Five Thoughts on the Internet Freedom League
In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Richard Clarke and Rob Knake published an article titled " The Internet Freedom League: How to Push Back Against the Authoritarian Assault on the Web ," based on their recent book The Fifth Domain . The article proposes the following: The United States and its allies and partners should stop worrying about the risk of authoritarians splitting the Internet. I nstead, they should split it themselves, by creating a digital bloc within which data, services, and products can flow freely, excluding countries that do not respect freedom of expression or privacy rights, engage in disruptive activity, or provide safe havens to cybercriminals... The league would not raise a digital Iron Curtain; at least initially, most Internet traffic would still flow between members and nonmembers, and the league would primarily block companies and organizations that aid and abet cybercrime, rather than entire countries. Governm