In a message written on Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 11:09:59AM -0500, Jay Ashworth wrote:

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Broadband, to me, is not a human right. It is something that makes our society more efficient, and improves the quality of life for virtually every citizen, so I do think the government has a role and interest in seeing widespread, if not universal broadband deployment. Failure to provide broadband to someone is not a human rights violation though, and the idea that it is probably is offensive to those who have experienced real human rights violations.

Didn't *say* broadband. Didn't even say "Internet service". Said "Internet *access*", in the non-techspeak meaning of those words.

For the purposes of my e-mail and this point in time, they are all synonymous. That is, if "interenet access" is a right, providing someone a 9600bps dial up does not, in my mind, qualify. That might qualify for e-mail access, but you can not use a reasonable fraction of the Internet at that access speed. Similarly, denying someone internet service denies them internet access. The only difference between your terms and mine, is that mine are fixed to this point in time while yours is a general concept that may move in the future. One day 50Mbps broadband may not qualify anymore as "internet access" due to where the interernet ends up. But let's take a specific (famous) example. Kevin Mitnick. From his wikipedia page: "During his supervised release, which ended on January 21, 2003, he was initially forbidden to use any communications technology other than a landline telephone." If Internet access (to use your term) had been a human right than his human rights were violated by the government when they banned him from using any communications technology. Do we really want to suggest that banning him from using the computer is the same level of violation as enslaving him, torturing him, or even killing him? -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

On Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:29:05 PST, Leo Bicknell said:

But let's take a specific (famous) example. Kevin Mitnick. From his wikipedia page:

"During his supervised release, which ended on January 21, 2003, he was initially forbidden to use any communications technology other than a landline telephone."

If Internet access (to use your term) had been a human right than his human rights were violated by the government when they banned him from using any communications technology. Do we really want to suggest that banning him from using the computer is the same level of violation as enslaving him, torturing him, or even killing him?

Convicted felons surrender a number of rights: freedom (jail terms), the right to vote, etc. And nobody seems to consider that concept a "violation" (though it *is* of course up for debate exactly what rights it's OK to remove from a felon, and for how long).

I think there's a fundamental difference between human and civil rights. Human rights come from our humanity, i.e. us being human. As humans, we can walk, talk, produce things, own property, etc. Assuming that isn't true, the next logical question is where do you draw the line? Vehicles are beneficial to society, can they be a human right? If you keep bringing these type of questions up and substitute any good in place of vehicles, you can see how absurd it is. There's no consistency. I think the idea that food, shelter etc. are human rights is absurd. Doesn't that imply that someone must provide those things for me? What if they don't want to? Does that mean they are forced to? Which would be a violation of their human rights. Civil rights are rights that are provided by societal institutions e.g. governments This makes the most sense to me anyway. I probably need to go read some John Locke. http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/difference-between-h... On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:

In a message written on Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 11:48:06AM -0500, Dave Israel wrote:

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As an aside, your example is flawed, because judicial punishment does involve a loss, or at least a curtailment, of what many people consider to be basic rights.

In a message written on Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 11:52:11AM -0500, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

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Convicted felons surrender a number of rights: freedom (jail terms), the right to vote, etc.  And nobody seems to consider that concept a "violation" (though it *is* of course up for debate exactly what rights it's OK to remove from a felon, and for how long).

You both make the same, very interesting point.  I want to point folks back to the Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights

Look at some the substantive rights:

 - Right to life.  - Freeom from torture.  - Freedom from slavery.  - Right to a fair trial.  - Freedom of speach.  - Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

For the most part we don't let judical punishment infringe on those rights.  (Yes, there are exceptions, and yes, it depends a lot on the location in question.  For instance the death peanlty infringes on the first substantive right.)

However, for an ordinary criminal (Kevin Mitnick, in my example) we generally require the courts to uphold all of the substantive rights in most civilized societies.

_Human_ rights is a very specific subset of a continium of rights. Note that the "right to vote" is not in the substantive list above, and is taken away by judical process in many societies.  Not all rights are human rights.

Should you have a right to internet access, just like a right to vote? Perhaps.  Are either one the specific class of _human rights_, no.

--       Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

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I think the idea that food, shelter etc. are human rights is absurd. Doesn't that imply that someone must provide those things for me? What if they don't want to? Does that mean they are forced to? Which would be a violation of their human rights.

There are those who think that it's a government's responsibility to make sure that people don't die from starvation or lack of access to medical care. Then there are those who think it's OK to let people die in the gutter.

And as with most things - the 'truth' is probably somewhere between the extremes. Internet access, as a vehicle for free speech, is at least an important civil right. I wouldn't immediately discard the notion that, as a subset of free speech, it is a human right. Internet access, by way of cell phones, has increasingly enabled repressed peoples to expose their suffering to the outside world. One doesn't have to look any further than the protests in Iran after the reelection of Ahmadinejad to see that. When the reporters and cameras have been exiled, and all that remains is the general public armed with their cellphones against the military police armed with rifles, freedom of speech and internet access become the very same thing. Certainly, to an oppressive dictator, internet access and free speech are the very same right. In a modern world, to curtail one is to curtail the other. Nathan  

On 1/5/12 9:34 AM, "Jon Schipp" <jonschipp@gmail.com> wrote:

I think there's a fundamental difference between human and civil rights.

Human rights come from our humanity, i.e. us being human. As humans, we can walk, talk, produce things, own property, etc.

Assuming that isn't true, the next logical question is where do you draw the line? Vehicles are beneficial to society, can they be a human right? If you keep bringing these type of questions up and substitute any good in place of vehicles, you can see how absurd it is. There's no consistency.

