'If It Ain't Broke'

Lawmakers Make Case for IANA Oversight Before ICANN 52

February 9, 2015 by Joe McKnight|Top News

Congressional oversight of the IANA transition is likely to loom large at ICANN 52 in Singapore this week, said experts in interviews. House and Senate members introduced separate IANA-related measures Thursday, indicating Congress intends to be involved in the transition’s development, said John Kneuer, JKC Consulting president and former NTIA administrator in the George W. Bush administration. Neither Congress nor NTIA has clarified the “actual mechanism” that will sustain a viable transition, said CEO Nao Matsukata of FairWinds Partners, a domain consultancy. ICANN 52 runs Monday through Thursday.

Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., introduced the Hatch-Blunt Internet Governance Awareness Week resolution (S. Res. 71) Thursday, which passed the Senate by unanimous consent, said a joint news release. Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Mark Warner, D-Va., co-sponsored the resolution. Citing ICANN 52, Hatch said the IANA transition will have “tremendous effects on Internet infrastructure and governance around the world. … It’s crucial that the public know what is at stake, especially considering the political and economic consequences of getting this wrong.” Said Blunt: “I’m pleased this important resolution has passed so that we can increase public awareness of Internet governance and the implications of the NTIA’s proposed transition, and affirm that the United States will not accept a proposal that replaces NTIA’s role with that of another government-led or inter-governmental organization.”

NTIA appreciates "that the Senate has passed a resolution reaffirming support for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” said a spokeswoman. “The Senate recognizes that the proposed transition of NTIA’s role with respect to the Internet’s domain name system is a demonstration of our support and commitment to the model.” ICANN released a conference discussion document on the IANA transition Friday. “With input from the community, we hope to leave the ICANN 52 meeting in Singapore in a significantly improved position and so be able to move forward with the objective of developing a single transition proposal,” it said.

Rep. John Shimkus reintroduced the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act Thursday (see 1501280022). It would mandate a GAO study of up to one year of the transition proposal before approval by NTIA. The bill is the same as its 2014 predecessor, but includes a provision asking GAO to consider potential cybersecurity implications, given the recent phishing attack on ICANN (see 1412170037), said a Shimkus spokesman. “The premise of this legislation is simple,” Shimkus said in a news release: “Trust but verify.” Shimkus was joined by 11 House Republican co-sponsors, including Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas. “We cannot allow individuals or foreign entities to stifle the open and uncensored Internet,” said Farenthold. “We wouldn’t open up our television networks to being controlled by countries who censor free speech like North Korea or Russia,” he said. “So why are we doing that with the Internet and ICANN? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Congress is focused on the transition and is going to be “applying legitimate, real oversight,” said Kneuer. NTIA has “laid down the right polices and the right standards” for the transition, but “Congress wants to be in on the decision making and they should,” he said. NTIA is in a different position politically because of the new GOP-controlled Congress, but Congress’s perspective on ICANN has been overwhelmingly bipartisan for the past decade, Kneuer said. The IANA transition will have a “higher degree of legitimacy if it’s broadly endorsed” by both the legislative and executive branches, he said. “The broader the support, the better.”

NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling essentially told Congress to “back off” at the State of the Net conference Jan. 27, said Matsukata. Strickling was responding to Congress' December funding measure prohibiting the agency from using its funds on the IANA transition (see 1501270042). Strickling said NTIA wouldn’t use any of its funds for the transition, but it will monitor the transition’s progress, including by attending ICANN conferences. But Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., promised a hearing on the IANA transition shortly thereafter (see 1501280050), Matsukata said. With a GOP-controlled Congress, the transition has become “more politicized,” he said. Republicans want to show that they have a “different position," but they -- like NTIA -- haven’t clarified what the “bricks and mortar” of the transition should be, he said.

The transition and the corresponding ICANN accountability proposal process will be the chief issues at ICANN 52, said a foreign diplomat. He said he agreed that an intergovernmental organization can't take the place of ICANN’s multistakeholder community, but the international community has a “more pronounced sense of urgency” to complete the transition by Sept. 30. The community must have “something to show” for itself by the tentative deadline, the diplomat said. Singapore is likely to attract a greater number of Internet governance experts, Matsukata said: Expect IANA to “dominate the conversation.”