NTIA to Address 'in Due Course' Reports of Redl-Cruz IANA Transition Understanding; Experts Urge No Reversal
NTIA "will discuss ... in due course" reports that Administrator David Redl promised Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, during his confirmation process last year he would pursue convening a “panel of experts to investigate options” for reversing…
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the 2016 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition (see 1801240048), an agency spokesman said Thursday. Redl and Cruz should “look ahead to address real internet governance threats from authoritarian governments ... rather than trying to undo” the switchover, said R Street Institute Tech Policy Associate Joe Kane and Georgia Tech communication and information public policy professor Milton Mueller in a Wednesday Brookings Institution blog post responding to reports of Redl's assurances to Cruz and Lee. “It might be that Redl’s promised 'panel of experts' was a political ploy,” wrote Kane and Mueller, an active ICANN participant. “It may never materialize or, if it does, it may return a verdict consistent with his original answer at the confirmation hearing, that 'it’s very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.'” Attempts "to reverse the transition would undermine whatever influence the U.S. has gained since it took place,” they said: “This problem is now especially acute because” of the Oct. 29-Nov. 16 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Dubai. “Authoritarian governments want nothing more than to paint the U.S. as a hypocrite that touts internet freedom while secretly grabbing the controls,” Kane and Mueller said.