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The war against alternative information

The U.S. establishment is not content simply to have domination over the media narratives on critical foreign policy issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and Russia. It wants total domination. Thus we now have the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act” that President Obama signed into law on Dec. 23 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017, setting aside $160 million to combat any “propaganda” that challenges Official Washington’s version of reality.

(Article by Tyler Durden, republished from zerohedge.com)

Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 25, 2016. Power has been an advocate for escalating U.S. military involvement in Syria. (UN Photo)

Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 25, 2016. Power has been an advocate for escalating U.S. military involvement in Syria. (UN Photo)

The new law mandates the U.S. Secretary of State to collaborate with the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence and other federal agencies to create a Global Engagement Center “to lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.” The law directs the Center to be formed in 180 days and to share expertise among agencies and to “coordinate with allied nations.”

The legislation was initiated in March 2016, as the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia was already underway and was enacted amid the allegations of “Russian hacking” around the U.S. presidential election and the mainstream media’s furor over supposedly “fake news.” Defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for the bill: “It’s imperative that leaders in both the private sector and the public sector step up to protect our democracy, and innocent lives.”

The new law is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because it merges a new McCarthyism about purported dissemination of Russian “propaganda” on the Internet with a new Orwellianism by creating a kind of Ministry of Truth – or Global Engagement Center – to protect the American people from “foreign propaganda and disinformation.”

As part of the effort to detect and defeat these unwanted narratives, the law authorizes the Center to: “Facilitate the use of a wide range of technologies and techniques by sharing expertise among Federal departments and agencies, seeking expertise from external sources, and implementing best practices.” (This section is an apparent reference to proposals that Google, Facebook and other technology companies find ways to block or brand certain Internet sites as purveyors of “Russian propaganda” or “fake news.”)

Justifying this new bureaucracy, the bill’s sponsors argued that the existing agencies for “strategic communications” and “public diplomacy” were not enough, that the information threat required “a whole-of-government approach leveraging all elements of national power.”

The law also is rife with irony since the U.S. government and related agencies are among the world’s biggest purveyors of propaganda and disinformation – or what you might call evidence-free claims, such as the recent accusations of Russia hacking into Democratic emails to “influence” the U.S. election.

Despite these accusations — leaked by the Obama administration and embraced as true by the mainstream U.S. news media — there is little or no public evidence to support the charges. There is also a contradictory analysis by veteran U.S. intelligence professionals as well as statements by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, that the Russians were not the source of the leaks. Yet, the mainstream U.S. media has virtually ignored this counter-evidence, appearing eager to collaborate with the new “Global Engagement Center” even before it is officially formed.

Of course, there is a long history of U.S. disinformation and propaganda. Former CIA agents Philip Agee and John Stockwell documented how it was done decades ago, secretly planting “black propaganda” and covertly funding media outlets to influence events around the world, with much of the fake news blowing back into the American media.

In more recent decades, the U.S. government has adopted an Internet-era version of that formula with an emphasis on having the State Department or the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy supply, train and pay “activists” and “citizen journalists” to create and distribute propaganda and false stories via “social media” and via contacts with the mainstream media. The U.S. government’s strategy also seeks to undermine and discredit journalists who challenge this orthodoxy. The new legislation escalates this information war by tossing another $160 million into the pot.

Propaganda and Disinformation on Syria

Syria is a good case study in the modern application of information warfare. In her memoir Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that the U.S. provided “support for (Syrian) civilian opposition groups, including satellite-linked computers, telephones, cameras, and training for more than a thousand activists, students and independent journalists.”

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A heart-rending propaganda image designed to justify a major U.S. military operation inside Syria against the Syrian military

Indeed, a huge amount of money has gone to “activists” and “civil society” groups in Syria and other countries that have been targeted for “regime change.” A lot of the money also goes to parent organizations that are based in the United States and Europe, so these efforts do not only support on-the-ground efforts to undermine the targeted countries, but perhaps even more importantly, the money influences and manipulates public opinion in the West.

