s goal was to achieve a consensus on a draft declaration of principles and draft plan of action for UN governance of the Internet, and make plans for the second phase of the summit to be held in Tunis. 

Countries like China, Egypt, Syria and Vietnam are lobbying furiously to wrest control of the Internet from the United States.  In some of these countries you can get killed or thrown in jail for sending the wrong e-mail or visiting the wrong website.  Leading the effort is China, which allows its own citizens online access only with government surveillance.  The UN puts countries like Libya in charge of the Commission on Human Rights, and this is really who we want running our Internet and overseeing our surfing activities?  We all know what Libya and other Islamic nations would consider a violation of human rights. 

The French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has also called for “international rules” overseen by the United Nations to govern the Internet.  Raffarin said at the WSIS meeting, “For France, the UN is the major source of international rights, which must ensure peace and development.  That also concerns the information society.  This would guarantee network security and deal with content while respecting freedom”.  That’s just what we need – countries like France regulating Internet content for us. 

Although more than 60 nations were represented in Geneva by their heads of government, only a handful of industrial nations sent their leaders.  While these heads of governments were invited to all the meetings, the head of ICANN (Internet Center for Assigned Names and Numbers), representatives of the news media, and anyone who was not a government official were barred from attending many of the “private” meetings.  The UN preferred a closed forum to decide how 750 million people would reach the Internet. 

Critics of the global Internet idea say certain nations like China want to take away ICANN’s duties and place them under governmental auspices, along with increased control over security and content, placing freedom of press and individual freedom of expression at serious risk.  After looking at the Action Plan that came out of the summit, it seems the critics are right.  Under the auspices of expanding Internet access to poorer countries, the control of content is mentioned throughout the Action Plan.  Section C9 states that “appropriate measures should be taken to combat illegal and harmful content in media content”.  No mention is made of who would decide what is considered harmful content, however they do suggest the Internet should be subject to international law and compliant with the principles of the United Nations Charter.  In other words content better fall in line with what the UN thinks is acceptable.  The U.S.-led bloc favors ICANN model, which is based on minimal regulation and commercial principles.  

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a UN treaty mentioned several times in the Plan of Action, states in Article 29 that “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” You can bet the Contender Ministries section called “United Nations Watch” would be right out.   

Section C10 “Ethical dimensions of the Information Society” takes this “control of content” on the Internet even further.  It states: 

“All actors in the Information Society should promote the common good, protect privacy and personal data and take appropriate actions and preventive measures, as determined by law, against abusive uses of ICTs (Internet Communication Technologies) such as illegal and other acts motivated by racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, hatred, violence, all forms of child abuse, including pedophilia and child pornography, and trafficking in, and exploitation of, human beings.” 

They’ll start with the “we must curb hate speech” diatribe and move on from there.  They’ll move from the obvious sites like white supremacist sites to conservative political sites, then pro-second amendment sites and finally religious sites that decry abortion and homosexuality…or perhaps don’t like the UN.  You can bet the UN would consider any Christian ministry like Contender Ministries intolerant and hateful.  After all we believe homosexuality is wrong and we point out false prophets and their religions.  And, who decides what promotes the common good?!  The UN would of course.  Having the UN in charge of the entire Internet is insane.  It would take three years and some sort of condemnation of Zionism in order for all the member states to come to any sort of complex technical standards for the Internet. 

 “Standardization is one of the essential building blocks of the Information Society,” reads the most recent draft of the WSIS Draft Declaration of Principles.  “there should be particular emphasis on the development and adoption of international standards”.  The summit also produced a document titled “Declaration on the Right to Communicate”.  Apparently we need the UN to tell us that we have that right.  Much of the declaration reiterates what the declaration on human rights has already said.  One particularly disturbing idea is that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.  This sounds great, but the “freedom of conscience” statement has consistently been used by the UN to vilify anyone trying to “force” his or her religion on another person.  Of course, what we consider witnessing or sharing our faith would be considered cramming something down the throats of others by the UN. 

The document goes on to say that “everyone has the right to be protected against forms of communication that are discriminatory in terms of gender, race, class, ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, and physical or mental condition”.  In other words, if I want to say something on the Internet about another religion that you don’t like, you have a right not to see it, and even having it on the Internet means you can see it.  I, therefore, have no right to say it anymore.  Once again, someone being offended trumps my right to free speech.  Unless of course you’re a Christian and then the UN itself is allowed to offend you. 

Part 3 article 7 goes on to say, “Everyone has the right to be protected from all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”.  So the UN would decide what’s peaceful and you better not deviate from that.  This is also a nice way to slip in the International law plan.  It doesn’t matter what country you’re in or what the laws are in that country.  If the UN governing agency decides your speech is a breach of peace, you’re outta there!  Later in the declaration they come right out and say it.  Part VI article 2 says, “The rights and freedoms that form part of the right to communicate can only be restricted under the conditions that limitations are prescribed by international law.” 

Part 3 Article 8 goes further on the plan to control Internet content.  It states, “Everyone has the right to be protected from incitement to hate, prejudice, violence, war, and genocide”.  How convenient.  The UN must protect you from hate or prejudice.  Of course, any criticism or idea contrary to the UN’s ideas of peace would be hateful.   

The basic theme of the declaration is the creation of a NEW electronic environment.  What’s wrong with the current one?  The problem is, it allows for opinions and ideas that the UN can’t control.  How can the UN control the masses and build their global government with all that unregulated free speech going on?  They can’t and they’re out to put a stop to it. 

The declaration also proposes a means for enforcing these new regulations.  They propose the creation of an international ‘Communication Rights Ombudsman’.  Translation – Cyber Police.  Part VI article 4 says “any person who believes that his/her right to communicate has been violated by any act may ask the Ombudsman to intervene on his/her behalf by submitting a petition for the start of proceedings.  The Ombudsman is also given powers to institute proceedings on his own initiative.”  Following a decision on any injustice the ombudsman has wide powers to handle injustices in accordance with international law.  He may also propose the initiation of disciplinary proceedings.  Under this sort of policing and government intervention, the Internet as we know it would end.   

Referenced several times in the Action Plan and Declaration of Principals from the summit is the Declaration of Human Rights.  Let’s take a look at what that has to say about our rights.

Article 29 

1.  Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

2.  In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

3.  These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. 

There you have it.  Your rights are limited to the principals of the UN  Throw out the constitution and national sovereignty.  We’re under international law now. 

All parties participating in the summit agreed that a working group should be set up under the auspices of the United Nations to examine Internet governance issues.  A private meeting was held to discuss plans for the working group to be formed in the time between the first and second phase of the Summit to be held in Tunisia.  Conspicuously absent from the private meeting were ICANN and the U.S. government.  This makes sense since Abu-Ghazaleh, a Jordanian businessman who is vice chairman of the UN information and Communication Technology Task Force, used the meeting to propose that ICANN be placed under the umbrella of the UN communications task force, something the U.S. and ICANN strongly appose.   

Talal Abu-Ghazaley also said “the world should be grateful to Uncle Sam for creating the Internet, but that it was time for the rest of the world to have a larger voice in its governance”.  I say, let them build their own Internet.  We can give them the currently unassigned .slave suffix.