Likely all Democratic senators will back the treaty. But since a two-thirds majority is needed, the support of 14 Republicans, in addition to all 53 Democrats, will be required for ratification. With 47 Republicans in the current Senate, if 34 vote no, the treaty can be scuttled.
By a razor-thin margin, the Republicans in the Senate seem to be coming through. In July of this year, the bare minimum thirty-four Republican senators signed a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid signaling their intention to vote against the treaty. Is the treaty dead? Not by a long shot! Several of the thirty-four senators only jumped on board the bandwagon at the end and expressed doubts about voting no. Most important, at this writing, the two top Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate—Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Bob Corker (R-TN)—weren’t among the thirty-four opponents. Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Committee, supports the treaty, and Corker, the likely incoming chairman should the Republicans win the Senate (Lugar was defeated in a primary), is uncommitted. We need to keep up the pressure to make sure these folks stay committed to vote no.
Their letter began: “We are writing to let you know that we believe this Convention reflects political, economic, and ideological assumptions which are inconsistent with American values and sovereignty.”57
The Republicans laid out their reasons: “by its current terms, the Law of the Sea Convention encompasses economic and technology interests in the deep sea, redistribution of wealth from developed to undeveloped nations, freedom of navigation in the deep sea and exclusive economic zones which may impact maritime security, and environmental regulation over virtually all sources of pollution.”58
They particularly highlighted their concerns about the cessation of sovereignty to the United Nations. “To effect the treaty’s broad regime of governance,” they wrote, “we are particularly concerned that United States sovereignty could be subjugated in many areas to a supranational government that is chartered by the United Nations under the 1982 Convention. Further, we are troubled that compulsory dispute resolution could pertain to public and private activities including law enforcement, maritime security, business operations, and nonmilitary activities performed aboard military vessels.”59
They concluded flatly by saying, “If this treaty comes to the floor, we will oppose its ratification.”60
Bravo!
Here’s the list of the Republicans who signed the letter:
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John Boozman (R-AK)
Rand Paul (R-KY)
Ron Portman (R-OH)
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Jim Risch (R-ID)
Mike Lee (R-UT)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Thune (R-SD)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Dan Coats (R-IN)
John Hoeven (R-ND)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)
Marco Rubio (R-FL)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Jim Moran (R-KS)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Pat Toomey (R-PA)
Dean Heller (R-NV)61
But what we really need to focus on is the ones who did not affix their signatures.
Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) have publicly endorsed the treaty. That leaves these senators as uncommitted:
Bob Corker (R-TN)
Lindsay Graham (R-SC)
Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Scott Brown (R-MA)
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Likely RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) Snowe and Collins of Maine are going to back the treaty, all the more so since Snowe is retiring.
A bunch of senators from conservative southern states—Alexander (TN), Cochran (MS), Graham (SC), and Hutchison (TX, but retiring)—may be subject to pressure.
Murkowski from Alaska might feel she needs to vote for the treaty because of her worry about Russian Arctic claims. But can she be deluded enough to think that the UN would rule in our favor?
Scott Brown of Massachusetts comes from a liberal northern state and it will be harder for him to vote no, but he’s a man of deep conservative convictions and well might stand up for American sovereignty.
But the larger point is that the ball is in our court. It is not Blue Dog Democrats we must persuade but Republicans who trumpet their conservatism. It is within the Red States and among the Red Senators that we must find courageous members willing to vote no.
If you live in one of the states where these senators are from, go to work! Our sovereignty depends on it!
PART FOUR
The UN Tries to Regulate the Internet
Authoritarian regimes throughout the world, including China, Russia, Iran, and the Arab nations, are trying to hijack an obscure UN agency, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to take over the Internet and give them the power to regulate its content and restrict its usage.
And the mainstream media—with the exception of the Wall Street Journal—has yet to cover it (as of July 2012, when this is being written).
The world’s dictators realized long ago that their power rested, ultimately, on their ability to control the flow of information to their peoples. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, pioneered the “big lie” in assuring the Führer of continuing popular support. Now, facing the challenge of the free flow of information over the Internet, the world’s authoritarian regimes have spent billions trying to censor the flow of information to their citizens.
Reuters explains how China “has developed the world’s most advanced censorship and surveillance system” to police Internet activity in an effort to restrict the information flow to its 485 million Web users.1
The news service notes that “the Chinese model is spreading to other authoritarian regimes. And governments worldwide… are aggressively trying to legislate the Internet.”2
To understand the lengths to which Beijing will go to stop the free flow of information on the Internet, let’s remember that on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising, Chinese censors prevented the search for specific words connected to the massacre of students. Anything to keep things quiet.
Now these dictatorial regimes have hit on a new solution: United Nations regulation and control of the Internet.
Their chosen instrument of control, the ITU, was set up in 1865 to regulate the telegraph and was brought into the United Nations in the modern era. In 1988, the member nations of the ITU adopted International Telecommunication Regulations, which deregulated much of the industry. These days, this quaint nineteenth-century agency stays in business to regulate long-distance phone calls and satellite orbits.
PUTIN FINDS HIS INTERNET COMMISSAR
Then, Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin had an idea: Use the ITU to regulate the Internet. Stop that pesky free flow of information and data that arms his domestic critics and stop his dissidents from using the Net to communicate their plans to resist his autocracy. He met with the secretary-general of the ITU, Hamadoun Touré, in June 2011. At the meeting “Putin commended a proposal from Touré for ‘establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).’”3 Turning vocabulary on its head, the Russian ruler said, “if we are going to talk about democratization of international relations, I think a critical sphere is information exchange and global control over such exchange.”4 He did not explain how controlling information would promote “democratization.”