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Estonia: Where the Internet is a Human Right
securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on technological change in Estonia, where an enlightened post-Soviet era government believes the Internet is essential for life in the 21st century and backs that up with legislation declaring Internet access is a human right. Estonia is a country where hot, running water was a luxury a decade ago. It's now a place where farmers have broadband Internet, 80% of the people use online banking, Internet usage and broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe, and the government conducts most business (meetings, votes, document reviews, etc.) virtually through a system of networked computers. Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."
This story is an example of degrading "human" rights by whores in positions of political power.
What is next? The Human right to a car? How about the human right to friday's off every six months?
Where did you get this crap? Estonia was one of the most well-doing republics of the Soviet union. Hot water stopped to be a "luxury" around 1940's, as far as I can tell (I'm a former Soviet citizen).
I dunno. The u.S. government sees the telephone as a basic human right. So much so that there is STILL a tax on everyone's phone bill to pay for everybody out in a rural area to have phone service.
My journal has hot
Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match
Taking this into consideration, their system seems pretty natural. Estonia (unlike say the US) is starting their tech infrastructure from scratch. They don't have to deal with ancient systems kludged together with duct-tape or deeply entrenched telcos. If the US had an oppurtunity to start from square one, many of the problems we have wouldn't exist.
This is also a bit like the MS/Linux situation. MS made some bad decisions early, and has to deal with these decisions and peice together work-arounds. Linux was built from nothing, and has the obvious advantage of seeing what mistakes others have made and not repeating them.
As long as Estonia analyzes mistakes others have made and are careful not to repeat history (bad things), they may well end up with an example for all others on how to assemble a tech infrastructure.
I think you are confusing Estonia and Lithuania. Estonia has always been one of the better organized of the Baltic republics, even in the era of the USSR, and one of the first to define and push towards a new west-facing economy thereafter.
Dramatise if you must, but get your facts right.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
As a poster above indicated, it all depends on the exact definition and semantics. Are we talking about internet access as a right? Or is it internet freedom (as in speech) a right? Or what? In any case, I think it is reasonable to grant rights for internet freedom. For instance, if Estonia is making sure that speech, opinions, etc on the internet cannot be monitored/censored/recorded/etc then I would agree with that. However, if it is simply internet access, it is kind of a minor point. Unfortunately, I don't think the rights Estonia is bestowing is what matter--instead, they are giving minor rights which will make little difference IMO.
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
don't take too much notice of GDP / GNP figures. They're measurements of transactions. What is the use of high GDP/GNP figures when the average person doesn't have the money that is being transacted? It's a bogus measurement. A country can have very high GDP (like Singapore) and yet have a lower standard of living than a country with a GDP of 10k US$.
So if most of the transactions are going through the richest 5% of the population, what use is the measure? Namibia is in this position.
"...broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe" is another hot one. The article says that "Internet usage and broadband access are approaching West European levels." Hell, all that means is that Estonian rates are (a) lower, and (b) increasing relative to WE levels.
The article itself gives information that conveys almost nothing about usage: "Farmers are ordering broadband lines, and motorists on rural roads frequently pass blue information signs pointing them to the nearest place to access the Web." Wow, so at least 2 farmers have ordered broadband. And there are at least two signs on country highways - of course motorists frequently pass them, people drive down those roads all the time!
" Just to clarify Estonia is not an 'ex-Soviet' republic. It is an independent country that was forcibly occupied by Soviets in 1940 and regained their independence in 1990."
You do realize you just described about every Soviet republic other than Russia, right?
Alright, so the 1940 date is a little late for some of the other republics (Ukraine comes to mind), but what SSR signed on without being "convinced" to do so by the Red Army?
How much different would the discussions below look if it had been German, England, Brazil, or the U.S.?
Perhaps /. has become too Estonia-centric? ;-)
Oh yeah, IMO, it is preposterous to propose Internet access as a basic right when literacy, healthcare, housing & even potable water aren't universally accepted as basic rights, regardless of the country. No slam against Estonia intended, of course.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Christianity is Americas biggest problem.
Intolerance is America's biggest problem.
I agree. I'm very happy that Estonia is making such good progress in getting people hooked up. But the issue of the misuse of the word 'right' remains.
This is concept-destruction, using concepts in ways that contradict their meaning, and if we let people get away with it people eventually forget what a real right is. They aren't the only ones, of course, but it's still very sad to see.
