[1] The Internet Society Trying to Silence the Press This special issue of the Amateur Computerist was planned to be available in time to be distributed at the Internet Society Conference INET99 held in San Jose, California in June 1999. As we have done 2 years in the past, editors of the Amateur Computerist applied for press passes to report on the meeting in the Amateur Computerist. In applying for a press pass, we were told we had to send a print copy of our newsletter to those at the Internet Society who decide on press credentials. In the previous two years, 1996 and 1998, when we attended INET meetings and covered them, it was adequate to send an online issue and press credentials were issued. After we sent the print edition as requested, we waited quite a while. There was no response. Finally we wrote and asked what was happening. It was only then that we got e-mail saying our press credentials were refused. The supposed purpose of ISOC is to educate the public about the Internet. At the INET98 meeting, however, there was a concerted effort by some officials of the Internet Society to mislead the public, by way of misleading the press. There were important changes being planned for the Internet by the U.S. government, other governments, and the Internet Society itself. At the press luncheon held at INET98 the press was told that there was no reason to be concerned. But these changes will give control and ownership over certain essential functions of the Internet to a small number of behind the scenes players who are unknown and hidden. The public has been kept deliberately in the dark about this plan and the players who are creating the plan. And the press has been kept deliberately in the dark as well. When there is an effort by someone from the press to uncover what is happening, ISOC denies their editors press passes to attend any further functions. Denying a press pass to a publication under such conditions is a violation by ISOC of its own purpose which is to educate the public about the Internet. The Internet is a significant scientific and technical phenomenon. It is particularly important to educate the public and the press on issues involving science and technology because these are hard issues to understand. Thus there is a special need for those computer scientists and technical people who have some understanding of such issues to be open and welcoming of public interest and concern. In the development of the Internet, it was learned that users had to have an ability to participate in creating their side of the interface to the network. Similarly, in important issues concerning the development of the Internet, it is crucial that the views of users be welcomed. It is not that these issues can be left to experts, just as the development of the Internet could not be left to a dictatorial process. Instead the Internet grew up and flourished through a scientific process involving grassroots participation. This is the kind of process needed to continue its growth and development today. This issue of the Amateur Computerist features John Horvath's article "Cone of Silence", describing the efforts to hide knowledge of these significant changes in the governance of the Internet from the public. The last issue of the Amateur Computerist Vol. 9 No. 1, contained letters written by U.S. Congressman Bliley to the U.S. Department of Commerce and to Ira Magaziner, then Senior Advisor on Internet affairs to the U.S. President. In this issue we include the response to those letters from Ira Magaziner and from the U.S. Department of Commerce. These letters help to show the behind the scenes secret activity that the U.S. government and other governments have been party to to create what is claimed to be a "private" corporation to own and control essential functions of the Internet. Congressman Bliley, Chairman of the Commerce Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, has since issued new letters and questions to the U.S. Department of Commerce and to the head of the Interim Board of Directors of ICANN. A future issue will contain those letters and excerpts from the answers. This issue also contains a U.S government General Accounting Office (GAO) decision in a similar situation where the U.S. Executive branch of the government exceeded its authority when it created two private corporations to carry out government functions. The decision shows why such activity is disallowed by U.S. law. Now however, the U.S. government is trying the same kind of unauthorized activity and also involving other governments and in so doing is setting an even more harmful precedent and the basis for serious harm to come to the Internet and its users. Though this issue of the Amateur Computerist could not be circulated at INET99, we hope those in the Internet community who care about the Internet and its future will help to circulate this issue to people both online and off to inform them of the problem represented by secret government activity creating a private corporation to control essential functions of the Internet. Moreover there is the need to stop this secret activity and to open up the dialogue to be able to find an appropriate institutional form to make it possible to protect the integrity of the Internet for its millions of users around the world. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 9 No 2 Winter 1999-2000. The whole issue or a subscription are available for free via email. Send a request to jrh@ais.org or see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------