
Vint Cerf: Internet Access Is Not a Human Right - rdp
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/opinion/internet-access-is-not-a-human-right.html?_r=1&hpw
======
sgentle
I began this piece raring to disagree, but I find it hard to fault his logic.
A human right to unimpeded use of carriages would seem hilarious today, and a
right to the use of landline phones will likely become so in the next decade.

We don't want to regulate specific rights as reactions to the particular
issues of the day, we want to distill those issues to their essence so that we
can meaningfully protect freedoms that are fundamental to meaningful human
existence.

However, as others have noted here, this article leaves a couple of important
points unaddressed.

Firstly, how can we be sure that the internet isn't fundamental? I can imagine
arguing (in an earlier time) that legal counsel shouldn't be a human right,
because we'll have something better than the legal system at some point. Yet
thousands of years of human development have led only to a more complex legal
system with the same fundamental ideas. Maybe the internet isn't horse-riding,
maybe it's the invention of law. How do we know?

Secondly, if internet access isn't fundamental, then what is its more
essential formulation? Being banned from the internet today makes you deaf,
dumb and blind; much like being banned from electricity would cripple you. The
difference is, nobody's trying to make three strikes laws for the power grid.
We need to protect something. So what is it? The idea of free access to
information? Ability to form and join networks? It's clearly not anything
that's currently protected.

Unfortunately, there is more than just an academic interest at stake here.
It's well and good to say "ha ha, you see, I have a new and interesting
perspective", but this is a situation where there are actual losses being made
in terms of real people's access to the internet. Unless Vint Cerf is trying
to say that's not important, perhaps it's a little counterproductive to make
an article that shoots down a core idea for internet freedom without providing
anything else of substance to fill its place.

~~~
knowtheory
(Apologies to non-US hackers, the following reply is couched entirely in the
context of the Constitution, however I think the thrust is relevant in
general)

So, all the other replies so far note the explicit mention of "the press".

I'll first note that we certainly no longer talk about "the press" in
reference to physical presses, and I'd naïvely hazard that the framers of the
constitution didn't mean it that way either. In that regard I think it's a bit
of a red-herring to talk about.

The critical point really is whether we as free people have the freedom to
communicate and associate.

The reason why the internet is interesting is because it's the confluence of
two of our existing rights. Sure the internet can be used for the purpose of
mass media publishing, in a manner that would be analogous/familiar to the
framers. But i would argue that the internet's facility for real time
communications has done something unique. The internet as a communications
technology has enabled communities to form that, while not without
precedent[1], would not otherwise exist.

So, to me, access to the internet is relevant both to the freedom of the press
and the freedom to associate mentioned in the constitution. It becomes
problematic to say that government or corporations can stand in the way of my
intent or desire to communicate with whom i wish.

I'd like to flip this on it's head. The United States Postal Service is
explicitly established in the Constitution (see:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause> and note particularly that
infrastructure was an important point of discussion/controversy that is
essentially a footnote/non-issue now).

So, Why _isn't_ internet access guaranteed by the US government in a similar
fashion?

[1] Organizations which communicate primarily on the basis of correspondance
have existed for centuries, but i'd argue the majority of them have been niche
and primarily affluent, e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society> or
more recently science fiction fan zines.

~~~
ctdonath
"Freedom of the press" presumes the right to build, buy, or borrow a press. Of
course the framers of the constitution referenced physical presses as part of
that right.

Insofar as the government providing Internet access under a logical expansion
of the postal service, that is an enumerated obligated power of government,
not a right. The government is required to provide it (albeit ill-defined),
which is different from you having a right to it.

~~~
knowtheory
Do you have any additional references to cite regarding your claim? Cause the
constitution itself only makes references to "the press" in the first
amendment, which you can reproduce in full, since it's so short:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

(edit: I don't mean that as a challenge, I am genuinely curious if you know
more about this than I presume to. Sorry if that came off a little catty)

And perhaps i wasn't explicit enough, i'm not claiming that the USPS is a
right (it isn't), but the point was that it is important enough that it was
established in the Constitution, although i would want to dig up additional
resources as to whether that is an act of practical expedience, principle, or
both.

Regardless, the question still stands. Why doesn't the US government do for
the internet what it does for mail?

~~~
ctdonath
Freedom of the press is moot if you don't have a press, or are limited to
antiques.

Gun rights activists are fighting a similar issue in areas where the relevant
enumerated right is formally acknowledged yet acquisition of viable tools
needed to exercise that right are forbidden. A right is suppressed if the
government prohibits tools needed to exercise it in a normal, modern manner.
"You can have a musket (but no cartridges or semiautomatics), so your right to
bear arms is not infringed" is just as absurd as "you can have a Gutenberg-
style movable type press (but no photocopiers or websites), so your right to
speech & press are not infringed".

