Don’t you believe the Board when it promises that the accountability changes will happen no matter what the transition?
MM: Mostly, Paul, I don’t believe you or other opponents of the transition when they say they favor a transition but want it delayed. As you know, I don’t believe a period of abeyance is a viable option. If the transition is shot down during this administration and we have to wait for a new one, everything we have agreed to do as part of the transition is up in the air. It could all be completely changed by a new NTIA head giving us new criteria, or a new Congress passing new restrictions or requirements in order to appeal to deluded and uninformed rightwing constituencies. Whatever happens would depend entirely on U.S. domestic politics.
I also know that many aspects of the revised bylaws simply cannot go into effect until the NTIA contract is gone, so disrupting that effectively sends us back to the drawing board.
You know this as well as I do, Paul, please stop being disingenuous about your support for the transition. As far as I can tell, you want the US government to stay in control of the DNS. Full stop. If that’s not true, I look forward to seeing Heritage as an organization or you as an individual publicly challenge the dishonest and manipulative statements issued by Senator Cruz and WSJ columnist L. Gordon Crovitz. It seems you want to have it both ways, feign support for the transition but align yourself with irrational politicians who are seizing on this issue to fearmonger, whip up nationalistic fervor and attack the Obama administration for purely partisan purposes. Time to distance yourself from that nonsense, else completely lose credibility in this group.
Dr. Milton L Mueller
Georgia Institute of Technology
Internet Governance Project