Brazil Approves Internet Bill of Rights

First time accepted submitter Dr.Potato (247646) writes "After more than three years being discussed, Brazil's Internet Bill of Rights was approved on April 22nd (and in Portuguese). It was rushed through the senate in order that president Dilma Roussef could sign it during the meeting on internet governance that occurs in São Paulo this week. In the bill of rights, among other things, net neutrality was maintained, providers will not be legally responsible for content published by users (but are forced to take it down when legally requested) and internet providers are obliged to keep records of users' access for six months and can't pass this responsibility to other companies." Brazilian internet users may continue to have the right to be surveilled on social media, too.

Comments

"Obliged to keep records of users' access"

[PapayaSF]

internet providers are obliged to keep records of users' access for six months

Exactly whose "rights" are they talking about?

Rights are not things that are given

[Anonymous Coward]

Rights given by men, can be taken by men; they are therefore not rights.

If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.

Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.

No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as “the right to enslave.”

If the internet is turned off, does a Brazilian have the right to force other men to turn it back on? This is absurd, there is no "right" to internet service any more than there is a right to free healthcare, housing, MTV or iPads.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[Anonymous Coward]

Rights are inherent things, call it god given or natural, whatever you like. But they are not things granted by others, those things are privliges.

You have the right to life for example, you do not have the right to eat steak every day. Do you disagree with this?

That some government recogize rights and some do not is clear, but you cannot just make them up as you please, it doesn't work that way.

Pretending that things are rights that clearly are not in fact cheapens those things that are rights.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Wow! A religious nutter. What a surprise.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[Anonymous Coward]

"everyone has right to free healthcare"

Good for you. But it's still not a right.

Firstly nothing is free, this is not a matter of opinion, this is simply truth, like gravity, *things* cost *money* and healthcare is a thing.

If you have a right to healthcare, who pays for it? How much do doctors get paid? What if the doctor decides he wants more money than the state is willing to pay?

I will tell you what; if healthcare is a right that is to be enforced by the state, then the state has to force the doctor to work for the going rate. We call that slavery. If they fail to do this then you have no healthcare then do you?

Slavery is not a right, period. Nice society you have there Mr. Brazillian.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[Obfuscant]

Fun fact: your right to life is inviolate only for as long as everyone around you agrees to it.

You are confusing rights with conditions. Your right to life is independent of your neighbors, otherwise "inalienable" it would not be. Whether your neighbors violate your right is a different matter.

Feel free to explain how that differs from a privilege.

Privileges can be revoked without legal repercussions.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

The truth is far more interesting, I believe in, and our country recognizes, your right to be anti-religous, But you must understand that your belief that there is no god is itself an act of faith, is it not?

Do you understand that your believe that there is no Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, or Flying Spaghetti Monster, are all acts of faith? Or do you simply lack a belief in those things?

Lacking a belief in something because there is no evidence that it exists is not faith. I simply acknowledge that science has a good track record (unlike your useless "faith") of getting us closest to the truth, and if there is no scientific evidence that something exists, I simply lack a reason to believe in it. If that is "faith" to you, then your definition of "faith" is indeed worthless.

That's pretty reasonable don't you think?

That depends on what you think qualifies as a "right." And the magical bullshit makes it unreasonable to me.

And you will note that at no point do I refer to you as a nutter. You're welcome.

I will, however, refer to you as an ignorant nutter. You don't understand atheists or faith. You're welcome.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[HiThere]

Rights are a term used in rhetoric, originally invented to convince theistic believers that their god made them inherent.

You don't even have the right to breathe. You, instead, have the need to breathe. However, as has been proven throughout history, this need can be overridden by someone with more power. And then you die.

This same thing is true of all other "rights". The term was invented to arouse emotional support, and it works for that purpose. It has no other meaning or function in nature. It does have other meanings in law, but even there it is subject to being overridden by those more powerful.

For that matter your assertion that "Any alleged âoerightâ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right." is merely an assertion. If there is a "right" to self-defense, then there will come occasions where two different indivicuals will have conflicting rights. Which, logically, would mean that there could be no unlimited right of self defense, but rather it would need to be fenced in with conditions such that two people's right could never come into conflict. Just try to create such a statement. If you give the courts the power to decide when you have the right to speak, then the courts are the (an?) ultimate judge over how much right you have to speak. If you don't give anyone such a right, then there is no limit to fraud. Etc.

Rights, to the extent that they exist, are a social fiction by with one group exerts power over another. (Look into the history of slave holder's rights.)

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[Obfuscant]

Universal healthcare here (Brazil) is paid with tax money. It is fairer than the private healthcare system because ...

you define "fair" to include the concept of taking things from someone who works to get them to give them to someone who doesn't. This is "fair" to the people who get things; patently unfair to those who get things taken away. Since there are generally more people who want their stuff to be paid for by other people than those who want to buy other people stuff, this make this, on average, "fair".

What isn't discussed in this idea of "fair" is what happens when the population of people this is "fair" for grows past the ability of the rest to pay for it. And certainly, this balance is shifting the wrong way, pushed more and more by those who want to create class envy so the demarcation moves even faster. "Those awful rich people" owe everyone else, so taking it all away from them to give it to us is "fair".

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[Obfuscant]

It is because of this north-american mentality that humanity will be extinct soon, friend.

I am not your friend and your use of the term is insulting. There is also no such "north-american mentality" that you think exists. The idea that you don't get is one of personal responsibility, where the primary responsibility for one's well being is not "all those rich people", but oneself.

Where do you read what I wrote that would be "just for some"?