Methinks the government COULD consider the internet a logical technological
extension of Constitution Article I Section 8 "The Congress shall have Power
... To establish Post Offices and post Roads". If we want "press" to include
"blogging from my iPhone", then surely "post" (as in mail and delivery
thereof) should include "e-mail" (and delivery thereof). Insofar as it is
treated as a "common carrier" wherein delivery is assured strictly regardless
of content, and nothing akin to the gov't monopoly on First Class mail, that
would be a proper exercise of an assigned federal power in a modern context.

There is a subtle but important semantic difference between the governmental
power to provide a service to citizens vs. the citizen's right to that
service. In this thread's context, it's akin to the obligation of the gov't to
deliver mail to your door (or even just to a local Post Office), but there is
nothing obligating the government to bring mail into your house and read it
too you (or transport you to the Post Office to pick up a package).

------
kevinalexbrown
I get extremely frustrated when writers try to decide whether something is a
human right or not. The whole concept vexes me:

1\. Statements like this: the author comes up with a criterion for what a
human right should be, and gives examples of things she thinks are human
rights, but doesn't notice that they violate the criterion.

" _The best way to characterize human rights is to identify the outcomes that
we are trying to ensure. These include critical freedoms like freedom of
speech and freedom of access to information..._ "

These are fundamentally NOT rights that can be identified by their outcomes.
This point is almost trivial. The freedom of speech is not "an end in itself"
any more than the Internet is. Free speech is "an enabler of rights, not a
right itself" which is his criterion for not-a-human-right. We want free
speech so we can influence civil rights, protect our freedom or <insert
whatever right we think we have> not just so for the sake of spouting things
into the public or private sphere.

2\. Rights conflict, so asking whether something is, or is not, a right
becomes irrelevant. Let's say we've decided I have a right to not be murdered.
Great. That might conflict with your right to, say, freedom. Obviously that's
restricted so that you don't do things. Or maybe everyone has a right to their
property, but also an equal chance at getting to water, and I own the only
watering hole. The question is what we do when they conflict (i.e. we say that
my right to not be killed trumps your right to do whatever you want, or access
to water trumps the right to property).

3\. They never seem to make a broader point about how to make the world a
better place, other than "now that you know the Internet isn't a human right,
you can, er, um, work to make it better?" Blah.

~~~
cgs1019
I think I agree with you, but what do you mean by "I own the only watering
hole" in this hypothetical context outside the zone of commonly prescribed
rights of freedom, ownership, etc.?

You own what? The land? How much of it? And why? Because I can't take it from
you? Watch me (and my army). You own the well? To what depth? Watch me (and my
army) dig deeper and take the water from underneath "your" watering hole.

It seems you're conflating somewhat the concepts of personal freedom and
interpersonal contracts. For example, your right not to be murdered and my
right to "freedom" are not in contradiction if my right to freedom is
constrained to apply only to those actions of mine which have nil or
negligible impact on others.

I think Cerf's point is that we should not take something which is complex and
takes extraordinary human effort to produce, maintain, protect and secure as a
granted right. It intermingles motivations undesirably.

~~~
kevinalexbrown
_For example, your right not to be murdered and my right to "freedom" are not
in contradiction if my right to freedom is constrained to apply only to those
actions of mine which have nil or negligible impact on others._

This is what I mean by conflicting rights: when they conflict, we constrain
them. There are situations where it's murkier. Instead of "negative" rights
and corresponding obligations (I have a right not to be murdered, so you have
an obligation not to murder me) into "positive" ones (I have a right to life,
you have an obligation to feed me if I'm starving and you have food). Suddenly
you're constrained in a fundamental sense if I have a right to life: your
doing anything other than feeding me has a horrible impact on me. Where do we
draw the line at how much I can expect from you? To the point at which your
not sacrificing other rights (this is Peter Singer's argument[1]), or do we
just ignore positive rights/obligations altogether? Gets murky.

And when it gets that murky, it's silly to try to divide things we want/need
into categories of "IsAHumanRight" and "IsNotAHumanRight".

\-----

Cerf writes:

 _Yet all these philosophical arguments overlook a more fundamental issue: the
responsibility of technology creators themselves to support human and civil
rights._

If then said "so it doesn't matter if the internet's a human right, let's just
help people use it for the betterment of the world, etc." then I'd be all on
board. Instead he makes a big deal about not putting the internet into the
sacred but ill-defined category of "IsAHumanRight", all the way up to making
that his title, when it should be (IMHO) "Stop worrying about rights, help the
Internet help people."

