House Republicans have introduced a bill to block the IANA transition. These are the same Republicans behind the quickly-called hearings set for April 2. “America shouldn’t surrender its leadership on the world stage to a ‘multistakeholder model’ that’s controlled by foreign governments,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). This seems to ignore a number of the points set out in the NTIA announcement, which specifically says that any government-led or intergovernmental-led solution will be rejected. On top of that, an implementation of the multistakeholder model to assume the IANA oversight functions hasn’t been proposed yet. The process of developing that implementation hasn’t even been proposed yet. Yet somehow, these lawmakers believe they need to pull out jingoistic rhetoric to support wild-eyed claims that the Internet could turn into “another Russian land-grab.”
Continue Reading Straight from Singapore: Special Edition on the IANA Transition