During the quiet period between Julian Assange’s release on ridiculously high bail and his resting comfortably between television appearances to explain why he didn’t commit espionage against somebody else’s country, it seemed like a good time to take stock of the international diplomatic community.

They don’t want to be embarrassed again.

In the old world, some mush-mouthed United States Senator, say Joe Lieberman, would whine about he we needed a law to stop another Wikileaks fiasco from undermining our foreign policy and putting Americans at risk.  Do it for the children, he might say, though nobody could quite figure out what this had to do with children. 

But in the new, flat world, that’s not good enough.  As we’ve learned from Assange, an Aussie operating out of Sweden without a condom, revealing American diplomatic cables that call Ruskies Robin, not even Lieberman can fix the problem in the Senate.  There’s a big hole in the roof of international diplomacy, and it’s getting governments all wet. It must be patched.

In steps the roof repairman.

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.

Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.

At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet – specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.

The internet is certainly a flat world issue, unfixable by any particular country alone.  Sure, we can criminalize pretty much anything in order to keep some kid in New Jersey from upsetting world order, but when it comes to Aussies working out of Sweden, it’s not as easy.

CrunchGear feels threatened.

All of this went down on Wednesday, with Brazil’s UN delegation proposing “global standards” that would, in effect, regulate the Internet.

The proposal in the obtuse verbiage of the UN would:

convene open and inclusive consultations involving all Member States and all other stakeholders with a view to assisting the process towards enhanced cooperation in order to enable Governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in respect of international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet but not of the day-to-day technical and operational matters that do not impact upon those issues.

No reason to get too wrapped up in the nuance of meaningless words.  After all,

The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a “takeover” of the internet.

I’ve little doubt that this is true.  The internet is greatest relief valve ever created.  If we didn’t have an internet, where people like me could write about problems with the legal system, they would have to invent it.  If I were in charge of public catharsis for the government, I would make sure that every person had the ability to tap our words on a keyboard and write out all the things that were problematic and frustrating.  Yes, that’s it.  Let it all out.

Sure, writing posts on a blawg, like this, is fun for the blawger, and maybe it’s turned a few heads along the way.  But the reach is limited, and it’s mostly preaching to the choir.  The substance is largely about long-known problems, and reveals little.  More significantly, to the extent that it illuminates anything, it’s diluted by the multitude of crap flowing onto the internet every second, whether marketing or overwrought emotionalism that panders to children and nutjobs. 

The internet keeps the nuts off the street, where they could do some harm.

But Wikileaks, on the other hand, has the stuff that only the real insiders know.  And don’t want anyone else to know.  We can post about, argue about, rant about, rave about the stuff of cops shooting people over nothing all day long.  That can’t be kept secret anyway.

Real secrets are another matter.  Where’s the Trilateral Commission when you need it? 

CrunchGear fears that they will pull the plug on social miscreants on the internet.

We’re all old cowboys in the Wild West, and we can see a train approaching in the distance. “What’s that thing, an iron horse? Eh, I’m sure my way of life won’t be affected one bit.” (Yes, that’s a Ron Bennington line.)

Sure it won’t.

It’s going to be fun in the future telling kids that we remember a time when you didn’t have to get a license to use the Internet, or that anyone and everyone was allowed to communicate online, even if they were anti-social miscreants.

This fear is misplaced.  They want anti-social miscreants online.  It keeps them off the streets. 

The governments of the world aren’t afraid of the mouths that roar or the children who write mean things about other children.  They are concerned, however, that the notes they pass around the room, intended for their own eyes only, become public.  That would impair their ability to do the important work of running our world, a job too difficult and involved for us to know about or appreciate.  If we possessed this information, we would be too stupid to realize why they do what they must do. It requires the paternalism of government to recognize the hard decisions, incisive characterizations, secret stuff between very important people, necessary to keep our world from imploding or exploding. 

If we only knew.  But we can’t.  We can, however, write anything else we want that will allow us to get all the angry things that might otherwise cause government aggravation out of our heads and onto our webpages. 

Just not their secrets.  There’s a hole in roof at the United Nations, and they’re going to fix it.  Don’t worry.  It won’t really do much to our use of the internet, but once it’s patched, government’s won’t have to worry about getting all wet again.