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/World-Globalization-Professor-Peter-
Si...](http://www.amazon.com/World-Globalization-Professor-Peter-
Singer/dp/0300096860)

------
jcampbell1
I have read the piece three times, and I get the point, but I don't see the
purpose. I suppose he is trying to say that "freedom of access to information"
is the real right, and that declaring internet access as a right is foolish. I
agree.

The problem is that I know of no country that offers "freedom of access to
information" as an ordained right. In America, we accept Voltaire's line: "I
disagree strongly with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it." but that is not quite the same as "freedom of access".

I wish Vint Cerf had actually said something rather than just waxing poetic.

~~~
cyanbane
I think he is trying to mitigate the medium in which the access to information
happens (the internet in this case) and make sure that when we think of human
rights we think of it in a broader sense of what we should have access to, not
how we have access to it.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, I see him as attempting (perhaps unsuccessfully) to articulate some
timeless principle that "access to the internet" is the current, 2012-era
implementation of.

~~~
cyanbane
In the most non-tinfoil-hat way I can say it, when people like Cerf try to
agnositcize the medium like I think he is doing here, it makes you wonder what
type of future he is already envisioning. In his view, does the net get over-
regulated to the point of creating fragmented darknets and pocket-nets in
which this information is dispersed in the coming future, which is the reason
that he is trying to downplay the medium in which we consume this info? In
regard to him just "waxing poetic" I think that stuff (cryptically?) written
like this shows a lot more about what the future-thought by the author is,
rather than stuff that is just some fluff/patterned response to regulation he
doesn't agree with. I could also totally be off here ;)

------
A1kmm
Vint doesn't say what he means by 'Internet', and I think that his argument
fails on a sufficiently broad definition of Internet.

The Internet is 'just a technology' if you define it as a network of nodes
which communicate using Internet Protocol.

That may have been the original meaning of the term as Vint planned the early
work, but that meaning is not what it means to most people.

In modern usage, the open Internet is a global network that allows data to be
passed between any two hosts without requiring that third parties authorise
the content of that data.

Under that definition, the Internet is a concept synonymous with uncensored
automated communication, rather than a specific technology; these concepts are
capable of surviving into the future even if the hardware and software
protocols layered on it change drastically.

~~~
rickmb
My thoughts exactly. Cerf uses a strictly technical, near autistic definition
of the Internet.

The social meaning of the Internet as a human right can be defined as the
right to globally interconnect any means of communication that doesn't involve
the physical transport of people or objects. I.e., _uncensored communication
without borders_.

That's what the word Internet means to ordinary people today. Protocols,
networking layers or physical networks are irrelevant, it's about the right to
do what we do via the Internet today.

------
duncan_bayne
More generally: nothing can be a right if it must be paid for by other people;
rights can only be proscriptive, never prescriptive.

~~~
wmf
When people talk about a right to Internet access, they generally mean a
negative right: you can't be barred from using the Internet (as in the
oppressive countries Cerf mentions), but you still have to pay for it. This is
similar to the right of free press, which belongs only to those who own one.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights>

~~~
mc32
I'm curious about one thing. If it's a human right in France, it would appear
to be an alienable right, given some conditions, such as the "three strikes"
(HADOPI) law[1], which seeks to address copyright infringement, allows for
suspension of internet access for violations.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law>

~~~
philwelch
That's not how rights work. For instance, there's an inalienable right not to
be locked in a cage, but if you violate other people's rights not to have
their car radios stolen, you can still be locked in a cage.

~~~
catwell
Exactly. The first version of the HADOPI law was censored by the French
Constitutional Council in 2009 on the ground that only a judge could restrict
a fundamental right. This is the case with the current version of the law.

------
Jun8
This is a weird piece, I didn't quite understand what he is riling against.
One place where I would like to clear the distinction is:

"we have come close to this with the notion of “universal service” — the idea
that telephone service (and electricity, and now broadband Internet) must be
available even in the most remote regions of the country. When we accept this
idea, we are edging into the idea of Internet access as a civil right"

Let's not confuse access to Internet (which is described here) and _free_
access to it. You can have free service to all houses in the US but if the
likes of SOPA are implemented, I think most people agree that some rights are
being trampled on. Otherwise, why oppose SOPA at all, or why find the Chinese
Firewall objectionable? To put Cerf's analogy on better ground, it's as if you
have phone service but can only call some numbers.

