The UK government, with a long track record of authoritarian measures has a new goal: a clampdown on the DNS system.

The Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, run by former Young Communist League member, Peter Mandelson is making a power grab for Nominet the company that runs the UK DNS system.

BERR wrote a letter to the chairman of Nominet which contains the following weasel words:

What arguments would you employ to convince my Ministers that the present relationship between government and the company is appropriate in ensuring that public policy objectives in relation to the management of the domain name system and the standing of the UK in the Internet community are understood and taken into account?

In bureaucrat-speak this means "do what we say, or we'll take you over". Of course if a company does what the government says it has been taken over anyway, so really that paragraph is saying "we're taking you over".

This power grab is not surprising. It comes from the most controlling and authoritarian government in the so-called free world. We should have been expecting it.

In a country with more CCTV cameras per head than any other, with long periods of detention without trial, which has a government that uses anti-terrorism laws to grab the assets of Icelandic banks and fraud to create 'intelligence' dossiers, it is hardly surprising that free speech on the Internet is under threat.

Mandelson has recently been exposed as being in contact with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has been given a $2.5 billion dollar helping hand from former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin.

Bloggers and the Internet is one area of self-expression where the power hungry Stasi that run Britain haven't been able to control. But they want to. An assault on the DNS system is one way they can start doing it.

How long before free speech on the Internet is dead?

Hat Tip: The Register