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Vint Cerf On Human Rights: Internet Access Isn't On the List
Gallenod writes "In an op-ed for the New York Times, Vint Cerf writes that civil protests around the world, sparked by Internet communications, 'have raised questions about whether Internet access is or should be a civil or human right.' Cerf argues that 'technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself,' and contends that for something to be considered a human right, it 'must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things.'"
Well that's funny, cos my country just said it is human right for everyone to get internet access and also access to free information. U.S., what a backwards country.
It's the right to communicate with the world community.
Anyone who feels that the Internet is a "human right" should read Bastiat's The Law. (http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html)
Internet access isn't a human right just like access to running water or electricity aren't human right -- it's not absolutely necessary for life, but it's still pretty damn important.
Facts have a liberal bias.
Lets face, it we aren't going to provide everyone with IPads, and computers. The Internet is not a right.
However, keeping the government from blocking the Internet IS a right. That's the right our right to free speech in one of its most powerful forms.
Much like the right to bear arms does not imply that you have a right to be provided with those arms, I would argue that you have right to not be prevented from using the internet by the government, but that's different from a right to be provided internet access.
His point is reasonable, though probably a bit subtle for many audiences. "Access to communication" might well be a human right, but we shouldn't add "the Internet" to a special list for the same reason that we can be glad our predecessors didn't add "telegraph service" to the list.
In that manner, all other definitions of "human rights" can be accommodated by the simple expedient of mutually consenting co-habitation.
This means "secession" must be incorporated into the foundation of all notions of "human rights" -- secession of individuals as well as groups of individuals. For what is slavery but making it impractical for an individual to secede? Denial of individual secession was the core evil of the Dred Scott decision.
Tyranny of the majority, limited only by a vague laundry list of selectively enforced human rights -- the sine qua non of "liberal democracy" -- must submit to the right to secede or it violates truth and freedom, hence all social good.
See Secession from Slavery to Free Scientific Society.
*Yes, this does mean there does not exist, at present, a legitimate government anywhere.
Seastead this.
first amendment covers this. and, you have the rights to your free speech. nice. where ?
.... oh wait - that last bit turned out not to be a right.
........
in your house, among your friends, in your neighborhood, or in a public park which you can put a stool and step on it to give a speech
so, you have a right, but the means to exercise it are not your rights. so basically, whomever has the most money can publish newspapers, run tvs or appear in tvs, and all the rest 95% people like you just end up 'free speeching' among your own social circle
and in contrast, internet access as of this point fixes all of these - you CAN actually exercise that free speech right AS it should be - in a way that it would matter. you can broadcast to millions if they are interested, you can be read for millions if they are interested, and these cost you very minimal amounts.
take it away and what remains ? only the means to exercise your free speech as a rather vocal member of your own small social circle.
totally harmless. as they want you to be.
Read radical news here
The internet may be the medium through which those rights can be transmitted, and so it is indeed important, but the internet itself isn't a right.
Freedom of speech and freedom of information are what the important things and it is these that should be these that get the attention. Access to the internet isn't and shouldn't be a right, but it should be recognized that being blocked from the internet is infringing or restricting your rights to free speech and information.
It is the rights themselves that are important, not the technology through which these rights are accessed, because that technology can change through time. from what i see in the summary i agree...We need to focus on the actual rights not the technology.
Inalienable rights are inherent in your existence. They are not given to you by a government, although a government should protect these rights from infringement by others. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
Thus, internet access is not a right. But you do have the right to access the internet, should you so choose.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Freedom of speech is the important thing, not the way you exercise it.
so are you saying that 100 years ago that the telegraph should have been considered a human right? it would have no meaning now.
what happens 100 years from now when the internet is viewed as outdated as the telegraph is today? freedom of speech/information will still be viewed as a right. no one will care about the internet 100 years from now except the old guy yelling at the kids on his lawn.
Restricting people from using the internet could potentially infringe on their right to freedom of speech and information, such as i think you are trying to get at in your quote, however the internet itself is not a right.
Confusing government-provided services and entitlements with "rights" sets a dangerous precedent.
The idea that "rights" are granted by government only makes it easier for governments to take them away.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
You do not need a gun to live your life well. You can trust your government to protect you.
I'm sure that there are some Libyans, Syrians, Iraqis and North Koreans that might take issue with your statements. Oh, and Jews. And Tibetans. And Bosnians. And Cambodians. And Chinese. And like, Half of Africa. But those are just the few I could rattle off in 30 seconds, there might be more.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
What's "freedom of speech" worth if you cannot get heard? What's "freedom to information" worth if you cannot access any information but the one that you are "supposed" to get? What's freedom of conscience worth if you only get to hear the indoctrinations of the state-sanctioned church?