In North America, representatives from the Syrian “Local Coordination Committees” (LCC) were frequent guests on popular media programs such as “DemocracyNow.” The message was clear: there is a “revolution” in Syria against a “brutal regime” personified in Bashar al-Assad. It was not mentioned that the “Local Coordination Committees” have been primarily funded by the West, specifically the Office for Syrian Opposition Support, which was founded by the U.S. State Department and the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

More recently, news and analysis about Syria has been conveyed through the filter of the White Helmets, also known as Syrian Civil Defense. In the Western news media, the White Helmets are described as neutral, non-partisan, civilian volunteers courageously carrying out rescue work in the war zone. In fact, the group is none of the above. It was initiated by the U.S. and U.K. using a British military contractor and Brooklyn-based marketing company.

While they may have performed some genuine rescue operations, the White Helmets are primarily a media organization with a political goal: to promote NATO intervention in Syria. (The manipulation of public opinion using the White Helmets and promoted by the New York Times and Avaaz petition for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria is documented here.)

The White Helmets hoax continues to be widely believed and receives uncritical promotion though it has increasingly been exposed at alternative media outlets

as the creation of a “shady PR firm.” During critical times in the conflict in Aleppo, White Helmet individuals have been used as the source for important news stories despite a track record of deception.

Recent Propaganda: Blatant Lies?

As the armed groups in east Aleppo recently lost ground and then collapsed, Western governments and allied media went into a frenzy of accusations against Syria and Russia based on reports from sources connected with the armed opposition. CNN host Wolf Blitzer described Aleppo as “falling” in a “slaughter of these women and children” while CNN host Jake Tapper referred to “genocide by another name.”

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War damage in the once-thriving Syrian city of Aleppo

The Daily Beast published the claims of the Aleppo Siege Media Center under the title “Doomsday is held in Aleppo” and amid accusations that the Syrian army was executing civilians, burning them alive and “20 women committed suicide in order not to be raped.” These sensational claims were widely broadcast without verification. However, this “news” on CNN and throughout Western media came from highly biased sources and many of the claims – lacking anything approaching independent corroboration – could be accurately described as propaganda and disinformation.

Ironically, some of the supposedly “Russian propaganda” sites, such as RT, have provided first-hand on-the-ground reporting from the war zones with verifiable information that contradicts the Western narrative and thus has received almost no attention in the U.S. news media. For instance, some of these non-Western outlets have shown videos of popular celebrations over the “liberation of Aleppo.”

There has been further corroboration of these realities from peace activists, such as Jan Oberg of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research who published a photo essay of his eyewitness observations in Aleppo including the happiness of civilians from east Aleppo reaching the government-controlled areas of west Aleppo, finally freed from areas that had been controlled by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and its jihadist allies in Ahrar al-Sham.

Dr. Nabil Antaki, a medical doctor from Aleppo, described the liberation of Aleppo in an interview titled “Aleppo is Celebrating, Free from Terrorists, the Western Media Misinformed.” The first Christmas celebrations in Aleppo in four years are shown here, replete with marching band members in Santa Claus outfits. Journalist Vanessa Beeley has published testimonies of civilians from east Aleppo. The happiness of civilians at their liberation is clear.

Whether or not you wish to accept these depictions of the reality in Aleppo, at a minimum, they reflect another side of the story that you have been denied while being persistently force-fed the version favored by the U.S. State Department. The goal of the new Global Engagement Center to counter “foreign propaganda” is to ensure that you never get to hear this alternative narrative to the Western propaganda line.

Even much earlier, contrary to the Western mythology of rebel “liberated zones,” there was strong evidence that the armed groups were never popular in Aleppo. American journalist James Foley described the situation in 2012 like this:

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Journalist James Foley shortly before he was executed by an Islamic State operative

“Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition — one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups. The rebels in Aleppo are predominantly from the countryside, further alienating them from the urban crowd that once lived here peacefully, in relative economic comfort and with little interference from the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad.”

On Nov. 22, 2012, Foley was kidnapped in northwestern Syria and held by Islamic State terrorists before his beheading in August 2014.

The Overall Narrative on Syria

Analysis of the Syrian conflict boils down to two competing narratives. One narrative is that the conflict is a fight for freedom and democracy against a brutal regime, a storyline promoted in the West and the Gulf states, which have been fueling the conflict from the start. This narrative is also favored by some self-styled “anti-imperialists” who want a “Syrian revolution.”