A right is something that you can have without taking away someone elses, that's one of the key qualities of it. Your right to free speech doesn't stop me from talking. Your right to practise the religion of your choice, or not, doesn't stop me from having the same right. But when you're talking about goods and services, such as medical care or internet access, these aren't things that you have as long as no one interferes to take them, rather they are things that someone must work to produce. So, if you claim a 'right' to these things, what you have done is claim a 'right' to someone elses labour, a right to enslave others, essentially. There is no right, there can be no such right, it is contradictory to the core of what rights are.
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Vacations are a human right. Civilized countries have laws protecting this. The US does not.
It's a "gateway right", as are many US rights.
For example, there is nothing intrinsically beneficial about being able to carry a firearm; that lump of steal on your belt doesn't feed you, clothe you, make you happy, or help build society. Heck, you're not even allowed to fire it at most people except under special circumstances. But it's a gateway right - it positively aids in the protection of all your other rights, e.g. freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. The government knows that at any given moment a sizeable group of citizens has the ability to bring physical force to bear.
We're entering a world where information is more powerful than weaponry. Witness how much work Bush had to do on the political stage before he could invade Iraq, and how much information his army had to continuously feed out in order to keep proper appearances. In days past none of this was necessary for a superpower.
The idea that freedom to access and trade information is superior to the freedom to carrying a firearm makes perfect sense to me. Not that I would support a cancellation of the latter right, but I do recognize the shifting priorities.
And remember, all "rights" are novel. We call them "basic" or "inherent," but nature plays no part in them. All rights are contrived fictions that people created; and so every "right" has a birthday, so to speak. Today is the birthday of the Right To Internet Access. And her mother is Estonian.
What may be interesting (and wonderful) is that we now live in a world where people don't necessarily have to die for the creation and recognition of new human rights.
Depends, I guess, on what you think a "right" might be. I agree completely that the term is far too loosely thrown around these days; any self-identified group with a grievance gets the attention of your political whores by asserting "rights". OTOH, a government willing to assert that, regardless of natural law, citizens in Estonia have the fundamental right of access to information and communication, is a rare example of enlightenment in the political arena. Consider that one of the causes of the downfall of the Soviet regime was access to the Internet, with the consequent free exchange of information and ideas.
The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. -- William Gibson
Yep. As is people telling people they shouldn't be Christian because it's the bane of society. Weird conundrum, huh.
I see a lot of skepticism about this, but it makes sense. In order to understand this, you have to take a big-picture view of things. First, a few premises:
1) The standard of living worldwide is improving, and will continue to improve in the future, as far as we can tell.
2) Progress occurs mainly at the top end of society, with those at the bottom being left further behind. This is will proven by the fact that the disparity between rich and poor keeps growing larger, faster, especially in developed nations.
Now, given (1) and (2), one can consider basic human rights in the following terms: Human rights are not basic in the same sense as mathematical primitives are basic. Rather, they are basic in the sense that society, realizing that the lower classes are being left further behind , asserts that there is a lowest (most basic) allowable level of human existance. Society decides that, no matter what might otherwise have happened to a person, there are certain things that this person must have. Now, as a consequence of the fact that the standard of living continues to go up, it is logical to assume that society's opinion of the lowest allowable state will also continue to go up. The result is that rights will added to the sets of basic ones to reflect the continuing progress of society.
Consider, for example, one of the more recent, yet pervasive rights --- the right to an education. Education is free in most developed countries today. Why? Because society has decided that the education of children is too important to leave to the vagracies of a Darwinian universe, and has set a standard below which no person should fall.
Now, having internet access be a basic right seems novel, but fits logically if you consider the progress of human rights over time. Indeed, the right to internet access is merely an extension of the right to speak freely, and the right to an education. The internet is becoming critically important. Soon, I think having access to the internet will be almost as important as having access to an education. Most country's worldwide have made the latter a top priority, so, going forward, I would not be surprised to see the former becoming an increasingly important priority.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
"How is this degrading Human Rights exactly?"
By listing all sorts of "wouldn't it be nice" ideas and privileges as 'rights'. Rights are the biggies--life, liberty, pursuit of property---not this laundry list crap. Calling it a 'right' is just a cynical ploy to make an entitlement impossible to remove or de-fund at some future date. Deciding whether or not the government should pay for internet access is a normal legislative function, if you don't like it vote for somebody else. Getting rid of a 'right' to free internet access becomes a ridiculously tough struggle, with mindless NGO drones from around the world taking to the streets with the giant puppets, for reasons that are never really clear.
