<story><title>Vint Cerf: Internet Access Is Not a Human Right</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/opinion/internet-access-is-not-a-human-right.html?_r=1&amp;hpw</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sgentle</author><text>I began this piece raring to disagree, but I find it hard to fault his logic. A human right to unimpeded use of carriages would seem hilarious today, and a right to the use of landline phones will likely become so in the next decade.&lt;p&gt;We don&apos;t want to regulate specific rights as reactions to the particular issues of the day, we want to distill those issues to their essence so that we can meaningfully protect freedoms that are fundamental to meaningful human existence.&lt;p&gt;However, as others have noted here, this article leaves a couple of important points unaddressed.&lt;p&gt;Firstly, how can we be sure that the internet isn&apos;t fundamental? I can imagine arguing (in an earlier time) that legal counsel shouldn&apos;t be a human right, because we&apos;ll have something better than the legal system at some point. Yet thousands of years of human development have led only to a more complex legal system with the same fundamental ideas. Maybe the internet isn&apos;t horse-riding, maybe it&apos;s the invention of law. How do we know?&lt;p&gt;Secondly, if internet access isn&apos;t fundamental, then what is its more essential formulation? Being banned from the internet today makes you deaf, dumb and blind; much like being banned from electricity would cripple you. The difference is, nobody&apos;s trying to make three strikes laws for the power grid. We need to protect something. So what is it? The idea of free access to information? Ability to form and join networks? It&apos;s clearly not anything that&apos;s currently protected.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is more than just an academic interest at stake here. It&apos;s well and good to say &quot;ha ha, you see, I have a new and interesting perspective&quot;, but this is a situation where there are actual losses being made in terms of real people&apos;s access to the internet. Unless Vint Cerf is trying to say that&apos;s not important, perhaps it&apos;s a little counterproductive to make an article that shoots down a core idea for internet freedom without providing anything else of substance to fill its place.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>knowtheory</author><text>(Apologies to non-US hackers, the following reply is couched entirely in the context of the Constitution, however I think the thrust is relevant in general)&lt;p&gt;So, all the other replies so far note the explicit mention of &quot;the press&quot;.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ll first note that we certainly no longer talk about &quot;the press&quot; in reference to physical presses, and I&apos;d naïvely hazard that the framers of the constitution didn&apos;t mean it that way either.  In that regard I think it&apos;s a bit of a red-herring to talk about.&lt;p&gt;The critical point really is whether we as free people have the freedom to communicate and associate.&lt;p&gt;The reason why the internet is interesting is because it&apos;s the confluence of two of our existing rights.  Sure the internet can be used for the purpose of mass media publishing, in a manner that would be analogous/familiar to the framers.  But i would argue that the internet&apos;s facility for real time communications has done something unique.  The internet as a communications technology has enabled communities to form that, while not without precedent[1], would not otherwise exist.&lt;p&gt;So, to me, access to the internet is relevant both to the freedom of the press and the freedom to associate mentioned in the constitution.  It becomes problematic to say that government or corporations can stand in the way of my intent or desire to communicate with whom i wish.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d like to flip this on it&apos;s head.  The United States Postal Service is explicitly established in the Constitution (see: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause&lt;/a&gt; and note particularly that infrastructure was an important point of discussion/controversy that is essentially a footnote/non-issue now).&lt;p&gt;So, Why &lt;i&gt;isn&apos;t&lt;/i&gt; internet access guaranteed by the US government in a similar fashion?&lt;p&gt;[1] Organizations which communicate primarily on the basis of correspondance have existed for centuries, but i&apos;d argue the majority of them have been niche and primarily affluent, e.g. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society&lt;/a&gt; or more recently science fiction fan zines.</text></comment>
<story><title>Vint Cerf: Internet Access Is Not a Human Right</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/opinion/internet-access-is-not-a-human-right.html?_r=1&amp;hpw</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sgentle</author><text>I began this piece raring to disagree, but I find it hard to fault his logic. A human right to unimpeded use of carriages would seem hilarious today, and a right to the use of landline phones will likely become so in the next decade.&lt;p&gt;We don&apos;t want to regulate specific rights as reactions to the particular issues of the day, we want to distill those issues to their essence so that we can meaningfully protect freedoms that are fundamental to meaningful human existence.&lt;p&gt;However, as others have noted here, this article leaves a couple of important points unaddressed.&lt;p&gt;Firstly, how can we be sure that the internet isn&apos;t fundamental? I can imagine arguing (in an earlier time) that legal counsel shouldn&apos;t be a human right, because we&apos;ll have something better than the legal system at some point. Yet thousands of years of human development have led only to a more complex legal system with the same fundamental ideas. Maybe the internet isn&apos;t horse-riding, maybe it&apos;s the invention of law. How do we know?&lt;p&gt;Secondly, if internet access isn&apos;t fundamental, then what is its more essential formulation? Being banned from the internet today makes you deaf, dumb and blind; much like being banned from electricity would cripple you. The difference is, nobody&apos;s trying to make three strikes laws for the power grid. We need to protect something. So what is it? The idea of free access to information? Ability to form and join networks? It&apos;s clearly not anything that&apos;s currently protected.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, there is more than just an academic interest at stake here. It&apos;s well and good to say &quot;ha ha, you see, I have a new and interesting perspective&quot;, but this is a situation where there are actual losses being made in terms of real people&apos;s access to the internet. Unless Vint Cerf is trying to say that&apos;s not important, perhaps it&apos;s a little counterproductive to make an article that shoots down a core idea for internet freedom without providing anything else of substance to fill its place.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drewcrawford</author><text>&amp;#62; A human right to unimpeded use of carriages would seem hilarious today,&lt;p&gt;In an alternate universe, the author could have used &quot;freedom of the press&quot; as the anecdote.  In 2012, where are you going to keep your printing press?  &lt;i&gt;But for the fact&lt;/i&gt; that the Constitution mentions a free &quot;press&quot;, the word would seem hilariously backwards to us today.&lt;p&gt;It is a fine thing to be paralyzed about writing legislation that &lt;i&gt;restricts&lt;/i&gt; freedom that could have unintended consequences a hundred years hence.  But I do not think that we face the same problem when recognizing a &lt;i&gt;right&lt;/i&gt;.</text></comment>