It is "just for some" because there are, indeed, people who make very little, if any, use of the health care system. The rich people who can afford private care to avoid the waiting time will pay to do so, meaning they get nothing at all out of the public health care system. The healthy young people who choose to opt-out of the health care system also get nothing. Yet both groups pay heavily in taxes. And ACA is forcing them to pay for health insurance when they would otherwise not.

Is for ALL, dude,

Nor am I "dude".

a concept the U.S. are unable to accept. ALL pay a portion via taxes and ALL receive the benefits.

Except not all do. I don't accept that all do because I know that not all do. You may want to believe that your cousin Bob being able to get a hangnail treated in the ER is a benefit to me, but in reality it isn't. And if you keep track of the debate, a large part of the success of the ACA (aka Obamacare) depends on healthy young people (who are not participating in the health care system today because they don't need to) joining the risk pool to pay for the existing condition participants costs. These young people are the ones who do not benefit from a taxpayer funded healthcare system because they pay taxes for something they don't use.

It is not perfect and never will be, but it is light years ahead of joke U.S. private healthcare system where those who can afford will live, and who can not pay ... dies.

Please don't speak about the US system if you don't understand it.

Keep your sick culture to yourself, please.

It is not my culture where everyone needs healthcare to keep from dieing. I'm also not forcing any "culture" onto you, I'm merely pointing out the flaw in the logic that it is "fair" to redistribute wealth to meet the desires of the poor. You do what you want to, and I'll invite YOU out of the ACA discussions since you're not willing to let others comment on your system.

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[penguinoid]

Rights are inherent things, call it god given or natural, whatever you like. But they are not things granted by others, those things are privliges.

You have the right to life for example, you do not have the right to eat steak every day. Do you disagree with this?

These seem rather similar. I was granted life by my parents. I was granted nutrition by my parents, who acquired said resources through a complicated web of colleges, researchers, engineers, factories, government-built roads, culminating in high-yield farms growing special seeds with complex equipment, plus their jobs. You can't claim you have a right to life but no right to eat, because without food you die. You can't claim your privilege to life does not interfere with my right to shoot bullets wherever I like, or to poison you indirectly via pollution. All your so-called rights are equivalent to your so-called privileges, granted by men, restricting the freedoms of other men, and able to be taken away by men, eg by shooting you in the head.

No, what you're looking for is the difference between laws that forbid an action, vs laws that require an action (and thus directly cost someone resources).

That some government recogize rights and some do not is clear, but you cannot just make them up as you please, it doesn't work that way.

Pretending that things are rights that clearly are not in fact cheapens those things that are rights.

And I think you're cheapening the importance of communication, a pre-requisite to the very democracy that grants you the privileges of life (protected by laws regarding medicine, murder, pollution, and safety) and liberty (protected by the police and military). As population size and world complexity increases, do you think advances in communication are unnecessary to keep our democracy running efficiently?

Re:Rights are not things that are given

[tragedy]

you define "fair" to include the concept of taking things from someone who works to get them to give them to someone who doesn't.

"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." -- Anatole France

That's the fairness of the law. Sometimes it swings the other way. Rich men and poor men alike have to, for example, contribute a percentage of their income above a certain amount in taxes. Poor men are just as obligated to pay in the highest tax bracket as rich men if they happen to have the same income. I have to say that the problem that you and your ilk have with this idea about people being robbed to pay for other people's healthcare is that you're far too laser-focused on the _now_. What's recognized by those in health care, including the for-profit insurance industry, is that someone who is healthy today and doesn't need any health care that they can't pay for may well be sick and in dire financial straits due to that fact tomorrow (figuratively speaking). Not to mention that people's fortunes wax and wane. I've seen people who formerly complained about how this or that social welfare program was robbing them end up having to use it. Generally, they don't see the light, they just grumble that they were forced to pay for it, so they might as well use it and ignore the fact that they've just been saved by a safety net.

And the government...

[fredprado]

has just given itself the right to apply censure in whatever it pleases, by using this law as a Trojan Horse and inserting in it a vague statement regarding what is unacceptable and not protected by freedom of speech.

Net Neutrality

[TheSync]

"hat goes some length towards protecting net neutrality"

Where exactly is this stated in the actual document?

Re:Net Neutrality

[rtb61]

It is pretty clear in "Freedom of expression: everyone has the right to hold and express opinions, and to seek, receive, and impart information on the Internet without arbitrary interference." as in 'without arbitrary interference'. Also there is "avoiding arbitrary or unlawful collection of personal data and surveillance" as in you can not analyse people's data packets in order to treat 'arbitrarily interfere' with different kinds of data being transmitted. Not to forget " Everyone should have the right to access, share, create and distribute information on the Internet." as in 'distribute information'.

So net neutrality is pretty well covered without mention the specific words net neutrality which have already by opposed by PR douche bags and right wing politicians.

This makes it easier for the NSA

[wiredog]

internet providers are obliged to keep records of users' access for six months
Nothing like making it easy to build the list of links for an ISP by putting all the data in one place. Bet it's online accessible, too.

As a Brazilian

[CmdrEdem]

Keeping net neutrality is a huge win. Other articles in the bill are very positive too.

The shitty part is the record keeping. As far as my legalspeak goes, and that is almost nothing, what I understood is that if I have a website I have to maintain a 6 month record of all my visitors. I'm guessing that they refer to general access logs, just like Apache access log files or some equivalent. What I did understand is that ISPs cannot keep those records. But I might be very wrong. Either interpretation is bad anyway, so it does not matter much how bad it is.

What bothers me more is that our equivalent to the FCC (Anatel) is building a database and backdoor access to all ISPs client data. If what I heard is right (two sources working in a third party developer for a local ISP) they will have access to every byte sent through every Internet connection in the country. The buffer size I do not know. THAT bothers me a lot.