Calling that sort of nonsense a 'right' is the same as calling some 12-year-old building a website with FrontPage wizards a programmer. It cheapens the title for those that really deserve it. Don't let those imbeciles working on various European constitutions fool you, a right is something fundamental and undisputable, not something it would be kinda nifty to have that you don't want later unenlightened politicos to be able to take away. That's just childish, an example of one-man-one-vote-one-time that doesn't deserve to be even taken seriously.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
We think it is a damn fine idea, but we didn't make a right to telephone access part of the Constitution. See the difference? Getting rid of the tax is hard enough---no government likes to see those go away---but deciding to no longer fund a formal right would be far, far more difficult.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
Greed works, some people get rich, some get poor - they might even be richer than before, but they feel poor by comparison to the rich. Unfortunately, in case of the poor greed becomes jealousy.
They feel cheated, they want to kick the table and start a new deal (speaking in poker terms). Politicians appear who tell them they are right, and that they will change the situation. Well, if they get votes it gets funny, because there is no way to keep the promise - politicians can make the rich poor, but not the other way. Promises can be only kept by raising taxes and this of course only works for a limited amount of time.
It seems that Estonia somehow avoided this problem (they have linear tax!). I am curious why and whether they will have to deal with it in the future.
I think some of the lesson is that modernization isn't that hard -- it can happen quickly, and democratically (meaning modernization of the masses, not just the elite). Productivity -- even in an underdeveloped nation -- is high enough that a self-investment feedback loop can do incredible things.
I think that's even true in the US, if we spent more of our wealth investing in infrastructure, education, society, etc., instead of wasting it on our petty consumerist tendencies, it would be amazing what we could accomplish. Instead we go to great lengths to fritter our wealth away.
What good is the right to free speech if nobody is allowed to listen to you?
This should also be considered in the context of a post-stalinist political sensitivity. Stalin considered typewriters to be weapons of revolution -- he knew that, if the people got together and realized that others had the same idea, the recognition of agreement could cause the people to refuse to act like sheep.
In North American we're spoiled. Access to basic telecommunications is so easy and ubiquituos that we consider it to be a right. The fact that we haven't had to fight for it (yet) doesn't make it any less important.
Consider this: When the Chinese censors tried to cut off access to google, we thought that something was wrong. They weren't cutting access to the net... just one of it's search engines. Similarly, many people were upset when the government effectively shut off Mitnic from access to computers (effectively including The Internet). Many of us are living like the internet is a basic right, but we just haven't declared it so.
How would you feel if, in the midst of 9/11 or some political crisis, the government managed to shut off access to the internet "to prevent panic"? I've been on the inside of political news stories, and I do not trust the news media to report political events in a completely unbiased manner. For me the question is more one of whether or not the bias is in my direction.
The right to free speech requires the right to be heard. The interned allows people to be heard by whomever wants to listen to us. In my world, the right to the Internet is a corrolary of the right to free speech. The Estonian government has simply codified this concept.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
not much, apart from non-offensive, not remotely accurate, happy-feel-good pro-US, everyone else sucks propaganda.
"split the clouds and divide the sea and show those evil guys how nasty the Tiki gods can be."
Looking back aren't new rights given in light of their overwhelming need in an ever-changing world?
The point is that rights aren't given by anyone, with the philosophical exception of God. They are merely recognized. Modern governments recognize that people have the right to freely express their opinion, to worship as they choose, to assemble, and so on, because those are intrinsic to being human.
The poster's point is that by adding "and you have a right to running water, and a right to a 40-hour work week, and a right to Internet access, and a right to a refrigerator, and a right to 99-cent cheeseburgers with your Super Club card", governments cheapen the idea that these are fundamental human attributes and reduce them to the level of merely benefits bestowed by the government.
The American model recognizes certain God-given rights in the first ten amendments to the Constitution not to create them, but to acknowledge them so that they cannot be infringed. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments acknowledge that the list is not all-inclusive of the entire spectrum of human rights - it merely enumerates some that are so important that they are worth mentioning on their own. For good or ill, of course, the judiciary has identified more rights over the years which are not specifically enumerated, like "privacy". But the theory is that "privacy" is still not considered a government-given right, because there can't be any such thing - it is intrinsic, and simply doesn't happen to be mentioned explicitly in the Constitution.
ASA
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Not really. Obviously Estonian government is not going to give citizens net-access, what they will propably do is to make sure that they have the chance to get a net-access, no matter where they are. Yes it is same thing as with guns. US Government wont buy citizens guns, they just give them the possibility to buy guns.
And my question stands: why is right to internet not valid right whereas right to carry guns is?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."
