Norm Coleman Really Cares...

So this is funny... (it's funny even beyond the press's misunderstanding of what ICANN does)

Lawmakers urge U.S. to keep control of Web

Norm Coleman, one of the most evil people in the history of the world who has a history of burning books, supporting neo-Nazi organizations, mandating that children wear blindfolds in schools so that they don't accidentally read anything, and lots of other Republican-supported content suppresion techniques, is looking out for FREE SPEACH now. He's worried that if ICANN is handed over to the UN that other countries that have a history of suppression are going to start censoring content on the web . . .

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. lawmakers are urging the Bush administration to resist a push from other countries to shift control of the Internet to the United Nations, arguing that such a move would stifle innovation and free expression.

"Is it going to become a vehicle for global taxation of domain names? Are you going to allow folks who have demonstrated a pattern of suppression of content, are they going to be put in charge of running this thing?" said Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, sponsor of a Senate resolution that calls for the Internet's core addressing system to remain under U.S. control.

Well, that sounds noble, right? Republicans standing up for our civil liberties! That's right! Go blue!

Hey, what's this?

ICANN agreed to suspend work on a proposed .xxx domain name for sex sites after the Bush administration objected in August.

Despite the nonprofit group's flaws, "I don't think anyone would argue that there is any demonstrated effort to limit access, to control content, to limit growth. If anything ICANN has overseen a tremendous positive expansion," Coleman said.

Huh. I thought here in the United States we supported free speach... xxx top-level domain name (TLD)? Bring it on! If people want to express themselves that way, that's great! But if that's the case, then why is the Bush administration suppressing the xxx TLD?

A long time ago I saw a color-coded chart of all the countries in the world that listed the amount of censorship of the web. Of course, the least free countries were places like China and Russia and a number of backward little countries that you'd only visit if you were gauranteed a chance at a million bucks if you survived the visit... The U.S. certainly wasn't that bad, but it was nowhere near the top of the list of most free countries.

So I think it's funny that Norm Coleman is probably afraid that if the ICANN is moved out of the U.S., "dangerous" TLD's like xxx will start popping up.

I really can't stand that man.