Open Consultation Begins On Italy's Internet Bill of Rights

Anita Hunt (lissnup) writes: Hot on the heels of Brazil's recent initiative in this area, Italy has produced a draft [PDF] Declaration of Internet Rights, and on Monday opened the bill for consultation on the Civici [Italian] platform, a first in Europe. "[A]s it is now, it consists of a preamble and 14 articles that span several pages. Topics range from the 'fundamental right to Internet access' and Net Neutrality to the notion of 'informational self-determination.' The bill also includes provisions on the right to anonymity and tackles the highly debated idea of granting online citizens a 'right to be forgotten.' Measures are taken against algorithmic discriminations and the opacity of the terms of service devised by 'digital platform operators' who are 'required to behave honestly and fairly' and, most of all, give 'clear and simple information on how the platform operates.'"

Comments

'right to be forgotten'

[fustakrakich]

That means censorship. Unacceptable.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Anonymous Coward]

And mentioning "informational self-determination" in this context makes clear what is wrong with the notion that an individual should control all information about them. It's the same fallacy that forced Google Maps to blur photos of public space. We're already beyond censoring news and opinions: this is an attempt to censor reality itself.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

Depends,

when the first thing that shows up in a google search about you is a court filing about you driving drunk when in college and 21 and you know HR will google you, you may start to wonder 10 years later how many of those times you got turned down were due to them wanting to "play safe". As a matter of fact, people have become much more controlled in their social media, some may say "self censoring".

You see, internet never forgets, even when throwing out irrelevant information is part of the process of understanding reality.

We've all read 1984 and I already hear the howls "that's Mintrue!" but the reality is that there is a right to individual privacy, even in your Constitution and its amendments.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Anonymous Coward]

1. We need a better social safety net. I say a negative income tax. Some say a guaranteed minimum income. This would help the lazy, unemployable, unemployed, disabled, etc. get by enough to live. Right now, our society seems more focused on ignoring the most vulnerable of us, and I think that would be the homeless.
2. "Right to be forgotten" laws should affect the source of the information, not those who index it. If this at all.
3. Make it ILLEGAL for a business to discriminate against you based on certain things. While it may be hard to enforce the law against would-be illegal practices, it has to start somewhere. Kind of like how it's illegal to discriminate against someone based on their race, 40+ years old, in some states sexual orientation, etc.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[frinsore]

What if the first thing that shows up in a google search about you is a court filing about someone else that shares the same name as you? Any HR department that takes a google search at face value isn't doing its job.

I think the "right to be forgotten" idea has good intentions but the problem is similar to the RIAA's resistance to the internet. A better reaction would be to give an alternative to people treating search engines and random internet sites as authoritative sources of information and instead give people something that they can trust that includes all relevant information. It could be similar to a credit score or a government run webpage that includes every individual's public information.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of like how it's illegal to discriminate against someone based on 40+ years old

I'd like your world. I keep seeing "PhD, 5 years of experience in [technical speciality], a couple in [mostly unrelated specialities], 5 years experience in project management [that's not compatible with being a technical specialist]. "

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does this "negative income tax" come from? The government? Oh, you mean I should pay more taxes to support those who choose to not work?

Sorry, we don't owe those who are merely lazy anything.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[91degrees]

I agree with #1 but I don't think it's really dealing with the problem. Nor is #3. The employment thing is a tangible example, but the general principle is a philosophy that we should not be haunted by past mistakes.

#2 is where the real meat is. You are quite right that it shouldn't be down to Google. But should the "forgetting" be an automated process? There are various things on the internet that I'm quite proud of or at least happy to keep around. But then, having to explicitly request to be forgotten has its problems - for one thing, we shouldn't be able to censor relevant up to date information about ourselves. Part of that will be our right to be forgotten request. People who have made these demands so far have become pretty famous as a result.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Anonymous Coward]

I still say a negative income tax to help those in poverty. Something like (Poverty Level - Federal AGI) / 2 = credit, pretty much for those aged 22+ years old. For a single individual who has no income, it'd be about $5,750. Whether someone is lazy or not, I don't think we should treat people as worthful based on their economic viability.

I don't know how #3 could work yet, but I still think it's viable to look into. If we made it illegal for businesses to consider anything over let's say 7 years old in terms of employing us, giving us loans, etc. under penalty of a fine. So if it's determined that a business has used a search and discovered pictures of drug use form let's say 8 years ago, that wouldn't be permissible to not hire someone. Now, if it were 6 years ago, that would be recent enough. Then again, there are some people out there that think some people should be punished for their past by not being able to be employed, perhaps ending up homeless, etc. Which is also where #1 comes in.

I still think it's important to try pulling up everyone, even if someone is lazy, unemployable, or unemployed. I still think we should have a negative income tax or guaranteed income. Maybe there's no good economic reason to do so, but what about just for the sake of being humane to everyone regardless of economic progress? The only downside is if it increases people choosing not to work. Maybe for some, but I don't think it would become a problem. If it did, the program could.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[91degrees]

Personally, I quite like living in a world where people who can't get a job don't die of starvation.

What's your view on the enthusiastic hard worker who can't get a job because they only jobs they are capable of doing are already being done by someone in Africa, who can work for a couple of dollars a day?

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[olewis]

How would you determine between those that "can't" get a job and those that would choose "not" to get a job because they can freeload? Just because a person can't get a job as management or a high-paying IT position doesn't mean there are no jobs available and no work.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[91degrees]

I have no idea how to do that, so my proposal is to accept that some people will sponge off the system.

So you are saying ther are plenty of jobs? Why does the unemployment rate fluctuate? Surely the number of lazy people is a constant. Are you seriously suggesting that there is nobody who can't get a job?

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[AmiMoJo]

That means censorship. Unacceptable.

No. That means commercial companies cannot store certain information about you, for profit, without your consent. As an individual you are still free to remember or speak about a subject, but companies are not people and do not have a right to freedom of speech in the EU.

