I don’t think you can expect police officers to round up everyone who has a “Blog for Bush” (or Kerry) button on their site. Don’t expect sophisticated, well-coordinated groups with deep pockets (MoveOn) to escape unscathed, however. I think this is primarily aimed at silencing organizations like them.

They want to regulate money first. Opinion sites are influential, but not to the same degree as groups putting commercials on TV. A blog might gain mindshare through good wordcraft on a $30-per-month hosting account, and anyone can do that if their eye is good and they get in the right blogroll. At *most* their audience would be….what tiny percentage of the whole American population, one percent?

No, they want to make sure that “indepedent” groups cannot influence the Dull Masses through coordinated media campaigns (which cost millions). If individuals get squashed it will only be an unfortunate side-effect.

Yes, the UN is planning to take control of the Internet on April 1, 2005. They will be utilizing their fleet of black helicopters to swoop down upon backbone providers and wrest control from their greedy free-market hands. All hail our new bureaucratic overlords!

In all seriousness, they want to replace ICANN. Maybe you should learn something about how badly ICANN operates before you spout UN-phobic nonsense.

I’m actually not too worried about any laws or sanctions that get passed in the next few years concerning the internet for the following reason. I think that very shortly highspeed internet will be delivered by two way satellites, rather than over a cable. This would mean you would then be able to get internet service from a company based in another country. So if say, Microsoft launched a fleet of satellites (which they’ve researched) they could provide internet to people all over the world and not have to worry about each coutries laws as long as the U.S. or which ever country they decided to buy/move to didn’t agree to any treaties. I think this will much harder to police the internet than it is now, and no one can really do it effectively as it is.

Having read Director Zhao’s words for myself, I see nothing that would support the vaguely paranoid remarks you made above. I am speaking of his direct words, mind you, and also the issues around which he danced.

Two issues were discussed: (1, implicit) A global network should not be administrated by the United States, through its ICANN proxy in California. (2, explicit) The UN should be in charge of distributing IPV6 addresses to countries.

The sky is not falling, so please save the anti-UN hysterics for more pointed issues.

The UN also claims that it controls the Moon. I am not exactly afraid of it actually doing so, because I am knowledgable enough to know the difference between what is possible and what is not.

You are simply being alarmist. It is impossible for the UN to “tax and control Internet use” by the very nature of the Internet. So why freak out about giving the UN what the corrupt ICANN already has?