Technology might not be a right. But without it, some rights are quite meaningless.
So you have a government protected, nay, supported, right to sit in front of my house at 2:00 AM with a loudspeaker truck?
You have the right to talk, you have no right to be heard.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What's "freedom of speech" worth if you cannot get heard?
This is why the First Amendment to the US Constitution includes the right to peaceable assembly and to petition the government (basically, a right "to be heard" in the proper context for democratic debate and protest). I would consider the Internet to be a peaceable assembly, provided no laws are being broken (copyright is in fact a valid law established in the Constitution, so there is that) so it would automatically be protected under that Amendment already. Whether a judge thinks so or not is another question: they seem to have a habit of reading whatever the hell they want in the Constitution.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The [US] 1st amendment already covers this. There is no need to further clutter up our founding documents with some "right" to access the internet. The Constitution is vaguely silent on your "right" to access the library yet I don't hear you calling us backwards for that.
That's the one, freedom of expression — unsuppressed communication with local and global communities.
We've seen social media sites act as catalysts to revolutions in places that restrict other forms of expression. This is largely because it is very difficult to suppress "the internet" as a whole, or even specific popular general interest sites.
The printing press and books aren't "human rights" either, just a means by which to achieve communication (expression). What we need is to draw a firm line that shows that, at the moment, the internet is the predominant form of communication and must therefore be protected as a human right; the term "free press" needs a modern equivalent.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Interesting, so your doctors are slaves, then?
How humanitarian.
I haven't logged into slashdot for a really long time. But I felt the need to do so just to point out how I feel that Vint's outlook might be a bit shortsighted. Sure, today I might agree as an American that the Internet isn't necessarily a right unto itself. But for the people in the countries he mentions who have managed to enact some serious political change because of their ability to easily communicate, it certainly is a much more tangible quality right now for them to have that ability to easily communicate seeing how the governments involved usually tried to remove that ability almost from the beginning in each and every case. Bottom line is, people communicating is pretty much the only force which can actually topple governments every time. There's a cetain tipping point, a critical mass, an amount of momentum - call it what you will - that movements, like those throughout Africa and the Middle East just recently, require to make change actually happen. But once they hit that point, there's really nothing to prevent them from achieving their goals, short of wholesale destruction by nuclear weapons or some equivalent. It's the same kind of thing that needs to happen in the USA to help mitigate the impending collapse of empire, but that's a different post altogether.
Anyway, that's just today. We're going to be living in a world in the not too distant future where each and every one of us is plugged into some sort of global communication network, directly, biologically. And yes, that network will be ensuring the safety, health, and happiness of everyone on planet Earth. In the beginning, it will most likely be a sort of LifeCall system. Everyone will have the ability for EMS/paramedics to arrive on your location within minutes of a life threatening event, regardless of where you are. Later on, that same global communication network will be allowing you to instantly communicate via thought with anyone you know on the planet. Hell, we're almost there today aside from the total lack of coverage in large, mostly uninhabited or extremely poor portions of the globe. But it will happen eventually. And after that, you'll be accessing information in real time, probably with a retinal heads up disaply, about your surroundings on a constant basis. Where to go to find something? How much something costs? How fast you're moving? All of this will be right there for you to see, at the turn of a thought. And that's only the very tip of the iceberg using my kind of thinking today. How fundamentally life altering will it be for every person on this planet to be essentially wired directly into one another. Memes already spread culture and thinking across vast sections of the population. What happens when those memes become instantaneous and pervasive, presented in thoughts, sights, sounds, smells and touch possibly even?
Just as important as GPS is to the miltaries of the world today, which is why both China and the EU have started launching their own constellation of GPS satellites to remove reliance on the US system, access to the always on, directly connected global communication network will be in the future, for every single citizen of planet Earth.
Is it going to be awhile before we get there? Sure. But that doesn't necessarily mean we should ignore fighting for those rights now. Especially with the direction the world has started to turn lately. I applaud the places in the world already moving to guarantee these rights for their citizens now. Because like it or not, the Internet as our current global communication network is here to stay, and it does enable people to change their worlds entirely, today. That's important. And there are very entrenched powers who are already trying to limit our access and use of said network. Sure, it might be done in the name of intellectual property protection today. But what will be the reasoning tomroow? To prevent dissent amongst the populous? One can only imagine.
Anyway, something to think about. It will most likely have evolve
why don't we generalize it to that for the 21st century, rather than talking about specific means like "the press".
Then any restraint of those human rights would need a constitutionally and legal valid reason.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Maybe I've missed some case, but it seems to me that there's a simple test for what is a basic human right:
It's something that other people/the government can only take away from you, not give to you.