So even thought things might look bad now in the 3rd world that is the USA, with countless homeless people, even more people living the poverty line, California and 5 other states recently bankrupt (failing to meet budget requirements) with a huge national deficit, a shaky international reputation and lack of human rights. Not to mention things are getting worse day by day. Perhaps The sates could use Estonia as a model to help pull them self out of their current slump.
No one in the USSR saw it coming either, a lot of them were laughing at how bad the USA had it, and how lucky they were to be living in the greatest nation on earth.
Guess things are just the same as always, the USA is 15 years or so behind Russia.
If you want to expand the right to free expression to explicity include open communication, so be it. It really is included already, but if you feel better about it with a formal addition, feel free to do so. Adding an explicit reference to just one single form of communication, without reference to others which exist now, or may exist at some future date, is absurd, and weakens those forms not mentioned without adding substantial protections to the one you mentioned.
Hey, the internet got listed, but the print press didn't. Maybe the print press isn't a right, lets just cancel it. The phone, too. And the radio, they can stream that over the net, right? No sense cluttering up the spectrum, it isn't a right like the internet, is it? Does that make the internet any freer than under a blanket right to free expression? No. Did everything else suffer? You bet. Unless you want to add every technology in use, and add others in as they become cool enough that you think it suddenly hits the threshhold of a 'right', then you are left with a patchwork of mindless drivel. A right to satellite radio? Sirius or XM? Hmm, a toughie. Let's just make a right to both, don't want to guess wrong, though we'll have to use tax money to prop them up if they fail.
You don't have the right to stuff. You just get the right to seek stuff. Resources are limited, and no paper decree will change that, declaring that everyone suddenly should have something won't make it so. All you accomplish is to move resources around, which you could do with a law, or you have a 'right' that isn't being enforced. Me, I prefer that only things that can realistically happen be rights - other can allow me to get stuff if I work for it, others can choose not to kill me, and others can leave me alone, and no-one else is affected or put out. No resources are tied up or forced to be allocated for future use, making them unavailable for others. I'd prefer not to set the precedent of rights getting ignored because they aren't feasible, because the next right to get ignored might be one I'm rather fonder of.
The internet is great, it enables us to do things that we only imagined just a few years ago. But it is only a technology. It doesn't live, or think, or occupy physical space. It could be superseded this time next year by a new technology that we can't even imagine today. But Estonia will still have a right to it on the books. They'll have to put money that could go into education, medicine, the arts, anything they want, into funding access to something that no-one then is even using, because someone thought it would be cool to call cheap access to a once useful communications technology a right. What hubris, to imagine that a mere set of computer codes and hardware standards are the end of science---never to be superseded---a glorious revolutionary thing that everyone everwhere at every time should have access to. Why not a right to 8-track tape, or AM radio, or the telegraph? At the time they were wonderful, but are not obsolete. In time, so too might the internet be.
A assembly of rights should be designed like the best computer program. Every possible outcome should be handled by the fewest lines of the most elegant code, reduced to only the cleanest essentials. Once you start adding in piles of extra pieces that don't belong in the core, exceptions and special circumstances that some marketi^H^H^Hpolitician demanded be included, you get bugs, you get failures, you get bad code. Simple. If you wouldn't run your computer on it, why run your country on it? You want a Constitution by Microsoft?
Me, either.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
I don't understand all this crap about: 'No, it can't be a right' or 'governments are cheapening what it means to recognise a right'.
To me, the situation is simple. The democratically-elected representatives of the Estonian have seen fit to recognise as a fundamental right access to the Internet. So what? Let them recognise whatever rights they want. TO object to a foreign government recognising a right which wouldn't fit into your own country's concept of fundamental human rights is a bit presumptuous, especially when guaranteed access to a further source of de-centralised information is an objectively good thing.
International human rights concepts should be limited to providing a baseline that all human beings are entitled to rely on. If some governments want to go further, so be it.
As others have said, the Internet as a right(as in birth->accessability) entail quite a bit of expense.(e.g. computer or similarly capable device, power, telephone, cable, dsl, or other connection) For basic speech, all you need is what you come with.
Now, free speech as it occurs online, the free exchange of information, those, like many nifty things, ought to be protected, but there's a difference between protecting them and declaring them rights.(see all the junk necessary that must be provided to prevent appearing to "obstruct those rights").
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
There is a diffrewnce between being able to express yourself in a language and passing a formal test to gain basoic rights. I'm sure that many US born citizend would not pass a formal test like TOEFL wity a good score. I believe that everyone who was born in Estonia (why should children and grandchildren pay for the sins of their fathers?) should get citizenship. If I was born in the US and my parents only taufht me chinesse or hindi I'd still be considred a US citizen with full rights
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