

France constitution council: Access to the internet is a basic human right - vaksel
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6478542.ece

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padmanabhan01
Do they mean access to internet or FREE access to internet?

If they only mean paid access, anyone who can afford to pay already can access
internet. If they mean free access, how can I have a right that would involve
some ISP to provide their services for me free? How can one have a right that
requires someone else to buy a server, provide connectivity, install cables
and what not for free?

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apsec112
"If they only mean paid access, anyone who can afford to pay already can
access internet."

The French were going to set up a federal commission to turn off people's
Internet connections if they were accused by the media companies of piracy.

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padmanabhan01
Ah. didn't see that. well, wouldn't that mean shutting down 60 to 70% of the
connections?

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jleyank
I would assume this means access to a phone and/or TV is a basic human right
as well? Since one or both of these older technologies is a good approximation
to the internet...

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byrneseyeview
I think they mean to say trendy things to thoughtless people; we are not the
intended audience.

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smhinsey
The article is not that great, but my reading is that they based their
decision on the 11th provision of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen, which is confirmed by the contemporary French constitution.

"The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of
the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print
with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as
shall be defined by law."

I am no legal scholar, but it seems to me that the decision is essentially
that while they can monitor and potentially even punish offenders, they cannot
do so by simply terminating their access.

I don't think this is trendy or thoughtless at all, even if my reading is
totally wrong. I don't think the discussion of human rights can ever be trendy
or thoughtless, regardless of the inspiration for the discussion. These
conversations need to take place in the light of day and they need to happen
as often as the world changes, which as we are all aware, happens every day.

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byrneseyeview
"A right to Internet access" != "Protection from your Internet access being
terminated as a legal punishment." You can have the latter right without
infringing on everyone else's property rights; the former gives you a prior
claim to _anyone_ 's ownership of devices that can grant Internet access,
which is a terrible idea. It's the same as understanding that freedom of the
press doesn't give you the freedom to tell the NYT what to print on their
front page tomorrow.

 _I don't think the discussion of human rights can ever be trendy or
thoughtless_

I don't understand. Just turning the discussion to human rights makes it non-
trendy and non-thoughtless? I don't understand why. Human rights are
abstractions we use to interact with each other; just like politeness, but
backed by force.

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smhinsey
I am not sure I follow your analogy.

I think the key distinction here is that you are not being convicted of a
crime prior to having your rights taken away. In the US, this would be
analogous to losing the franchise, e.g., without being convicted of a crime.
It is unclear to me that a similar bill that included an actual prosecution
would be struck down on the same basis.

To be honest your comment really rubbed me the wrong way because I believe it
insinuates a degree of bad faith on the part of the decision makers that I
feel is unwarranted. I don't really mean to say that every discussion is
equally valuable, but rather that it serves no larger good to dismiss the
conversations out of hand. If that wasn't your intention, I apologize.

[edit: removed "not" from "it is not unclear" to me. whoops!]

~~~
byrneseyeview
_it serves no larger good to dismiss the conversations out of hand._

Read any newspaper from more than a few years ago, and I think you'll see that
most of it is quite trivial. And yet, that was the content judged newsworthy!
I think it's clear that people vastly overestimate the importance of their own
words and opinions. The person who decided that there is a "right" to Internet
access has a similarly worthless opinion. I think Internet access is
important, but creating new rights is an extremely bad idea. Every time you
add another absolute, you create more cases that your rights-system can't
cover.

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smhinsey
I can't argue that most newspapers and the media in general are pretty weak
these days, and I work for one of them.

I don't think this is about creating a new right to internet access, per se,
instead, I think that the point is being made that the right to free speech
extends across multiple mediums, not just the press. In other words, the
government cannot interfere with your right to publish a newspaper, and
similarly it can't interfere with your right to publish on the internet. In a
sense, this is a question of due process.

Note that I am not advocating the position that there should be no way for the
government to sever your connection or that there should be any obligation for
it to be provided. The government does not provide printing presses, either.
If you commit a crime and are convicted of it, you can have your right to
internet access terminated in the same way in the US you'd lose the right to
bear arms or vote.

That you say this is a worthless opinion doesn't really help your position. Ad
hominem argumentation does no one any good.

I see this situation as being similar to what happens in the US when
legislation is overturned by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. You
have the opportunity to go back and make the legislation compliant. It sounds
like that could be done in this case.

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johnnybgoode
Also see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652452>

