It baffles me that nobody here seems to realize what this is about, and what it's NOT about. It's not about Prism, it's not about US spying, it's not about that

It baffles me that nobody here seems to realize what this is about, and what it's NOT about. It's not about Prism, it's not about US spying, it's not about that at all. The governments tried to bend the internet to their will last year through the UN, throught the ITU, and failed. Mostly due to US opposition. Here's what it's about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#Proposed_Changes_to_the_Treaty_And_Concerns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication... A few choice proposals the UN demanded be implemented (mostly, but not exclusively, pushed by China and islamic nations): 1) Banning of anonymity on the internet (Chinese style no commenting without a government-verified name below the comment) 2) Pervasive options for all government to remove any piece of content from the internet, irrespective of where it's hosted. 3) The ability of any worldwide governments to retract naming assignments from any entity for any reason. 4) The ability for governments to demand transit IPSs themselves implement "great firewalls" around any territory (including the very inconvenient (for service providers) url blocking, since of course police or governments can't be bothered to think) Here's what these governments wanted to see: you offend China, as a Finnish citizen ? no more IPs for you, not from RIPE, ARIN, or anywhere. Posted a videoclip illustrating that the islamic prophet is a mass-murdering slaver ? No more dns names for you. They intend to use this to exert media control on the new media. Western EU is upset that neo-nazi organisations have internet sites that they effectively can't touch, and can't find the owners of. Eastern EU are almost-dictatorships, and well ... don't ask. China, well, can't just download the mail of the Dalai Lama anymore. And islamic governments are terrified of their own citizens and want the ability to take Danish cartoons offline, and porn, and ... before history repeats itself. None of this is good for freedom, of course. For half of the governments involved that this is bad for freedom is the very reason they're doing it. Anybody who thinks this move is anything other than non-US governments threatening these guys into giving them what they demanded before is delusional. Anybody thinking more freedom will be the result is a dangerous lunatic.