The other narrative is that the conflict is essentially a war of aggression against a sovereign state, with the aggressors including NATO countries, Gulf monarchies, Israel and Jordan. Domination of the Western media by these powerful interests is so thorough that one almost never gets access to this second narrative, which is essentially banned from not only the mainstream but also much of the liberal and progressive media.

For example, listeners and viewers of the generally progressive TV and radio program “DemocracyNow” have rarely if ever heard the second narrative described in any detail. Instead, the program frequently broadcasts the statements of Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and others associated with the U.S. position. Rarely do you hear the viewpoint of the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, the Syrian Foreign Minister or analysts inside Syria and around the world who have written about and follow events there closely.

“DemocracyNow” also has done repeated interviews with proponents of the “Syrian revolution” while ignoring analysts who call the conflict a war of aggression sponsored by the West and the Gulf monarchies. This blackout of the second narrative continues despite the fact that many prominent international figures see it as such. For example, the former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua and former President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto, has said, “What the U.S. government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State.”

In many areas of politics, “DemocracyNow” is excellent and challenges mainstream media. However in this area, coverage of the Syrian conflict, the broadcast is biased, one-sided and echoes the news and analysis of mainstream Western corporate media, showing the extent of control over foreign policy news that already exists in the United States and Europe.

Suppressing and Censoring Challenges

Despite the widespread censorship of alternative analyses on Syria and other foreign hotspots that already exists in the West, the U.S. government’s new “Global Engagement Center” will seek to ensure that the censorship is even more complete with its goal to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation.” We can expect even more aggressive and better-financed assaults on the few voices daring to challenge the West’s “group thinks” – smear campaigns that are already quite extensive.

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The “White Helmets” symbol, expropriating the name of “Syria Civil Defense.”

In an article titled “Controlling the Narrative on Syria”, Louis Allday describes the criticisms and attacks on journalists Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal for straying from the “approved” Western narrative on Syria. Some of the bullying and abuse has come from precisely those people, such as Robin Yassin-Kassab, who have been frequent guests in liberal Western media.

Reporters who have returned from Syria with accounts that challenge the propaganda themes that have permeated the Western media also have come under attack. For instance, Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett recently returned to North America after being in Syria and Aleppo, conveying a very different image and critical of the West’s biased media coverage. Bartlett appeared at a United Nations press conference and then did numerous interviews across the country during a speaking tour. During the course of her talks and presentation, Bartlett criticized the White Helmets and questioned whether it was true that Al Quds Hospital in opposition-held East Aleppo was attacked and destroyed as claimed.

Bartlett’s recounting of this information made her a target of Snopes, which has been a mostly useful website exposing urban legends and false rumors but has come under criticism itself for some internal challenges and has been inconsistent in its investigations. In one report entitled “White Helmet Hearsay,” Snopes’ writer Bethania Palmer says claims the White Helmets are “linked to terrorists” is “unproven,” but she overlooks numerous videos, photos, and other reports showing White Helmet members celebrating a Nusra/Al Qaeda battle victory, picking up the bodies of civilians executed by a Nusra executioner, and having a member who alternatively appears as a rebel/terrorist fighter with a weapon and later wearing a White Helmet uniform. The “fact check” barely scrapes the surface of public evidence.

The same writer did another shallow “investigation” titled “victim blaming” regarding Bartlett’s critique of White Helmet videos and what happened at the Al Quds Hospital in Aleppo. Bartlett suggests that some White Helmet videos may be fabricated and may feature the same child at different times, i.e., photographs that appear to show the same girl being rescued by White Helmet workers at different places and times. While it is uncertain whether this is the same girl, the similarity is clear.

The Snopes writer goes on to criticize Bartlett for her comments about the reported bombing of Al Quds Hospital in east Aleppo in April 2016. A statement at the website of Doctors Without Borders says the building was “destroyed and reduced to rubble,” but this was clearly false since photos show the building with unclear damage. Five months later, the September 2016 report by Doctors Without Borders says the top two floors of the building were destroyed and the ground floor Emergency Room damaged yet they re-opened in two weeks.

The many inconsistencies and contradictions in the statements of Doctors Without Borders resulted in an open letter to them. In their last report, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials, MSF) acknowledges that “MSF staff did not directly witness the attack and has not visited Al Quds Hospital since 2014.”