Re: 'right to be forgotten'

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, part of any government handout should be required work of increasing ick factor. If you remove peoples preferences for work and their avoidance of moving there are always jobs.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Archangel Michael]

I have no idea how to do that

Yes you do. But you have eliminated it as an option because you think it is humanitarian. Besides, there is no reason why people "starve" in first world countries. Between Government and Charity and plain old "will work for food" signs (which are lies for the most part), there is very little chance of someone starving. There is, however, a much higher chance of me inhaling second hand Pot Smoke walking through our downtown park though. It seems, your "starving" people are too stoned to realize they are hungry. Which seems odd considering my college days filled with the munchies.

Suffice it to say, I love people who make excuses for the lazy being lazy. /sarcasm

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[tlhIngan]

What if the first thing that shows up in a google search about you is a court filing about someone else that shares the same name as you? Any HR department that takes a google search at face value isn't doing its job.

I think the "right to be forgotten" idea has good intentions but the problem is similar to the RIAA's resistance to the internet. A better reaction would be to give an alternative to people treating search engines and random internet sites as authoritative sources of information and instead give people something that they can trust that includes all relevant information. It could be similar to a credit score or a government run webpage that includes every individual's public information.

Sure, that's great, if you have a common enough name that millions probably share it. But if you have an uncommon name, or a unique spelling such that Google only turns up a few people, it's rapidly very easy to see who's who.

The right to be forgotten does not remove source articles. Just because you submit a request, doesn't mean the newspaper is forced to remove the article from its archives. No, the right to be forgotten applies to links. Perhaps if you Google your name, it brings up a DUI from 20 years ago you did (you were a young, reckless college student). All it means is that if people do the search of your name only, that no longer shows up. If they search by DUIs, then yes, your name shows up because it's true. But it shouldn't be the first damn thing that shows up if you've lead an exemplary life from then on.

In fact, rich people don't need this right because they hire "brand managers" that do this very thing. These companies use SEO and other techniques to bury bad news later on in the search because they know only about 30% of people make it to the second page of results, maybe 10% to the third, and 1% to the fourth. If you can get some bad thing put on page 10, it's "forgotten".

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[91degrees]

Between Government ...

Now I'm confused. You're fine with people mooching off the state now?

It seems, your "starving" people are too stoned to realize they are hungry.

Well, they're not. They get government handouts. If we're giving handouts to those who don't work and can't work anyway, I see no reason this makes a difference.

Having been unemployed a few times myself, and not spent any money on pot, and not been able to get a job I was overqualified for, I kinda feel that your projudices aren't based on real world experience.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[mpercy]

"Personally, I quite like living in a world where people who can't get a job don't die of starvation. "

Me too. Which is why I advocate a voucher system for as much rice and beans as a person could want, and will throw in multi-vitamins and a rice cooker to boot. and turning closed military bases into homeless shelters where anyone can come to live, so long as they work in the fields to help grow their own food, help cook the meals, help wash dishes, help paint the walls, etc.

No one should starve, but there's no reason to provide them with McDonalds (The states of Florida, California, Arizona and Michigan already allow select restaurants like Golden Corral, McDonald's, Subway, some Yum! properties and others to accept food stamps.) and rabbit tarragon (http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched/). Likewise, no one should go homeless, but neither should they expect to have a home provided to them without any effort on their part. And if you can't afford to feed, house, and clothe your kids (Somebody need to pay for my 15 kids - YouTube), perhaps we should take them from you and place with with families and/or facilities that can.

You seem to expect taxpayers to provide a lower-middle-class lifestyle via a negative income tax or minimum guaranteed income to everyone and not even minimal effort on their part, no any negative consequences for abusing the safety net system.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[91degrees]

I really think basic income is a completely different issue from the right to be forgotten. But I think it is an excellent idea in its own right. And I do agree that it deals with a symptom.

I wonder if you could deal with #3 by only supplying a first name and a unique business-only identifier. It wouldn't be secure against a determined effort to break the law, but casual curiousity would be more difficult, and a company at least wouldn't be able to have a policy of doing this.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[fustakrakich]

That's bullshit. Nobody has any right to tell me what information I can store.The only right you have is to control how it is used as evidence. Are you going to come and take and burn my books because they might contain information you don't want disclosed? Now you want to steal my possessions. Fuck that! Well, regardless, I'm looking for technical means to make censorship impossible through distributed storage and mesh, whatever it takes to stop the tyrants in their tracks, because obviously you can't reason with idealists, and then we won't have to hear about it anymore. They can whine all they want and we can ignore them.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Archangel Michael]

You're fine with people mooching off the state now?

Reality doesn't mean I agree or disagree. The reality is, there are PLENTY(perhaps too many) of programs designed to keep people from starving to death. This is the reality. My statement was one of fact, not opinion.

Well, they're not.

Not stoned? Well the ones I was talking about are. And they manage to figure out how to get stoned, but not manage how to hold a job. But then again, that right there might be the problem. They would rather be stoned and sponge off the labor of others than actually hold a job. Yes, they exist, in quantities to be noticed every day in my city.

we're giving handouts to those who don't work and can't work anyway, I see no reason this makes a difference.

Can't work, and wont' work are two different things. Equating them does a disservice to both classes.

Having been unemployed a few times myself, and not spent any money on pot, and not been able to get a job I was overqualified for, I kinda feel that your projudices aren't based on real world experience.

I've been unemployed, under employed. Heck, I came to this town with a suitcase and a backpack, and had a job before I had a place to live. Is that real world enough. My prejudices are what allowed me to figure out that I could make it in this world, simply by working hard and smart. And your not smoking pot has nothing to do with the homeless in our downtown that smells of Pot 24/7.

Tobacco companies need to figure out the "Medicinal" value of cigarettes so that they can get the same pass as pot smoking.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[AmiMoJo]

Nobody has any right to tell me what information I can store.

You are still thinking about this as an individual, and the right to be forgotten doesn't affect individuals. You can keep all the information you want for personal use. It's only businesses that are required to forget certain things in a commercial capacity.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

That people "choose to not work" is a neo-con fallacy; the assumption being that markets - therefore labor requirements - have infinite demand and to stay unemployed can only be a voluntary state. That's simply not true.

As for worrying about the lazy bums gaming social security, you should be more careful about the con-artists in wall street that have thrown our entire global economy off the cliff to afford their fix of coke and strippers...

