Jefferson and the Internet

WINDSOFCHANGE.NET post on the attempted takeover of the Internet by the UN linked to the following news article.

"Those who have supported nihilistic and disorderly freedom of expression
are beginning to see the fruits" of their efforts, [Robert] Mugabe said, adding that Zimbabwe will be "challenging the bully-boy mentality that has driven the unipolar world." . . . . "Fidel Castro, the unflinching promoter of the use of new technologies," believes "it is necessary to create a multinational democratic (institution) which administers this network of networks," said the WSIS delegate from Cuba. . . . . Too often, the Internet is used for the "propagation of falsehoods," said Mohammad Soleymani, Iran's minister of communication and information technology. . . "Changing the current Internet governance to a participatory, legitimate and accountable system under an international authority is imperative," he said. But changes proposed by Third World countries that would give them more influence are "being rejected because they are not facilities managed by the Breton Woods institution by the West's neo-colonial desires," charged Zimbabwe's Mugabe, referring to a post-World War II agreement that led to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Mozambique Prime Minister Luisa Diogo predicted the struggles to replace ICANN were not over, saying that "it is a matter of justice and legitimacy that all people must have a say in the way the Internet is governed." ICANN does have an international board of directors, including members from Senegal, Morocco, and Nairobi, but critics say that's not enough.

The desire of the UN to control and stifle dissent on the Internet reminds me of a quote by one of our founding fathers:

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."

--Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33

I think it is best said like this: “The best cure for free speech is more of it”