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Europe Proposes International Internet Treaty
Stoobalou writes "Europe has proposed an Internet Treaty to protect the Internet from the political interference which threatens to break it up. The draft international law has been compared to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which sought to prevent space exploration being pursued for anything less than the benefit of all human kind. The Internet Treaty would similarly seek to preserve the Internet as a global system of free communication that transcends national borders."
Europe is not a country. You need to clarify what institution in Eurpoe proposed this treaty, the European Union for example.
The european parliament, the council, some other organisations or perhaps a country from Europe?
The article is a little bit light on detail.
Wait, wait, wait. What about ACTA? I thought that was supposed to get us all on the same page. The one treaty to, in the darknets, bind them.
Just as the declarations of international human rights in the past, even if this is passed, it will be another silly international resolution with no binding effect on individual countries. While I agree with the purpose of this law more than the international declaration on human rights, it doesn't make this any less pointless. I would certainly like to see countries stop regulating the internet but there has to be a better way to go about protecting individual internet freedoms.
Whereas the status quo does not. In Europe it is common to have bureaucrats who put into place censorship in the form of hate speech laws which don't have any clear cut boundaries (who gets to decide what kind of speech is hateful?) and I'd rather not have them be enforced for "the benefit of humanity." Besides, I don't see such a treaty being signed by countries such as Iran, China, Cuba, etc.
In other words, this sounds like a bad idea.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
As ostensibly noble-minded as this is, it's a means of saying "an international body should make internet rules". If they can have authority to force some things to be allowed, that same authority can be used to have other things banned. I would worry over any treaty that allows other nations sovereignty over what I can view or post, as many of my views on individual rights run counter to European governmental values (the freedom to own weapons that are effective against modern police and infantry, and to use them in violent acts of rebellion and insurgency should the need ever arise; the freedom to criticize religious organizations and dogma when they demonize me or attempt to seize secular power; the freedom to keep the rewards of my work rather than subsidizing others who have no intent to work at all).
Thanks, but no thanks. My political speech is already protected, I can already look at jigglers and danglers belonging to consenting adults, and there is no circumstance under which I would permit a European treaty body to have even the slightest authority over me, regardless of its stated purpose. Bureaucracies only grow, and they only do so by expanding their realm of control.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
They were 'pseudo-political' enough to stop ACTA, unlike corporate-political nations.
Sad, Sad, Sad...
A Treaty such as this would only accomplished exactly what it is pretending to prevent. Use your brain people!
We already have the power to accomplish what this bill indicates, yet I hear no elected officials even remotely advancing ideas to that end. We only need to get the general ignorant population from voting in people with special interests... namely any candidate from any party! George Washington warned everyone about the evils of a party system in his farewell address, but 200 years later, even after he basically predicted the Civil War, we pay him no heed!
This treaty would only accomplish more control over the internet. You people forget how cunning a government is by making your believe that you are getting more with each bill signed into law, having only been taken!
...but first, you're never going to legislate away nationally motivated cybercrime, so that's out.
Second, as far as I can tell it was the Europeans who started getting all squirrelly about the 'nationalism' on the net when the US wouldn't do what they wanted.
No country worth it's peoples' loyalty is going to voluntarily give its sovereignty to the UN, a non-democratic pack of calumnious backbiters or bored dilettantes, depending on who you're speaking about.
Meh. It's the Internet. The US built it. If you don't like it or the rules it's operating under, build your own.
-Styopa