Re: 'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

And companies will keep doing their usual: "will employ a debt-laden, highly-skilled workhorse for pennies, you're desperate anyway" game.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

You seem to confuse "discriminatory, exclusive, exploitative system" with "guilty of not bootstrapping an economic empire from nothing but their bare hands"; and you're generalizing BTW.

When you live in a society that kicks you down the bottom of the social ladder and hands you a shovel to dig further down, you can expect some to give up.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

I wonder where does all this animosity against pot come from, you're from NL by any chance?

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

You seem to not understand that the McDonald vouchers are pork for the fast-food corps rather than a sincere effort to help these folks in need.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[curious.corn]

That's the whole point... there are different perspectives to this problem and they're not limited to binary: fuck all vs. nazi fahrenheit 451 book-burning thugs. Besides, we humans, as a social species need to adapt and evolve new behavioral patterns to manage this very recent extreme progress in information storage and retrieval.

Takes time...

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[fustakrakich]

Doesn't work that way. Business makes the rules. The individual has given up that power. Regardless, forcing me to burn my books is a crime. Plus you're demanding control of what I can look for and see. The restrictions you are asking for are corrupt by default and will be abused, in fact they already have been. I'll do my own filtering on my own machine.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Archangel Michael]

I have nothing against people smoking pot. I'm sick of people claiming to be "hungry" and "looking for work" ;) ;) filling our Downtown Park with Pot smoke. Or do you think they should get a pass because they are "homeless"?

Oh, most of the "homeless" are that way because of poor life choices...

http://verkoren.files.wordpres...

 

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Archangel Michael]

When you live in a society that kicks you down the bottom of the social ladder and hands you a shovel to dig further down, you can expect some to give up.

The only ones I know telling people they can't make it are liberals. "Your too stupid/poor/wrong color we have to help you! "

There are plenty of people proving your assertion wrong. Dr Ben Carson is a great example.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[david_thornley]

Can't work, and wont' work are two different things. Equating them does a disservice to both classes.

They aren't as distinct as they look. Particularly among people with marginal mental health and/or marginal skills, they blend together, and those are most of the problem cases. The rest of the people either can find jobs or there aren't the jobs out there, and that's not too difficult to find out. When I was on unemployment insurance, they required certain levels of job-finding activity, and I exceeded those levels considerably.

It's always dangerous to judge soley on one's real-world experience. An individual person may be exceptional in some way, so that the experience doesn't apply to most people. An individual person may be lucky or unlucky without realizing it. I've noticed a tendency among people who got themselves out of bad circumstances to assume other people can do the same, and that's not always true.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[david_thornley]

What if the first thing that shows up in a google search about you is a court filing about someone else that shares the same name as you? Any HR department that takes a google search at face value isn't doing its job.

That's not actually true. The business goal is to hire somebody good, not to make sure to hire the best available, and is definitely not to be fair to applicants. Particularly in cases with lots of reasonable-looking applicants, the business is going to want to narrow those down fast. If a quick Google search on you shows an unpleasant court filing with your name, well, there's lots of other resumes in the basket, and the business value of checking to make sure that stalker wasn't actually you may be less than the business value of quickly trimming the resume pile down to a manageable height.

The HR department isn't working for you. It has no obligation to you in the hiring process.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[david_thornley]

Unacceptable to you. There are few absolute rights, and different societies have different values on different rights. The US is one of the most absolute free-speech societies around, but not all speech is permitted. In other countries, there are frequently more limitations.

All sets of rights are compromises. Your freedom to say anything means your freedom to slander me, create false alarms, incite illegal actions, and destroy the flow of information necessary for a free market. Even in the US, these are not absolutely permitted. Do I have a right to information I can rely on in some cases, or can you lie to me in all cases? In another case, do you have a right to smoke, or do I have a right to clean air?

One big difference between the US and some European countries is who owns personal information about a person. In the US, the information collector owns it. In some European countries, the person owns it. Both views have good reasons for them.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[fustakrakich]

Argument is futile, and the philosophizing is a foolish waste of time. I'm simply looking for a technical solution to censorship now, a way to make the internet indelible, and openly accessible that no authority can hinder in any way.

FYI: Smoking is not speech. The only valid limit one can impose on speech is the decibel level.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Archangel Michael]

Can't work, and wont' work

They aren't as distinct as they look

Can't is an ability. Won't is an attitude.

My wife Can't work (bad back, three blown disks, car accident). She would work if given the ability.

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[david_thornley]

As long as you're working with mentally healthy people, that difference will work pretty well. Get into the more fringe minds out there, and it becomes really questionable. I understand why your wife can't work. How about somebody with mild schizophrenia? Autism? Depression? In some of these cases, it's really hard to tell what's "can't" and what's "won't".

Re:'right to be forgotten'

[Archangel Michael]

How about somebody with mild schizophrenia? Autism? Depression? In some of these cases, it's really hard to tell what's "can't" and what's "won't".

Can't is an ability. Won't is an attitude.

Every case you mentioned, as an aspect of "can't" not "won't",

Stephen Hawking is a fantastic example of someone who "can't" but does anyway. Why? Because he has an attitude that allows him to. Making excuse for outliers doesn't do them any good.

ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

A list of entitlements, not rights. If somebody has to provide you with a supply of anything in any shape, way or form, then those are entitlements and entitlements destroy right, not provide them. Somebody has to lose his or her right not to supply you with an entitlement, for you to have that entitlement. You don't want people like Italy (or anybody), enforcing their ideas of entitlements. Let them figure out their labour entitlement system, how is that working out therr (Italy, Spain, or anywherr for that matter, where people cannot be fired because of 'rights', and what that does to freedom and eventually business and hiring).

Italy can shove it AFAIC.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, like someone who loses the right to sell you bottled water because you are entitled to drinkable tap water (for a very low price). Damn world, down with the water distribution systems!

PS - "AFAIC" That stands for what? "As Far As I Can"? Should you be bragging about that?

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

Wrong. Like somebody loses their right not to have to subsidise others with their own lives, loses their right not to have their private property stolen from them so government can buy votes by paying off those, who benefit financially by not having to pay for their own use.
Water is not an entitlement either, there is no entitlement that water has to be cleaned and provided to you by anybody and there should never be anything like that. You have the right to go drink out of a lake or a river, but you dont have an entitlement to force somebody to clean it for you and give it to you. Again, government shouldn't be in any business, water or Internet, stealing property and destroying individual rights, providing entitlements, stealing votes by purchasing them with stolen resources.

