[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-6: Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 Address Space to Out-of-region Requestors

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> It isn't obvious that the "law enforcement" offered here is the USG.
> Could you simply affirm that it is?
> 

Of course it is. But, as John Curran says, that fact is not dispositive of anything, as any organization can make policy proposals. The debate should take place on substantive grounds. 

In my view, the demands of law enforcement raise vital substantive issues (regardless of whether it is US or some other LEA). That is because of the pressure to "territorialize" the Internet; i.e., to make the scope of Internet operations and governance institutions conform to the jurisdictional boundaries of nation-states. I believe that territorializing or jurisdiction-alizing Internet operations and governance is a step backwards to the pre-1990s world of telephone companies, and thus to service trade barriers, less operational efficiency and dozens if not hundreds of sets of rules, and eventual de-globalization of the internet. Taken to its logical conclusion, 2013-6 would imply that ARIN be abolished and replaced with 20 NIRs (national Internet registries). I mean, if you really want to tie address allocation and assignment to specific territories in order to make law enforcement and identification easier, you should not have transnational IRs at all. We could perhaps ask the ITU to run this proposed territorialized system, as they are appropriately organized along nation-state/intergovernmental lines. Oh wait, they already proposed that: https://datatracker.ietf.org/documents/LIAISON/file1141.pdf 

Milton L. Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Internet Governance Project
http://blog.internetgovernance.org