Newest Czarina Susan Crawford, OneWebDay, and the Digital Divide

I think she kinda looks like a grown-up Nancy Drew. This is the woman who is going to tell us how the Internet will be run. Gad-zooks.

Everyone who wants to use the Internet, to learn how to use it, should have some sort of access to it. However, it's sad to think that the knee-jerk solution to making this happen is to create another government program and to hand out more "free stuff." Obama's shiny new eager-beaver ideologically committed White House staffer, Susan Crawford, Internet Czar, is the one who's going to make this government internet dream program come true.

Crawford's official title is Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, and Wired magazine calls her "the most powerful geek close to the President." We have in Susan yet another lawyer, of course, this time from Yale. Wikipedia says she was a "partner" (really?--she seems kinda young for that, since she was born in 1963, but whatever) in some Washington, D.C. law firm and left in 2002 to become a professor. After various stints as visiting professor here and there, she was admitted to Michigan's faculty in 2007. I'm not sure how any of this makes Crawford qualified for a job as special assistant for science, tech, and innovation--but I'll keep going with the bio, maybe it will make sense at some point.

Crawford was a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN from 2005-2008. In 2005 she founded OneWebDay, which Wiki calls "a global celebration of the internet"--snort. Says Wiki, Susan is known as a "champion" of net neutrality. Wiki also says that in the past, Susan was a "prolific blogger." Seriously, I can't believe this blog hasn't disappeared yet. Undoubtedly it will soon. Can't have people knowing what you "really thought" back in 2007, can we? Although I think people around Obama are so arrogant these days that they think they can get away with anything. Crawford is said to have ties with ACORN, but I don't know if that's true. If she did, no doubt she would say so in the blog, since it seems to be something of a brain dump.

So let's see if we can unpack that last paragraph. What the heck is ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. That either sounds harmless enough or absolutely terrifying, so I guess I need more information. ICANN is a non-profit organization charged with the regulation of commerce involving domains, domain names, and the security of the Domain Names System (DNS). It accredits domain name registrars, and administers the generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

So who regulates the regulator? About all I can find is that this entity is part of the DOC, Department of Commerce.

So what does ICANN do? Here's one example. On June 26, 2008, ICANN approved a major change to the domain name system. New rules put in place by ICANN at a meeting in Paris make it possible for any organization, company, or country to apply to have a new top-level domain of their choice created. That means instead of .com/.net/.org/.edu, the sky will be the limit, and someday, if you run a business in New York City or Berlin, you may be able to register a domain name ending in .nyc or .berlin. Is that a good thing? Dunno, but some experts expect web use in the future to become far more complicated, messy, and frustrating. Great.

I went to ICANN's blog and found this most recent post, which just fills me with good feeling (/sarc): If you are a regular ICANN community member, it is likely you are currently feeling overwhelmed by the amount of material that has appeared in the past week. So here is a quick guide to help make sense of it all. Sweet.

So that's ICANN. What about net neutrality? I hate these benign-sounding names; how many times have we found nefarious organizations hiding behind mild-sounding names. Google is for net neutrality, so that makes me suspicious right there. I'll have to do more on this later.

This stuff just goes on and on--it's simply exhausting to try to keep up with this crap from the Obama administration--it feels just like that arcade game called Whack-A-Mole. In ObamaLand it's called "flooding the zone," and it's one of Saul Alinksy's best tactics.

Read more about Obama's newest czar here: "Obama Wants to Control the Web," an opinion piece on the Fox Forum: the agenda of her organization is to transform access to the Internet into a government entitlement project, with all the necessary government intrusion and control in order guarantee it to everyone—in the world.

The OneWebDayWobblyWebsite wants you to "Sign the Pledge to End the Digital Divide." Why is it the Left always wants people to sign some sort of pledge? "Free the Internet," it says, "and End the Digital Divide." Free the internet from whom? Let me guess--white oppressors of digital divide victims? I'm only guessing here, since I haven't had a chance to look carefully at this OneWebDay website. Then they want people to take a survey, which I don't have time right now to look at, but this is what they say about that: More importantly, OneWebDay, inc. is moving forward with the most extensive evaluation and strategic planning process in its history, and this survey is the first step. There will be lots of ways to get involved and help us decide how to best engage the OneWebDay network year-round and build even more powerful OneWebDay events in the years to come. This sounds creepy and so absolutely typical of the tone for the past nine months of "let's take over everything with Big Government" that we've been hit over the head with by the Obama administration. Whack-A-Mole!

Here's a video explaining the "Digital Divide." This is yet another reward for idleness. Tell me how I'm going wrong here. Depressing.