As to what you see in 'AFAIC', each one of us sees what he is personallg concerned about, so I see what your concerns and thoughts are. Get some help.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, government shouldn't be in any business, water or Internet, stealing property and destroying individual rights, providing entitlements, stealing votes by purchasing them with stolen resources.

Yes, government should never interfere with the private efforts. I wonder who would have kept Yosemite or any of the other national parks in that more or less pristine state if not for the government. Were you going to buy all that area to do nothing with it? What about that Interstate Highway System? Which private company came up with the idea? You people in the US seem to think privatizing everything is the way to go. Chicago's school of thought for the win, it's their idea, after the Austrian school. Is your country doing that well? What's the rate of poverty there?

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

I'm not sure why you feel you have the right to "private property".

As for water not being an entitlement - if you were literally dying of thirst, would you be tempted to steal some if there was no other way to acquire it?

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[r1348]

Of course not, the same way Ayn Rand never used Public Health Care! *bald eagles*

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Jesrad]

Yes, like someone who loses the right to sell you bottled water because you are entitled to drinkable tap water (for a very low price).

No one is entitled to drinkable tap water. When that ressource comes short, everyone gets rationed. And if you won't pay the bills the tap gets cut off. In fact it's ubiquitous in our countries because it's both cheap and vital to so many. But getting there was, actually, a capitalist initiative: the work of persistent entrepreneurs. So yeah, choosing this example undermines your argument.

Granting everyone a "right to" internet access won't make Internet available to everyone. Developping technical solutions and financing their implementation to allow widespread, cheaper access to the Internet will. Just like with access to water.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[AmiMoJo]

You have an odd view of society, at least from a European point of view.

In Europe certain things are considered human rights, such as the right to life and to shelter and to water. Therefore the water company can't turn your water off, ever. They can take legal action to make you pay, take away all your stuff if you refuse, but they can't try to simply starve you out like they do in the US. Similarly, the gas and electricity companies can't turn your supply off in the hope that the freezing weather and the fact that your kids can't do their homework in the dark is sufficient motivation to make you pay up, they have to supply that service while taking other legal action.

In Europe, corporations are not people. They don't have human rights. Instead, we set the rules. For utility companies the rule is that in exchange for being allowed to provide something we all fundamentally need and which tends to represent a natural monopoly they have to agree to things like universal service and not cutting people off. The US has universal service regulations I think, so it's not that dissimilar.

There is no loss of rights for the corporation, because they have none. They are not people, human rights don't apply. There is no right to profit, no right to refuse service. Again, it isn't that dissimilar to the US, where a business cannot refuse to serve people because of their religion, race, gender or sexual orientation.

This system works pretty well for us. If you don't like it, don't do business here. There are plenty of others who want to, we don't need you.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

A right is a protection against government abuse, nothing else. A 'right to private property' means not being abused by governments, not having your property taken from you. Your property starts with your own body.

Rephrase your comment: "I am not sure why you feel you have the right to your body".

Your private property is merely extension of your time on this planet, extension of your living self. If the society does not accept that people must have the right to own and operate property without government interference, then it is logical (and historically valid) to see people as property of the state.

People were property of the state in the former USSR, people are property of the state in North Korea and many other places, where there are no private property rights.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Archangel Michael]

If you paid for any durable good, called it "mine", you believe in private property. Oh, you believe in private property, you are just too stupid to realize it. From the time your sibling (assuming you're not an only child) took your favorite toy, and you cried "mine" to you momma or daddy, you believed in private property.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

I believe I have the right ot private property based on a consensus of opioon of society. That consensus also says I'm obliged to pay taxes.

Ownership of manufactured goods, I see a rationale for. What about land? I didn't create it. Nor did the person I bought it from. As far as I can see, any land belongs to society as a whole. We give some people exclusive rights to their land for indefinite periods, so in that sense it belongs to them, but we as a society have the right to charge them a reasonable amount for the use of it.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

You have an odd view of society, at least from a European point of view.

- not all of Europe. I rather like Switzerland and its take on things.

In Europe certain things are considered human rights, such as the right to life and to shelter and to water.

- please, define what you mean by 'human rights'?

If the human right in this case means that government cannot prevent an individual from attempting to build himself a better life, attempting to survive by building/acquiring shelter/water, that is one thing.

If by 'human right' you mean government using force and violence to take resources from some people in order to provide entitlements to items, that you think are 'rights' (food/shelter/water), then it's something else entirely.

A right is a protection against government abuse, nothing else, everything else is government abuse. An entitlement system is a system of government abuse and destruction of human rights. Also it doesn't work at all once you run out of people that you can abuse, look at Greece. Who will provide the Greeks with those entitlements if there is nobody left to steal from?

Therefore the water company can't turn your water off, ever.

- nonsense. A water company can shut down and not provide you with water. It can move the water pumps and cleaning facilities out of there and all of a sudden your entitlements are gone. Simpler still, a water company can shut down because it cannot pay energy bills because the people feel they have a 'right' to get water and it cannot be shut off 'ever' even if they stop paying the water bills to the water company.

The only way to maintain such a system of entitlements is to have government enforced monopoly on supply and then ration the supply based on the so called 'rights'. Of-course as all such schemes, this too ends the moment financial troubles start and they start eventually in a system like that, where there are no individual rights, there are plenty of people that feel entitled to be supplied stuff by others and there is a government that enforces this view with the rule of violence.

Similarly, the gas and electricity companies can't turn your supply off in the hope that the freezing weather and the fact that your kids can't do their homework in the dark is sufficient motivation to make you pay up, they have to supply that service while taking other legal action.

- and it is absolutely wrong to destroy individual rights of people (companies are ran by people, so that just we are clear) to turn off the lights this way, they are not property of the state and they are not your private slaves either. Of-course again, in a system like that this collapses eventually and inevitably, the only question is time.

Of-course natural monopolies are a myth, a way for governments to establish monopolies and destroy competition by destroying individual rights of people.

There is no loss of rights for the corporation, because they have none. They are not people, human rights don't apply.

