Rep. Mike Kelly filed a bill that, if adopted, would allow Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to ask a judge to block the Obama administration from proceeding with the Internet transition, which is supposed to take place at the end of the month. Conservative groups and activists asked House and Senate leaders to consider such a lawsuit last month, citing provisions in recent appropriations bills that banned the Commerce Department from spending taxpayer money on the transition.
“The American people’s Congress has prohibited this hasty surrender in law and the administration must follow it,” Kelly, a three-term Republican, said Friday.
“Such a rushed transition puts the Internet at serious risk of falling under the influence of bad actors abroad who despise the free flow of information,” Kelly said.
“The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet, expand ICANN’s historical core mission by creating a gateway to content regulation, and embolden [its] leadership to act without any real accountability,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote in a letter to the Commerce Department last month.
“We have uncovered that ICANN’s Beijing office is actually located within the same building as the Cyberspace Administration of China, which is the central agency within the Chinese government’s censorship regime.”