ICANN Is Stonewalling the U.S. Congress: Ted Cruz

Cruz sends another nastygram to ICANN.

Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz is at it again, blasting ICANN for its perceived evasiveness when it comes to China and internet policy.

Cruz, along with James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah), sent a letter to ICANN Chairman Stephen Crocker today, demanding a response to unanswered questions from previous congressional oversight letters concerning ICANN’s relationship with the Chinese government and the planned transition away from U.S. government oversight of the Internet.

The three senators also blasted former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé for disparaging their previous letters:

This series of events comes on the heels of ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé’s failure to respond to all of the questions in our February 4, 2016 letter addressed to him. We would note that not only did Mr. Chehadé fail to respond to our questions in full, but he disparaged the oversight request during a February 5 question-and-answer session in Los Angeles, California with members of ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization Non-Contracted Party House. During the session, Mr. Chehadé stated:

And you know that this letter is not driven by anyone really worried regarding the transition. This is someone really worried regarding politics. So let’s not bring politics into the transition…. Let’s resist bringing the politics of our lovely capital into this process…. I think everyone knows this is political, even those in his own party…. We will answer all these questions… And we will respond to the questions fully, to the Senators’ full satisfaction.

The senators don’t deny the claim since of course it’s true.

Here’s a bigger question, as Michele Neylon points out: what group is driving the Senators to press ICANN?