- a corporation is a fiction, every business is ran by people, you are talking about destroying individual rights of people that run companies, don't pretend you don't understand it.

Again, it isn't that dissimilar to the US, where a business cannot refuse to serve people because of their religion, race, gender or sexual orientation.

- yeah, and people should be able to refuse to serve anybody they want for any reason they want.

A person can walk into any business he desires, thus discriminating against all other businesses, no questions asked. Same for people that run businesses, they should be able to discriminate against anybody who wants to use/buy their services. USA is wrong as well, but multiple wrongs don't make a right.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

Your private property is merely extension of your time on this planet, extension of your living self.

No it isn't. That's a ridiculous claim. But really I'm talking about ownership of land. This is what I usually understand by private property.

If the society does not accept that people must have the right to own and operate property without government interference,

The government is just administrators of the state. I am part of the state. The state doesn't own people. The state is people. If the government isn't working for you then I propose you get rid of it and replace it with one that will. If you live ina democracy, then that's great! You can vote for a new one. Otherwise you'll need to arganise a revolution. If you do that I'll write to my MP urging my government to keep out of your national uprising, but I can't make any promises about how everyone else in my country feels.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Anonymous Coward]

That is silly. Any right is correlative to a duty of someone else. Whether their correlative duty is to do something or refrain from doing something in your interest is a minor matter of semantics. Your rights always impose some cost on others, and your duties are always in some other's interest. Right and entitlement (in any of their commonly accepted meanings) are not disjoint concepts.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[ljw1004]

Let them figure out their labour entitlement system, how is that working out therr (Italy, Spain, or anywherr for that matter, where people cannot be fired because of 'rights', and what that does to freedom and eventually business and hiring)

I worked in Italy for a few years before emigrating to the US, so I can give an actual experience-based answer (i.e. anecdote rather than speculation) about what it's like in practice. I went from a $12k/year job in Italy to a $120k/job year in America. The food in Italy was far better, it was easier to travel within the country and outside it, the work-life balance was uniformly better, people seemed generally happier, they dressed better, and all of this was affordable. The houses and apartments were smaller, fewer people could afford to maintain cars, and there wasn't the same "opportunity" as in America e.g. to just pack up and go backpacking or take up windsurfing. On balance it's a tie. However for people earning less in America it will be a much worse deal here.

You talked about business and hiring. My experience will only be relevant if you're more concerned about quality of life of the population, rather than GDP or the wealth of the business owners.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[AmiMoJo]

If the human right in this case means that government cannot prevent an individual from attempting to build himself a better life, attempting to survive by building/acquiring shelter/water, that is one thing.

If by 'human right' you mean government using force and violence to take resources from some people in order to provide entitlements to items, that you think are 'rights' (food/shelter/water), then it's something else entirely.

Neither. In Europe human rights include a requirement for the government to ensure that everyone has access to certain basic resources. Resources are divided up by various means, most obviously what people can afford to pay for them. However, certain resources are not freely exploitable, so for example you may own a lake but you can't just drain it for your own benefit because of the impact on others. In other words, in exchange for the right to own a lake you also take on certain responsibilities like not draining or polluting it.

In the same way, if you want to live in a European society and you do certain things there are taxes to be paid. The government is required to spend a tiny fraction of the tax it raises providing people who lack certain basic needs with things. That doesn't mean they can use "violence" and take your stuff. They can't evict you and give your house to someone else. It just means that if you pay tax some small fraction of it will go to people who would otherwise be literally dying in the street.

Most Europeans are fine with that. Aside from anything, stepping over the homeless, starving bodies is tiresome and we prefer the government to do something humane about it.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

No it isn't. That's a ridiculous claim.

- wrong. Do your kidneys belong to you or not? If they do, then whatever time you spend working on things is time that your kidneys had to support as well, you are spending your life, the productive output of your time on those things, you are transferring your time from leisure to work and the productive output of your work is the reward that you are willing to exchange the time of your life for.

The time that your body and mind had to input into productive activity is the time that you subtracted from the time in your life that you could have otherwise enjoyed doing nothing or doing something that you like more than working (of-course in some cases people actually like doing work, but I am sure that for most people work is not the point, the point is productivity of work that allows them to do other things, at the very minimum support their own existence on the planet).

So there is nothing 'ridiculous' about the claim that your productive output is extension of your own self, you subtracted from the limited time that is available to you on this planet and you exchanged that time for something that you produced. Whatever you produced is yours and yours alone and if some system of government takes it from you by force, it effectively is the owner of your property and of your time on this life, it owns you, it enslaves you, you are not a free individual if you are forced to give up your own property to anybody for any reason other than you wanted to without being coerced at all.

Land is property like any other, it can be bought in exchange for your productive output, whatever it may be. Exchanging one form of productivity for another on voluntary basis is the basis of individual freedom, and the fact that you don't understand it speaks volumes.

The government is just administrators of the state. I am part of the state.

- you are not part of the state, whatever 'state' you are born in, you are not its part, you are not its property either. If a state takes your productivity against your own will (not by voluntary exchange), then it does own you.

The government is not working for me, that is true, which is why I don't chose one particular government either, I prefer not to be owned and choose not to have one particular government, instead choosing a many flag strategy. I don't condone democracy, by the way, the rule of mob is not to my liking, the mob always ends up ruling the individual, stealing from the individual. I don't need to organise revolutions either to live outside of the state system. Eventually the state system will come to an end, but it's not a easy or a short journey.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Archangel Michael]

And you just made the case that government can take any land away for any reason it deems sufficient to confiscate. Old people living in a hovel have no right to live there, because big government and big business just said they would rather have a shopping mall. Once you remove a "right" like you just did, you make government the grantor of rights, and that is a very very dangerous place to be.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

No. I made the case that society can terminate the lease of the land's current tenant under terms that are considered fair by society as a whole.

Since you would consider it unfair to turf the old people out of their hovel, and I agree, I think we can speculate that most of society would. Therefore we can't do this without paying them just and fair compensation for the termination of their use of the land. The societal benefit of the shopping mall is fairly minor compared with the societal benefit of the hovel to the old people so typically we can't do this even if we do pay compensation.

The problem here is you considering the government to be your rulers rather than administrators. We are the state. Not them.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

Neither. In Europe human rights include a requirement for the government to ensure that everyone has access to certain basic resources.

