Should countries like the United States push for agenda items like freedom of expression, intellectual property protection, and cybercrime prevention?

The freedom of expression, being one of the firmly stated and affirmed right in the US constitution, I think the question refers to effecting in a global scenario. Freedom of expression touches most sensitive areas such as religion, which has a soft corner for. Considering the current world situation, I think pushing for such agendas that is based on moral, cultural. religious values of countries outside of US will have little effect and will cause adverse effects.

Intellectual property rights is a very important area where US should defenitely push for agendas, considering the need to support and encourage innovation and growth. As per the court decision - Rockwell Graphic Sys., Inc. v. DEV Indus., Inc., 925 F.2d 174, 180 (7th Cir. 1991), "the future of the nation depends in no small part on the efficiency of industry, and the efficiency of industry depends in no small part on the protection of intellectual property.". Seeing the recent developments, the move by US to protect the control over Internet Governance, has raised concerns among other participating countries. The question is - if we stand for freedom of expression, isn't it better to pass control over to a global body such as UN to oversee ICANN? I think, in future, there is a possibility for an IPR setup for internet's origin and development in favor of US. Unless there is no such IPR on internet as a whole, I strongly oppose such actions of pollicy making and control by any single entity, rather than a global entity like UN.


Regarding Cybercrime protection, yes, US Criminal Division's is doing a great job in implementing various. Cyber crimes such as hacking, IP thefts, computer virus/worm proliferation etc. cybercrime is a common issue in the world, US should work in hands with other technologically advanced countries to build stringent Cybercrime protection laws.

I agree that "US should lead by example". In my opinion, its healthy to being proactive on pushing "some" of these agendas, which is condemned globally.

(c) Deepesh Joseph, May 2007.
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