The analogy that occurs to me is to roads. People generally have a right of free movement, which implies that if they are capable of using roads (e.g., if they have a car and can drive it), then they should be generally free to do so, certain reasonable legal constraints notwithstanding. And in this case, the reasonableness of constraints arises from the fact that things like driving licenses and road signs are based on clear safety concerns. Mapping this over to the Internet: People generally have a right of free expression, which implies that if they are capable of using the Internet, they should be generally free to use it, certain reasonable legal constraints not withstanding. The human right in question, then, isn't a right to Internet access per se; people aren't entitled to a broadband link any more than they're entitled to live near good roads. (Note, however, that communities typically try to maintain their roads to a certain standard.) Rather, the right is to a certain *class* of Internet access, free of unnecessary constraints. The question of legal constraints and "reasonableness" is much thornier in this domain; you're not going to kill someone by sending them spam. (Well, maybe with SCADA systems, but we'll put that aside for now.) The obvious cases (e.g., child porn) are to some degree already covered, although there's some variation around the globe (Nazi propaganda in France). The debate over PROTECT-IP is at some level about whether and which constraints on Internet usage based on copyright constraints are reasonable. --Richard On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:22 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
Vint Cerf says no: http://j.mp/wwL9Ip
But I wonder to what degree that's dependent on how much our governments make Internet access the most practical/only practical way to interact with them.
Understand: I'm not saying that FiOS should be a human right. But as a society, America's recognized for decades that you gotta have a telephone, and subsidized local/lifeline service to that extent; that sort of subsidy applies to cellular phones now as well.
Thoughts?
Cheers, -- jr 'yes, I know I'm early...' a -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274