- not neither, the option 2 that I listed. Governments have no resources but what they steal from private individuals, so you are talking about theft and redistribution of stolen resources, let's name things what they are, don't pretend you don't understand such simple concepts.

Resources are divided up by various means, most obviously what people can afford to pay for them.

- free market based price discovery mechanism is the only way to provide access to resources in a way that maximises economic activity and profitability, which is the most moral way the humans devised how to run an economy. Once you interfere with the free market, you start building your government protected monopolies and oligopolies and start denying individual rights and you have to use violence on the government level to achieve that. There is no other way to put it, once you have a police/military/judicial/prison force that is used to take property away from owners and distribute it in some misguided socialist/fascist manner, you sow the seeds of destruction of your economy and society.

However, certain resources are not freely exploitable, so for example you may own a lake but you can't just drain it for your own benefit because of the impact on others. In other words, in exchange for the right to own a lake you also take on certain responsibilities like not draining or polluting it

- in a free market the owner of a resource finds the most appropriate (read profitable) and thus the most moral (based on the pressures of the economic forces around him, the invisible hand) way to handle the resource. Be it a lake or what have you, people tend not to make decisions that do not maximise profitability, especially with regard to assets (a lake is an asset). One doesn't drain a lake if the water in the lake is a valuable enough resources (there aren't many other lakes) so that the market pressure creates enough demand for the water and this demand and price discovery provides the most profitable way to benefit from that asset.

If, on the other hand, there are many lakes with plenty of water and the owner of the lake finds it more profitable not to use the lake for its water but to drain it (where would the water go exactly?) and put a park in that area, that's what he should do and government shouldn't be in any way at all in a position to prevent that type of operation of private property.

In the same way, if you want to live in a European society and you do certain things there are taxes to be paid.

- income based taxes are slavery. "Progressive" taxes are unequal application of the law and thus absence of the rule of law.

The government is required to spend a tiny fraction of the tax it raises providing people who lack certain basic needs with things. That doesn't mean they can use "violence" and take your stuff.

- that's called violence of the state, since if you try to protect your private property from this theft, your liberty and even life will be violated by the government. The machine guns in the hands of the government thugs are violence and the machine guns will come to play if one decides to protect his property (as he should) from this theft.

It just means that if you pay tax some small fraction of it will go to people who would otherwise be literally dying in the street.

- there is no more immoral act than to engage in this form of 'ends justify the means' type of socialism / fascism.

In a free market capitalist society there will always be poor and rich, but that society will thrive and the poor in it will have more than many of the 'rich' in the socialist/fascist societies. Building policy based on edge case scenarios is the way to destroy the ru

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

Do your kidneys belong to you or not? If they do, then whatever time you spend working on things is time that your kidneys had to support as well

I don't see how the second follows from the first. The right to something isn't about who spend most time on it. If I am dying of thirst, and you are the only source of water, I have every moral right to acquire through any means short of killing you. I may own just compensation afterwards, but the compensation would be the minimum cost of replacement of a bottle of water.

Land is property like any other, it can be bought in exchange for your productive output

How do I produce more land? What do I make it from? Who made it in the first place? How did they make it? Who is the original owner of the land?

- you are not part of the state, whatever 'state' you are born in, you are not its part, you are not its property either. If a state takes your productivity against your own will (not by voluntary exchange), then it does own you.

Take the people from a state. What do you have?

I don't condone democracy, by the way, the rule of mob is not to my liking, the mob always ends up ruling the individual, stealing from the individual.

Neither do I. But it's a useful mechanism for allocating limited shared resources, such as land, and avoiding a tragedy of the commons type affair. If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

The problem here is you considering the government to be your rulers rather than administrators. We are the state. Not them.

- government is the de facto ruler that buys votes of what you think is of as 'people' by destroying the rule of the law.

There is no need for any government administrators at all if the society is based on the rule of law, there is only need for private competing courts and private security companies, not even need for government cops actually.

There are no private property rights once 'society as a whole' can steal property from the owner. 'Society as a whole' doesn't exist. There are only people and some people want to steal from others, that's all there is. Some people will vote as a block to steal from others. Some other people will promise to destroy the rule of law and to steal on behalf of 'society as a whole' to stay in power and while in power they can steal from anybody they personally want to steal from as well.

There is no society once there is no rule of law, only a mob and thugs in power.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[AmiMoJo]

Governments have no resources but what they steal from private individuals

I'm trying to understand how you think property works. If society decides people can own certain things, they can be your property. Government enforces property rights on behalf of society. The only other option is that you defend those rights yourself, against the rest of society which has decided on different rules.

So... Do you really think property is a question of what the individual can defend with their own resources? Or did you want government to "steal" your resources and use some of them to defend your other property?

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

I don't see how the second follows from the first. The right to something isn't about who spend most time on it. If I am dying of thirst, and you are the only source of water, I have every moral right to acquire through any means short of killing you.

- why did you stop short of 'killing you'? How does that follow? You just made a very simple case, if you want or need something, you feel entitled to that item regardless of my wants and needs.

If you are in such a pickle that you are dying from thirst, you can ask me for water first and foremost, most people (including myself), will not deny you water because you are dying from thirst. You are not talking about me making a voluntary decision here, you are talking about using violence on the level of government to steal from me and to use all force needed to prevent me from protecting myself from this theft.

You can ask me for water, you can promise to pay me later, I may voluntarily give you water and not even ask for anything in return or I may put you on tab and hope that maybe you'll pay back, that would be up to me and a voluntary agreement. You are talking about theft and redistribution based on government violence, stop pretending in every comment that you do not understand this extremely simple concept.

How do I produce more land? What do I make it from? Who made it in the first place? How did they make it? Who is the original owner of the land?

- just because you don't understand the concept of trade makes you deficient in a sense, but it doesn't mean that there is no concept of trade.

You can sell a kidney and buy a house, you can work for 10 years, save money and buy a piece of property, land, house, lake, whatever, it doesn't matter, but you worked for it, your productive output was large enough to build savings that allowed you to purchase the property from whoever is owning it currently, the transaction is done, there is no 'lease granted by government', if there is, that's not ownership of property, that's slavery, again, be clear in what you stand for.

