Breaking: President Trump is Considering Plans to re-take Control of the Internet and ICANN Oversight. | “We Invented it. It Must FIRST Serve Making America Great Again.” Said a Senior Trump Transition Team Insider. – Survivability News Exclusive.

Incoming Trump Administration is considering plans to take back control of the Internet and oversight of ICANN. “We invented it. It must FIRST serve making America great again,” said a senior Trump transition team insider.

In an EXCLUSIVE with Survivability News, the senior member in the incoming Trump administration transition team said that President Trump is serious in correcting the huge wrongs of past administrations.

Trump II Plan to Re-take Internet Control

During the EXCLUSIVE telephone interview, the senior Trump transition team insider explained that President Trump is determined “to make the Internet serve America first”, emphasizing the word “first”.

The transition team insider then added that President Trump is considering many different actions to deliver on this, including a Presidential Executive Order.

• See Below for Historical Perspective on ICANN & US Government. 

Global Shockwaves Expected

News of President Trump’s plan to retake control of the Internet and oversight of ICANN are expected to send shockwaves worldwide.

Shockwaves are also likely at ICANN itself during and after it concludes its 81st meeting in Istanbul, Turkey taking place this week and hosted by the Turkish Telecom and transportation Ministries and regulatory authority.

The Trump Administration II plan would see ICANN return to US oversight once again. The move is highly likely to come with more stringent restrictions on ICANN in comparison with the free reign it has enjoyed since it fully transitioned away from the US government on October 1st, 2016, under the Obama Administration.

The Insider also added that while President Trump has more pressing top priority agenda items and campaign promises he wants to deliver on to the American people, such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the ever-escalating war in the Middle East, reclaiming Internet control to make American great again is very important to him.

ICANN Was Warned

The ICANN leadership was publicly warned in the past that it needs to be better prepared for political and geopolitical events that will impact its organization.

ICANN”s most recent warning came from MLi Group chairman, and three times international best-selling author Mr. Khaled Fattal.

Fattal, who has attended, participated and engaged in approximately 74 out of the 81 ICANN meetings since its creation in 1998, warned the ICANN Board and leadership publicly on March 7th, 2024 during the ICANN 79 Puerto Rico meeting’s Public Forum saying that ICANN is facing serious threats in the emerging new world order.

He added that the fast-evolving political & geopolitical minefields of this new world order represent new and unmitigated risks to ICANN’s relevance, role, and authority as well as the multi-stakeholder model it championed worldwide since 2005.

Fattal also warned ICANN that it lacks the necessary leadership in geopolitical expertise and made it clear that he was not interested in any ICANN job.

Although ICANN’s board chair Tripti Sinha responded publicly agreeing fully with Fattal’s concerns and concluding by saying “couldn’t agree more” (Click to see the video), it remains unclear if the ICANN leadership listened attentively or if it put in place any effective mitigation strategy and plan for such a Trump scenario

This Time is Different

In 2016, President Trump joined senator Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio’s calls for the US to take back control of the Internet and ICANN oversight did not materialize.

President Trump, Senators Cruz and Rubio all held President Obama responsible for letting go of the US government’s oversight of ICANN in the first place.

However, the Trump Transition insider indicated that President Trump has a clear and determined mind-set on the matter in 2024.

• See Below for Historical Perspective on ICANN & US Government. 

Images from ICANN 81 Istanbul Turkey 

ICANN 81 Istanbul, Turkey

Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority Chairman Ömer Abdullah KARAGÖZOĞLU delivering his keynote address as ICANN Host during the Opening Ceremony Monday Nov 11, 2024.

ICANN board chair Tripti Sinha delivering her Keynote address at the Opening Ceremony Monday Nov 11, 2024

ICANN’s Position 

Survivability News is reaching out to the ICANN leadership for official comment on this development during the Istanbul meeting. Our editorial team will publish if and when an ICANN statement, comment or position are ascertained.

Historical Perspective

Today’s internet traces its roots back to the US defense department who funded it and where it started. The project was Known as the Arpanet. It was designed to be stable, resilient and able to withstand disruption from wars or other catastrophic events. Arpanet was switched on in October 1969, three months after the first man walked on the moon, and when a message was sent between two California university research labs in the USA.

ICANN, the global Internet regulator, is an American and California non-profit corporation that was an offspring of the Clinton Administration. ICANN was created in 1998. It fully transitioned out of US oversight on Oct 1st, 2016.

Since 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a division of the Commerce Department of the United States government was overseeing the administration of various functions pertaining to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract with ICANN.

In 2014 the U.S. Commerce Department announced its plan to transition oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages Internet domain names and addresses, to a yet-to-be-determined entity at that time.

The move came after Edward Snowden’s disclosures regarding U.S. global Internet surveillance which sent unprecedented criticism of the US from stakeholders and governments all over the world over its “internet control” through its oversight of Internet regulator ICANN.