Is the World moving towards More Online Surveillance?
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was angered by reports that the National Security Agency was spying on her. She has called for giving individual countries greater control over the Internet.
Many governments around the world have expressed outrage over the National Security Agency’s use of the Internet as a spying platform. But the possible response may have an unforeseen consequence: It may actually lead to more online surveillance, according to Internet experts.
Some governments, led most recently by Brazil, have reacted to recent disclosures about NSA surveillance by proposing a redesign of Internet architecture. The goal would be to give governments more control over how the Internet operates within their own borders.
An Absence Of Government Control
Those who have closely followed the Internet, such as Milton Mueller of Syracuse University, say its free and open character is due largely to the absence of government control.
“The reason the Internet worked, the reason it created this massive amount of innovation, is precisely because, for a brief period of about 10 years, it just completely overcame the telecommunications system of national boundaries,” Mueller says. “It created a virtual space that was completely interconnected and globalized, and governments had to react to that after the fact.” Read the original post