Take the people from a state. What do you have?

- there is no state that can own you that also is based on the rule of law. You can be a slave, but there is no equality there.

Neither do I. But it's a useful mechanism for allocating limited shared resources, such as land, and avoiding a tragedy of the commons type affair. If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.

- obviously a system based on rule of law, private contracts, private security and private courts.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[roman_mir]

Property is exactly what you can protect. Having a rule of law based society, meaning society that does not discriminate, does not have multiple sets of laws for different people (no special case scenarios regardless of your wealth, race, gender, colour, whatever) is what allows us to have an actual working system, where the government is not there to own you but instead it's there only to enforce very specific rules in the same exact way to everybody. This of-course means you can't have income taxes and especially 'progressive' taxes, you can't have special privileges or entitlements based on any set of criteria that define any group to be different (government based discrimination).

I don't want government to steal anything, I want private property to be protected by private individuals on their own. To the extent that we have any government at all, its only function should be protection of private property (which also includes contract law), but taxes cannot come from income, levels of income, but they can only be capitation taxes or certain import duties, excise.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Archangel Michael]

The problem here is you considering the government to be your rulers rather than administrators. We are the state. Not them.

Cute. But I'll refute your delusion with a single word. ObamaCare.

When Government tells me I have to buy a product, or else face fines by the IRS, under threat of guns and penalty of prison for non-compliance, I am no longer being "administrated", but ruled. I am not the state. I am opposed to the state as it exists right now.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[curious.corn]

"private property stolen from them"... "government shouldn't be in any business"... "stealing property and destroying individual rights"

I smell a little Aynrand fundamentalist here...

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[AmiMoJo]

I somehow doubt capitation taxes and import duties would be enough to cover a working legal system, at least not without crippling the economy. Beside which, if the only protection it offers is protection of private property that opens all up kinds of abuse that would be uncontrolled and ruin your life, like pollution.

Your ideal society sounds awful.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[curious.corn]

You seem to confuse a "civilized and democratic consensus over a certain amount of societal solidarity" with "dictatorial, totalitarian, inhuman regimes"

Note: according to the last employment contract I signed I was basically my company's bitch: do as told, think as told, thoughts belong to them. That's totalitarian in my book...

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[curious.corn]

[quote]
How do I produce more land? What do I make it from? Who made it in the first place? How did they make it? Who is the original owner of the land?
[/quote]

Beside, the value of the land is entirely dependent of the surrounding infrastructure and the amount that another individual is willing to pay for it, which is commonly known as "price" and developed by societal consensus.

You do, after all, just own your body and nothing else... everything else is provided by general consensus.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[curious.corn]

Roman, you should put that Ayn Rand pulp where it belongs... the trashcan.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[curious.corn]

private property and contract law... ha, I knew it! Typical libertarian, anarco-capitalist...

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

if you want or need something, you feel entitled to that item regardless of my wants and needs.

Only if I need it. If I want it then I'm out of luck

If you are in such a pickle that you are dying from thirst, you can ask me for water first and foremost, most people (including myself), will not deny you water because you are dying from thirst. You are not talking about me making a voluntary decision here, you are talking about using violence on the level of government to steal from me and to use all force needed to prevent me from protecting myself from this theft.

So you don't think the government should have power of life and death over you, but you are quite happy to have power of life and death over me. I'm not talking about government violence. I'm talking about personal violence. And I don't believe your claim of the abstract notion of "property" is greater than my claim on the abstract notion of "right to not die of thirst".

You can sell a kidney and buy a house,

From whom? Who did he acquire the land from? Who did the previous owner acquire the land from? The person before that? Who made the land?

there is no 'lease granted by government'

I didn't say it was. I said it was leased from society as a whole, but a leasehold is a specific legal concept, so it's more of a analogy. Society as a whole can ask for it back.

It has nothing to do with "government". The government is a bunch of people who are either working for the common good or should be removed, and replaced by people who are. Something I really think is long overdue in the US.

- obviously a system based on rule of law, private contracts, private security and private courts.

An intriguing idea. How does all that work? My initial thought would suggest that that means that justice is limited to the wealthy. After I steal your water, who do you go to for help?

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

You do, after all, just own your body and nothing else... everything else is provided by general consensus.

That's not exactly what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there's a consensus rather than an inherent right to own property in general, and land in particular. I'm happy to go along with that consensus since that more or less tallies with my view on ownership and property rights, as well as a societal responsibility to contribute to society.

Some people with a more Libertarian mindset don't accept this concept of society, yet still seem to want society to recognise the subset of those rights that happen to be beneficial to them.

But you didn't answer my question.Who was the original owner of the land, and how did they make it?

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

It's way past time the US got rid of their government and replaced it with one that works for the betterment of society. Obamacare is a halfway solution that only exists because the government cares too much about business.

This is really a power that should be the responsibility of the states, not the federal government. But whoever does it, trying to apply it as a patch for the existing fully private system, when that system is completely dysfunctional is terrible. A sensible process would be to wind down the private insurers and replace them with a proper public health system.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[Archangel Michael]

proper public health system.

A couple quick points. HealthCare is a privilege of wealth, not a right. If you want to assert that is a privilege of citizenship, that is fine, but make sure it is clearly defined as such. FYI, Privileges can be revoked by social contract, rights exist apart from social contracts.

The problem is insurance, but not in the way that you think. Middlemen increase prices, every time. Every proceedure that is not covered by insurance, is always much more affordable, and much more available when compared to procedures that are performed primarily by the insured, and are improved at a much faster rate. Laser eye surgery used to be quite expensive, and wasn't covered by insurance. It quickly became much more affordable and had vast improvements as more and more people paid for it (out of pocket, not covered by insurance).

National or even State run health care sucks. I have relatives in France and while they love Nationalized Health Care, they hate going to the doctors / hospitals because of how bad they are.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[91degrees]

Right, in this sense, aren't inherent. They're essentially limitations and obligations on the government and other tools of society.

In Britain we have the option to go for private health care. Private insurance costs a lot less than American health insurance. A huge 3% of the population take that offer.

Re:ENTITLEMENTS, NOT RIGHTS

[david_thornley]

In other words, you have no right to not be beaten up by private-sector goons, or to have your possessions stolen by private-sector thieves. Neither of those are government abuses.

