The Internet's Monroe Doctrine - "You'll Pry My Monkey Porn from My Cold, Dead Hands, Malaysia!"

ForeignAffairs.org has a really in-depth article discussing the latest developments in the ICANN situation. ICANN is the privately run group that literally runs the internet. Every website, sever, and domain ultimately exists in one of their databases. ICANN was set up in the late 90s to help keep the internet, well, interconnected with itself. Without a governing body, numerous countries, most notably Brazil, China, and Malaysia, are likely to create their own, smaller versions of the internet hidden behind and iron curtain of firewalls (China has actually been doing this for some time).

The fact ICANN ultimately answers to Washington, and Washington alone, has a lot of countries up in arms over what that might ultimately lead to. They're calling for the organization to give up its control and cede it to an organization not yet created by the UN, a request the federal government has now officially filed away in their "no way in hell are you taking my interbits" box.

Experts are likening the government's response to the Monroe Doctrine, which was written in the early 1800s, forbidding all European states from expanding further into the Western hemisphere. The article is definitely worth a read, no matter where you stand.