Bartlett referenced satellite images taken before and after the reported attack on the hospital. The images do not show severe damage and it is unclear whether or not there is any damage to the roof, the basis for Bartlett’s statement. In the past week, independent journalists have visited the scene of Al Quds Hospital and report that that the top floors of the building are still there and damage is unclear.

The Snopes’ investigation criticizing Bartlett was superficial and ignored the broader issues of accuracy and integrity in the Western media’s depiction of the Syrian conflict. Instead the article appeared to be an effort to discredit the eyewitness observations and analysis of a journalist who dared challenge the mainstream narrative.

U.S. propaganda and disinformation on Syria has been extremely effective in misleading much of the American population. Thus, most Americans are unaware how many billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on yet another “regime change” project. The propaganda campaign – having learned from the successful demonizations of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and other targeted leaders – has been so masterful regarding Syria that many liberal and progressive news outlets were pulled in. It has been left to RT and some Internet outlets to challenge the U.S. government and the mainstream media.

But the U.S. government’s near total control of the message doesn’t appear to be enough. Apparently even a few voices of dissent are a few voices too many.

The enactment of HR5181, “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation,” suggests that the ruling powers seek to escalate suppression of news and analyses that run counter to the official narrative. Backed by a new infusion of $160 million, the plan is to further squelch skeptical voices with operation for “countering” and “refuting” what the U.S. government deems to be propaganda and disinformation.

As part of the $160 million package, funds can be used to hire or reward “civil society groups, media content providers, nongovernmental organizations, federally funded research and development centers, private companies, or academic institutions.”

Among the tasks that these private entities can be hired to perform is to identify and investigate both print and online sources of news that are deemed to be distributing “disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda directed at the United States and its allies and partners.”

In other words, we are about to see an escalation of the information war.

Read more at: zerohedge.com

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SOURCE: California legislators plotting with La Raza to seize control and turn CA into a narco-state

It seems incredible – impossible, even – but in a post-election climate where President-elect Trump is set to take the reins of power next month is generating so much fear and loathing among the political Left, anything can happen.

According to an exclusive report by Dave Hodges, host of The Common Sense Show, an “insider eyewitness” is claiming that California Gov. Jerry Brown, members of the Obama administration, terrorists, drug cartels and a number of national and international crime figures are actually fueling the so-called “Calexit” movement – the push to extract the state from the union rather than remain in a U.S. that is led by Trump.

Hodges said that his exclusive report is based largely on material provided by the witness “as related to me by Paul Preston of Agenda 21 Radio/Red State Radio,” a host heard “on several stations in Northern California.”

Here’s the story.

An incredible effort to create a narco-state and destroy the U.S. is underway

In a series of interviews Hodges conducted with Preston, he says the Red State Radio host is supporting a separate “State of Jefferson” movement, an effort being pushed by counties in northern California and southern Oregon to form the 51st state. Hodges said that effort is being driven largely by the fact that two federal agencies – the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continually harass farmers and ranchers, driving many off their land. Hodges added that both agencies are destroying dams and threatening the livelihoods of nearly everyone in that area.

Preston said he thinks the movement needs one more year before it has a chance at being successful. But while working to make the state of Jefferson a reality, he and others discovered the Calexit movement, which Preston and the others believe imperil the Jefferson movement.

In fact, Hodges wrote, “the Calexit movement may be the most controversial, criminal and treasonous subject ever covered by The Common Sense Show.” He added that he rushed his article to publication before he was actually ready because he “made a decision that spreading the word about this danger to both the citizens of California and ultimately, the United States, outweighed the wait for more critical facts…”

Preston told Hodges he has been receiving reports that a number of state lawmakers including California Senate pro tem Kevin de Leon, as well as state representatives from Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, have all met with members of Hispanic racialist group La Raza (Spanish for “The Race”), the Mexican government (consulate), the Mexican Mafia (“La EME”), violent Mexican gangs in California and even religious leaders (Catholic/Jesuits) “to come up with a plan to separate from the United States the above-mentioned states.”

Preston said that Brown, his aides and the officials with the Bank of China have attended several of the meetings that are designed to separate California from the U.S. Hodges added that, separate from Preston’s information, he has learned that billionaire investor George Soros – the man behind nearly all Left-wing hate and violence this past election cycle—is financing some of the efforts associated with these movements.