Free speech according to leftists

[Anonymous Coward]

Means you can say whatever you like as long it doesn't offend someone on a list of protected groups. In Europe that includes politicians who want to hide the fact they have criminal records.

The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the internet is a global entity and owned by the USA, or so they claim. As long as the internet 5 (AU, CA, NZ, UK, US) ignore the rights of digital citizens, the protection offered by another country, is not enforceable. Half of the tiger 5 (BRA, RUS, IND, CHN, ZAF) also ignore the rights of digital citizens. Meaning, growth of IT services in these countries will not create protections for digital citizens.

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also no such thing as a citizen of the internet as the internet grants no rights and offers no protections, it confers no duties, makes no laws, etc. If "global citizen" is a term used by those who want international organs to be more powerful "digital citizen" is an attempt to put an official sounding name on having network access. Logging on to your PC grants you no rights, and it shouldn't.

Re:The problem

[Archangel Michael]

It is worse than what you claim. They are taking powers of the people and accumulating them as far away from "the people" as they can, to solve problems that the people's own creation. At some point, we have to say to people, "you made your bed, now lie in it". But that sounds harsh to the idiots who make unwise choices.

Blabbering

[aglider]

I cannot read anything really interesting (despite being Italian myself). Just words, no plans, no actual decisions. Just words.
Sounds like philosophy. Which we don't really need without a clear plan for actual actions.

Re:Blabbering

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more or less an Internet constitution, and I'm pretty sure constitutions don't include executive acts.

Re:Blabbering

[aglider]

Any person shall have the same right to access the Internet on equal terms, using appropriate and up-to-date technologies that remove all economic and social barriers.
The fundamental right to Internet access must be ensured with respect to its substantive pre-conditions, not only as the mere possibility of connecting to the Internet.
Access shall include freedom of choice with regard to operating systems, software, and applications.
The effective protection of the right to Internet access requires appropriate public intervention to overcome all forms of digital divide - based on cultural, infrastructural or economic factors particularly as regards accessibility by persons with disabilities.

It's just blabbering without explicitly adding something like:

All authorization to operate will be withdrawn by the Italian Parliament, by means of the AGCOM (Agency for the Communication Warranties [but not freedoms]) from whoever will act against these rights and will prosecute it with criminal files.

Because of a typo in a database I had to wait two years before getting my ADSL.
My rights were thrashed and there has been no way for me to defend them.
The incombent telco simply ignored any communication of mine and never paid for that.
No law, no right!

Re:Blabbering

[CrimsonAvenger]

Any person shall have the same right to access the Internet on equal terms, using appropriate and up-to-date technologies that remove all economic and social barriers. The fundamental right to Internet access must be ensured with respect to its substantive pre-conditions, not only as the mere possibility of connecting to the Internet.
Access shall include freedom of choice with regard to operating systems, software, and applications.
The effective protection of the right to Internet access requires appropriate public intervention to overcome all forms of digital divide - based on cultural, infrastructural or economic factors particularly as regards accessibility by persons with disabilities.

Hey, free computers for everyone! I like that.

And there's the freedom of choice of OS - can I get the Cray Operating System? If not, where's my "free choice"? What, they'd have to give me a Cray-1 to use that OS? Not a problem, I've always wanted a Cray-1....

Re:Blabbering

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Italian too, and I would describe your post as "blabbering" instead.

The bill is about basic rights, just like a constitution. Detailed regulations are another story, and they are supposed to respect them.

Re:Blabbering

[Archangel Michael]

No law, no right!

Rights exist apart from law. Laws are simply a convention of social contracts, designed to protect rights (they already exist). If your government is not creating laws that protect your rights, then your government should change, and you should champion that change. But beware, plenty of people talk about rights as entitlements, and entitlements as rights, as you have just done. A Telco has no obligation to you, without a contract. You had no contract, therefore you had no rights with regard to the telco.

Crying "rights" when you have none does a real disservice, similar to the boy who cried wolf. When real rights are abused, your voice has been lost to your own false cries.

Re:Blabbering

[david_thornley]

A Telco has an agreement with the government to run wires or fiber all over the place, through public and private property, or it has an agreement to give it exclusive rights to part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It's reasonable for the government to impose obligations on a Telco in exchange.

I don't have to have a telephone. If I want one, the local phone company is obligated, as part of its agreement with the government, to supply the service for a reasonable fee. I have the legal right to enter into a contract with the local phone company on certain government-specified terms, regardless of whether they want me to or not. (There are exceptions, of course, such as not having to provide further service if I don't pay for too long.)

The problem with rights existing apart from law is that different people have different opinions on rights. (Do I have the right not to be killed if I kill somebody else?) The only way we can implement them into a society is to have laws spelling them out.

Re:Blabbering

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming that "the government" owns all the land and EM space before other people get to use it. This is incorrect.

And even if they did "sell" EM spectrum or land to bury fiber, selling it to you would mean they lose all control over it.

The only alternative would to rent out or lease the space. Quick show of hands, how many people enjoy being tenants to the government? How many of you, however many are left, want that to become a monopoly?

Re:Blabbering

[aglider]

Rights exist apart from law.

Maybe that's true in your country. In mine, law is to enforce rights (and duties).

italy LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Fools! Don't they know the Internet belongs to the US and the only authority resides with President Barack Hussein Obama, who is sovereign over the whole world? How many cable cars must we destroy before they understand who their master is?

Hello

[picduniya]

Nice but i have the best see this http://sco.lt/7cGknx

All the more reason to stop it!

[mpercy]

I already said that's I'd eliminate the foodstamp program as it is. A side effect would be to also eliminate the crony-capitalist aspects it may have on top of removing the disincentive to work. Are you saying you support foodstamps at McDonalds?

If the program is indeed sop for the megacorps, I say disallow it. If it is sop for the lazy, I saw disallow it.

Under what circumstances is it a good idea to support anyone's ability to use foodstamps at McDonalds?

Better than nothing

[manu0601]

In the meantime, Italians and other European citizen are stripped from basic democratic rights, with austerity policies being enforced without the will of the Peoples, and with no way to cast a vote to stop them.

But they will have Internet freedom. This is better than nothing.