The Internet Freedom LeagueSeptember/October 2019 191
The league would need a mechanism for monitoring its members’
adherence to its rules. Maintaining and publicizing metrics on each
member’s performance would serve a powerful naming-and-shaming
function. But a model for a more rigorous form o evaluation can be
found in the Financial Action Task Force, an anti-money-laundering
organization created by the G-7 and the European Commission in
1989 and funded by its members. The μ¬¡μ’s 37 member countries
account for most o the world’s ¿nancial transactions. Members agree
to adopt dozens o policies, including ones that criminalize money laun-
dering and terrorist ¿nancing and require banks to conduct due diligence
on their customers. Instead o heavy-handed centralized monitoring, the
μ¬¡μ employs a system by which each member reviews the eorts o
another on a rotating basis and makes recommendations. Countries
that fail to meet required policies are placed on the μ¬¡μ’s so-called
gray list, triggering closer scrutiny. Repeat oenders can be put on its
“blacklist,” obliging banks to start detailed examinations that can slow
down or even stop many transactions.
How would the Internet Freedom League prevent malicious activity
within its member states? Once again, an existing arrangement pro-
vides a model: the international public health system. The league
would establish and fund an institution akin to the World Health
Organization that would identify vulnerable online systems, notify
the owners o those systems, and work to strengthen them (the equiv-
alent o the ́ ̈¢’s worldwide vaccination campaigns); detect and re-
spond to emerging malware and botnets before they could cause
widespread harm (the equivalent o monitoring disease outbreaks);
and take charge o the response when prevention failed (the equivalent
o the ́ ̈¢’s response to pandemics). The league’s members would also
agree to refrain from launching oensive cyberattacks against one an-
other during peacetime; such a pledge would not, o course, prevent the
United States or its allies from launching cyberattacks against rivals
that would almost certainly remain outside the league, such as Iran.
BUILDING BARRIERSEstablishing an Internet Freedom League would require a dramatic
shift in thinking. It remains part o the gospel o Internet freedom
that connectivity will eventually transform authoritarian regimes. But
it hasn’t—and it won’t. An unwillingness to accept that reality is the
single biggest barrier to an alternative approach. Over time, however,