I think the idea that food, shelter etc. are human rights is absurd. Doesn't that imply that someone must provide those things for me? What if they don't want to? Does that mean they are forced to? Which would be a violation of their human rights.

No, it doesn't mean that someone must provide it for you. It means that "access" must not be denied. Take for example the homeless situation in San Francisco, if the city did not provide shelter for the homeless there would be an outcry our human right violation. If you walk around San Francisco you still see people sleeping in the streets and this is because they choose to but they do have the right to go to a shelter so the city of San Francisco is doing the right thing for basic human right. In India my observation is that people may be really poor but they do not go hungry or denied shelter even though they choose to make it out of a cardboard box. The government makes sure that the lands are protected which is why the slumps are not bulldozed by a developer. This is a good example of human right. Electricity, communication mediums are all things that people get together to bring either as an individual self or a community. Zaid

Universal Access vs Universal Service It is important to understand the difference. I have argued that Developing countries should only provide Universal Access as the weight of providing Universal Service is way too expensive and would tax too much the business community which is developing the economy so that Universal Service may become a reality one day. On 1/5/12 8:55 , "Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu" <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:

On Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:09:59 EST, Jay Ashworth said:

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Didn't *say* broadband. Didn't even say "Internet service". Said "Internet *access*", in the non-techspeak meaning of those words.

There are those who would say "Free Internet access is available at the Public Library and the Community Center" counts as "internet access".

What say the peanut gallery?

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

----- Original Message -----

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From: "Zaid Ali" <zaid@zaidali.com>

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On 1/5/12 7:22 AM, "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

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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.

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I agree with Vint here. Basic human rights are access to food, clothing and shelter. I think we are still struggling in the world with that. With your logic one would expect the radio and TV to be a basic human right but they are not, they are and will remain powerful medium which be enablers of something else and the Internet would fit there.

Well, I dunno... as I think was obvious from my other comments: TV and Radio are *broadcast* media; telephones and the internet are not; they're *two-way* communications media... and they're the communications media which have been chosen by the organs of government we've constituted to run things for us.

You hit the important word, though, in your reply: "*access to* food, clothing, and shelter"... not the things themselves.

The question here is "is *access to* the Internet a human right, something which the government ought to recognize and protect"?  I sort of think it is, myself... and I think that Vint is missing the point: *all* of the things we generally view as human rights are enablers to other things, and we generally dub them *as those things*, by synecdoche... at least in my experience.

If I'm not mistaken, Vint's on this list; perhaps he'll chime in.  :-)

Here is a way to think about it - is denial of X a violation of human rights ? If so, access to X should be viewed as a human right. Denial of food, for example, is certainly a violation of human rights. That is not the same as saying that everyone always will be able to afford to eat anything they want, or in dire circumstances even all they need, but to deny food is certainly to violate human rights. I think that if we had heard that (say) Libya's Khaddafi had denied (say) the people of Benghazi all access to telephony, that that would be regarded as a violation of human rights. (Actually, he did and it was). People would, for example, start dying because no one could call an ambulance in an emergency. It would set the stage for further human rights violations, because no one could alert the world to what was happening. Etc. In 1880, that would not have been true, but today it is. Is the Internet at that level ? IMO, no, but it will be soon. That is not the same to say that everyone will get 100 Gbps for free, any more than everyone gets to eat at La Tour d'Argent in Paris. Regards Marshall

Cheers, -- jra -- 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

On Thu, January 5, 2012 11:37 am, Zaid Ali wrote:

If I wrote a blog article that criticized the government and it was shutdown along with my Internet access I wouldn't say that my right to the Internet was violated. I would say that my right to free speech was violated. Regardless of one way or two way communication it is communication.

The Internet is quickly becoming more than just a medium for speech. It is access to services, education, markets, and tools of analysis, among *many* others. Many of the specifics are covered under other rights, so the question is does the whole become more than the parts, and is *that* a right? I'm with the 'probably not quite yet, but soon' group. I don't think it will be long before it is impossible to participate in modern society in any meaningful way without access to the Internet. Vint does have one other point: the tool is not the whole of the thing. What we currently call 'the Internet' could be replaced by a different network, if someone were to invent something that was a good enough replacement. But at this point, I think *that* network would be called 'the Internet' then, and we don't *have* a separate name for the tool from what it does. (With the possible exception of some terms in cyberpunk novels...) Daniel T. Staal --------------------------------------------------------------- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. This copyright will expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years, whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of local copyright law. ---------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry if someone said this but I think it's interesting that the first amendment to the US Constitution specifically lists freedom of speech AND freedom of press, rather than perhaps allowing one (speech) to imply the other (press, i.e., that speech fixed to a medium.) If we use that as a signficiant guide that would seem to say that mere speech is not enough, the right to disseminate that speech to others is also necessary. -- -Barry Shein The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*

There are no such rights. Each positive right is somebody else's obligation. Being forced to feed, clothe, and house somebody else is called slavery. So is providing Internet access, TV, or whatever else. Doesn't matter if this slavery is part-time, the principle remains the same -- some people gang up on you and force you to work for their benefit.

This is antisocial nonsense. Governed societies exist because the supporting output of the group is greater than that of the same number of individuals. That infrastructure of government - the social building blocks that obligate us to each other - are not slavery, they are freedom from the anarchists, the equal opportunists (those that hold that we all have, inherently, have the same opportunity to succeed), and the Darwinists. By your logic, librarians are slaves, as are all civil servants. Radio is another of the greatest examples of a means of speech that is universally accessible, and yet we would not call broadcasters slaves either. Absolute nonsense. Nathan