Obama hands off privacy: Who is monitoring YOUR internet history?

Will using the internet in the United States be under international surveillance?

An international nonprofit group approved a plan that has been forwarded to the Obama administration on Thursday for review, bringing the contract one step closer to completion.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The international group, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), pairs numerical IP addresses with their appropriate web addresses.

Less than a decade ago, ICANN was charged with transitioning from U.S. government oversight to an international model. Before the company can fully take over the inner workings of American domains, several steps must first be taken.

The Commerce Department must approve the transition plan, which Steve Crocker, ICANN's leader of the board of directors, stated Congress and the Obama administration have been "watching closely."

"This proposal does not come as a surprise that requires a fresh start or a cold start and we fully expect that this will be viewed as 100 percent consistent with the criteria that was set out in advance and that which has been tracked all the way throughout the process," Crocker stated.

The plan ICANN officials presented on Thursday is expected to meet U.S. priorities to protect open Internet and to prevent other governments from gaining control while simultaneously adding security and accountability measures, ICANN officials announced.

Should ICANN's plan be implemented, anyone who uses the Internet should notice nothing new or different.

Though ICANN has promised not to make major changes, Congress blocked government funds to support the agreement for years.

Republican concerns have to do with technical functions and control not being in American hands.

Despite conservative concerns, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration has contracted the same role to ICANN in the past.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online