And perhaps even more shocking is the involvement in this effort of the Sasakawa Japanese crime family – the same one that engineered the brutal “Rape of Nanking” at the outset of World War II.

The movement is growing in size and intensity

Preston also told Hodges that his insider not only reported on attendees to the Calexit meetings, but has also confirmed that the Obama administration had three members in attendance as well thus far, and that the White House has thrown its full support behind the movement – a point that Hodges sais “cannot [be] emphasized too strongly.”

Preston said that the insider has noted La Raza – or more formally the National Council of La Raza, a Left-wing group advocating open borders and the ‘return’ of ‘stolen land’ to Mexico – appears to be at the center of this movement, though it has grown considerably since, involving far more people and groups.

The entire report is here. And check out the full interview here.

Sources:

TheCommonSenseShow.com

Bugout.news

HumanEvents.com

YouTube.com

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Obama admin drops charges against Libyan arms dealer set to expose Hillary Clinton

While there is much to be desired about both major political parties in America, there is little question that, in the age of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party has essentially become a criminal enterprise.

That’s the only way to explain the lengths the Obama administration goes to in order to protect the president’s heir-apparent, Hillary Clinton.

While the lamestream establishment media and politicians express faux outrage over comments about women that GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump made in private 11 years ago, Politico was reporting that the administration has dropped its charges against a Libyan arms dealer who was set to expose Clinton if the case had gone to trial.

The political news site reported that a deal struck between the administration and the suspect – an American named Marc Turi – averts a trial that would have put additional scrutiny on Clinton’s private emails as secretary of state, as well as exposing reported CIA attempts to arm rebels battling the late Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi.

The trial was officially set to begin on Election Day, though Politico says it likely would have been delayed by protracted arguments over classified information in the case.

But an associate of Turi’s claimed that the Justice Department dropped the case because the proceedings would have revealed embarrassing information regarding Obama and Clinton by putting new scrutiny on their reported role in supplying weapons that wound up in the hands of Islamic militants.

“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” the associated told Politico.

In the motion to dismiss, prosecutors said “discovery rulings” from U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell contributed to the administration’s decision to drop the case. The joint filing asks the court to accept a confidential agreement to settle the case through civil means (out of court, where the final settlement can be kept confidential).

Robert Stryk, an advisor to Turi from the government relations and consulting firm SPG, accused the administration of attempting to scapegoat his client so Obama could cover up Clinton’s mishandling of the situation in Libya.

He said the U.S. government spent millions of dollars and “went all over the world” to bankrupt Turi and destroy his life, “all to protect Hillary Clinton’s crimes,” alluding to the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, in which four Americans – including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens – were killed.

Of course not. Wouldn’t want our public servants to be held accountable for criminal conduct, would we?

No. Better to focus on what a successful businessman who has never held public office said during a private conversation instead.

Sources:

Politico.com

NYTimes.com

debbie wasserman schultz booed at DNC event

DNC ‘pay to play’ scheme: the higher the donation, the higher your office

In recent weeks WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hinted to the world that he had incriminating information that could likely further damage Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton‘s chances at winning the White House.

Earlier leaks — allegedly by a hacker with the handle Guccifer 2.0 — of emails from the Democratic National Committee proved damaging enough to cost former DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz her job, though she remains a Florida Congresswoman, and a key player on the Clinton campaign team.  The DNC has yet to recover from the embarrassment caused by the leaks, and has laid the blame on the Russians.

But, as Anonymous is reporting, the source of the leaks was all but confirmed by WikiLeaks to have been DNC insider Seth Rich, who was later shot and killed in a crime that many believe was politically motivated payback because even though police said robbery was the motive, nothing of value was taken. The murder of a Wikileaks’ lawyer also followed a few days later.

The damage to the DNC may be about to get worse. A new trove of DNC files has been released by WikiLeaks’ Guccifer 2.0 that indicates big donors to the party were rewarded with ambassadorships and other high-ranking federal positions by President Obama, in return for said donations (meaning Hillary isn’t the only pay-for-play Democrat at the highest echelon of power these days).

