WHAT IF WE SAY NO?

Negotiations, if you wish to dignify them as such, did not go well in Geneva, concerning the future of the internet as an institution of freedom.

The European Union, thanks to our "good friends" the British, have decided to vote in the United Nations to transfer control of the world wide web -- in reality control of the all important root servers -- to an as yet undefined "international organization."

Understand that the United States government, working in conjunction with universities and the Department of Defense, created the network that grew into the internet. Technically the root servers are still under the administration of the Department of Commerce, although the day-to-day responsibility for the nets functional ability and domain registrations is handled by a private corporation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

Tally the score: we invented it, paid for it, fostered it's growth as a free-wheeling free speech medium, and make sure that it is there for everyone on the planet.

And the world wants to take control of it away.

There are moments where only the most sublime language of diplomacy is mandated, and so we say this to the world:

Screw you. And the horses you rode in on.

Even the London Guardian raised worries that the "international community" would not be up to the task of keeping the internet free, as in free from governmental interference, snooping, taxation and repression. The Brit negotiator David Hendon, after slipping the shiv into Uncle Sam's back, tried to put a smiley face on the decision:

"The really important point is that the EU doesn't want to see this change as bringing new government control over the internet. Governments will only be involved where they need to be and only on issues setting the top-level framework."

But expert and author of Ruling the Root, Milton Mueller, is not so sure. An overseeing council "could interfere with standards. What would stop it saying 'when you're making this standard for data transfer you have to include some kind of surveillance for law enforcement'?"

Then there is human rights. China has attracted criticism for filtering content from the net within its borders. Tunisia - host of the World Summit - has also come under attack for silencing online voices. Mueller doesn't see a governmental overseeing council having any impact: "What human rights groups want is for someone to be able to bring some kind of enforceable claim to stop them violating people's rights. But how's that going to happen? I can't see that a council is going to be able to improve the human rights situation."

And what about business? Will a governmental body running the internet add unnecessary bureaucracy or will it bring clarity and a coherent system? Mueller is unsure: "The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."

In other words, individual governments are already mucking it up for their own people. Now they want an opportunity to do it globally.

If the Bush Administration caves on this, then what use is it to vote for freedom fighters if they don't have the guts to follow through.

Americans fought a revolution for a whole lot less than what is at stake here. We fought a civil war over the definition of states rights versus federal rights, as well as the morality of slavery. We sacrificed millions of our young men to keep a good part of the world free from tyranny in the first two world wars, and in various places since.

Terrorism comes in many forms. The tyranny of the majority -- in this case the majority of tin-horn governments on the globe -- can be just as odious. And so the question is:

If we tell the world to go to hell, we're keeping control of the internet, what are they going to do about it? Invent their own? Declare war on us? In some respects, merely by demanding that they be given what they did not invent, develop or sustain, even though they derive free benefits from it, they already have.

The old story of the idiots who killed the Golden Goose rings true today.