Congress shouldn’t put the transition of the Internet...

Congress shouldn’t put the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) (CD June 23 p9) in the “hands” of the Obama administration, said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., at a Heritage Foundation-sponsored congressional briefing Tuesday. “We need to keep our oversight,” and Congress should review the transition proposal “before any final decision is made,” he said. “Can you imagine turning over the stewardship of the Internet” to Russia, China and other “bad actors?” Kelly asked. The IANA transition isn’t as “problematic” as some “have suggested,” said Eli Dourado, research fellow at the Technology Policy Program at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. The timing of the announcement by NTIA and its failure to brief members of Congress beforehand was a “boneheaded mistake,” but the announcement itself wasn’t “out of left field,” he said. The transition is a “long-run alternative to giving oversight” of IANA to the ITU, and a “continuation of the trajectory of the Internet” from a “military experiment to a private civilian enterprise,” he said. Dourado said he was “inclined” to give the transition the “benefit of the doubt,” but “Congress should take a look” at the transition proposal.