In one example, Associate Attorney General Tony West handed over $1 million on the same day he was hired. In another, Julius Genachowski gave $3.5 million and was later rewarded with the position of FCC Chairman from 2009 to 2013.

As The Observer further notes, the leaks reveal more evidence of overt corruption within the Democratic Party. “One email dated May 18, 2016, from Jacquelyn Lopez, an attorney with the law firm Perkins Coie, asked DNC staff if they could set up a brief call ‘to go over our process for handling donations from donors who have given us pay to play letters,’” The Observer reported.

[If you’ve not read or heard about these latest emails, you can thank the hopelessly ideologically compromised “mainstream” media for failing to inform you – again.]

A 2013 article by the reliably left-wing Guardian newspaper (which is ironic to say the least) substantiates the emails. It notes that real diplomats were “crying foul” over Obama’s blatant appointments of political benefactors in what can only be described as naked politics at its worst.

“The practice is hardly a new feature of U.S. politics, but career diplomats in Washington are increasingly alarmed at how it has grown. One former ambassador described it as the selling of public office,” The Guardian reported.

Sources:

NewsTarget.com

Fortune.com

Newstarget.com

Cyberwar.news

Bugout.news

Observer.com

Censorship-Computer-Handcuffs-Freedom-Internet

Tech groups urging Congress to sue Obama admin to block giving control of Internet to authoritarian regimes

An alliance of technology organizations and conservatives are urging Congress to file suit against the Obama administration to block the transference of control over Internet domain names to an international board. The alliance claims that doing so will give authoritarian regimes power to decide who can and cannot have a presence on the web, Fox News reported Saturday.

Since 1998, a division of the U.S. Commerce Department called the National Telecommunications Information Administration, or NTIA, has issued domain names. But in September the Obama administration is set to allow the U.S. government’s contract to lapse so that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will then be operated by a global board of directors, and the responsibility will fall to it instead.

Critics of the administration’s decision fear that it will allow Russia, China and Iran to then have a stake in governing the Internet, giving them “de facto” power to tax domain names and quash free speech.

Twice Congress has included riders in appropriations legislation to expressly prohibit U.S. tax dollars from being spent on the transition, which President Obama has signed into law. So, if the White House goes forward and allows the contract to lapse next month it would be yet another potentially unconstitutional action by this president.

And that is what the coalition of tech groups fully expects, which is why it is pressing House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and other congressional leaders to support a lawsuit similar to action the House took against the administration regarding unauthorized spending on Obamacare in 2014.

“Suing to enforce the appropriations rider and extending it through FY2017 are amply justified by the extraordinary importance of the constitutional principle at stake,” the coalition letter says.

In addition, the letter states that the administration has not guaranteed the United States will maintain ownership of the domain names .mil or .gov, for military and government websites respectively.

“Without robust safeguards, Internet governance could fall under the sway of governments hostile to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment,” the letter says. “Ominously, governments will gain a formal voting role in ICANN for the first time when the new bylaws are implemented.”

What’s more, there is concern that ICANN is no longer an impartial entity. The letter noted that the organization has already transformed from a technical coordination agency established in 1998 to something more resembling an actual governing body, in that it now has de facto authority to apply a tax to some domain names. It added that there are a number of reasons to be concerned about what ICANN may do with that power next if the incentive for self-restraint created by the contract it has with the U.S. is removed.

The groups contend that the administration would be in violation of the law if it moves forward with the transition. But officials with the NTIA say that’s not the case.

NTIA spokeswoman Juliana Grunewald told Fox News in an interview that current laws prohibit the agency from utilizing taxpayer funds to “relinquish the responsibility” over the Internet in the current 2016 fiscal year. This is due to the way that it pertains to Internet domain name functions. But, she noted further, the law does not ban NTIA from analyzing transition proposals or undertaking additional activities in preparation for a transition. Grunewald said that, in fact, Congress has directed her agency to make a thorough examination of any transition plan that may be proposed, and to then provide lawmakers with updates on said transition every quarter, “which we have done.”

That said, the coalition of groups obviously believes that the Obama administration has already made its decision and will pursue handing over control of the Internet anyway it can. Once control is gone, the U.S. will likely never get it back.

Sources:

FoxNews.com

TechFreedom.org