~~~
rsanchez1
I think he doesn't want the emotional impact of the word "right" to be
diminished by applying it to arbitrary technology. What he says makes sense.
Freedom is a right. The Internet is a tool that allows people to exercise that
right.

~~~
juiceandjuice
Right. Your rights on the internet should follow from your human and civil
rights. If you have access to the internet, your right to free speech, your
right to assemble, your right to etc... should not be impeded, because it's a
medium. Blocking access to something shouldn't be viewed as a violation of
your right to the internet, it should be a violation of freedom of speech.

------
noonespecial
There seem to be some technologies, like telephones and indoor pluming that
aren't really "rights" but when treated in a rights-ish manner, make
everyone's lives much better. If a rich 1% decided that they'd rather have the
money it took to build the sewer system for their town than the sewer, their
lives would become worse, not better despite having the extra money(1). If
only the super rich had phones, they'd be nearly useless(2).

Internet access is certainly looking like its shaping up to be one of those
things.

1) And everyone else would be much much worse off.

2) The phones, not the rich, but both come to think of it.

------
dvdhsu
_> Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I
would put it. _

Just because you have a right doesn't mean you have to "cash in" on it.
According to the Constitution, I have a right to "liberty" [1]. If I didn't
want liberty, the right should _still exist for those who want it_. Just
because I don't want it doesn't mean nobody else wants it. Over-protecting is
a better policy than under-protecting.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness)

------
davekinkead
Any discussion of rights without discussing duties is vacuous because rights
can't exist without duties ie: My right to X imposes a duty on you to provide
or not prevent me from X.

So if internet access was a right, what is the corresponding duty it imposes
and who is that duty imposed upon? Must the state (and therefore you) provide
me with a super computer & T1 connection or is free netbook and dial-up for
all sufficient? Or perhaps your rich neighbour. Why not TV or radio as human
rights?

Claiming these things as human rights imposes unjustifiable burdens upon
others when you have no right to do so. If you disagree, please explain why I
should be forced to ensure you have access to facebook and where your power of
imposition comes from.

But just because something is not a right, doesn't mean that universal access
is not a good thing. Plenty of goods such as education, healthcare and
sanitation fail the duty test but their universal access is still a very good
thing. We may even agree that these things 'should' be a right but in that
case the right is a political one based on mutual agreement, not some
inalienable human right.

~~~
danssig
Internet should absolutely be a right, but that's not a burden on you. It's
like the right to bear arms: a normal citizen can't be prevented from doing
so, but he still has to buy them himself.

~~~
davekinkead
You are missing Cerf's point. It may be a desirable but its not a human right.
What you are describing is negative freedom: no one should stop me from doing
X. But this is very different from a human right: something that is
inalienable and fundamental to human existence.

The right to bear arms is a political right (in the US at least) as well as a
negative freedom. It is not however, a human right. If it was, the nearly
every other country in the world would be violating fundamental human rights
by denying their citizens the opportunity to carry a weapon that kills with
such ease.

Access to the internet wasn't fundamental to human existence 100 years ago
when it didn't exist or even 10 year ago when it did. Its still not
fundamental to our existence today - its just very useful.

~~~
mindcrime
_It is not however, a human right._

I, for one, disagree.

 _If it was, the nearly every other country in the world would be violating
fundamental human rights by denying their citizens the opportunity to carry a
weapon that kills with such ease._

Yes, yes they are.

What could possibly be a more fundamental right than the right to defend
oneself? And arming oneself to do so obviously follows from that, IMO. Heck, a
wildly popular definition of what "government" is, is based on the idea of
self-defense as the fundamental innate right (I'm referring to Bastiat and his
idea of "government as the collective extension to our individual right of
self-defense").

~~~
davekinkead
You are missing the link between rights and duties. If you have a right to
bear arms, then in the positive sense I have a duty to provide you with arms
and in the negative sense, I have the duty not to stop you bearing arms. I'll
assuming you refer the the negative sense.

If so, what grants you the authority to impose that duty upon me? Why am I not
allowed to protect myself by ensuring you don't have the means to harm me?

One way to protect oneself is to ensure no one has the means to do harm to
each other. Given that that option exists, then the right to bear arms can't
be a fundamental human right because it is clear not fundamental to human
existence. If it is a right, then it is a political right that comes from
mutual agreement.

~~~
mindcrime
_You are missing the link between rights and duties._

I just default to the definition of "right" that's more like "something you
can do without needing anyone's permission." I don't accept that anyone is
ever obligated to do something (provide me with a gun, for example) because of
someone else's rights.

 _in the negative sense, I have the duty not to stop you bearing arms_

No, you could try if you feel justified. But at that point there's no more
reasoning from first principles or anything... you just have two sovereign
individuals with a dispute over something. The dispute can be settled through
diplomacy, force, or whatever. I'd hope it was the former not the latter, of
course.

 _One way to protect oneself is to ensure no one has the means to do harm to
each other_

Any living human being has the means to do harm to another, including killing
them. Killing another human with your bare hands isn't terribly difficult,
especially if you catch them unaware (e.g., slap on a rear-naked-choke and
simply choke them to death). So by your standard, living itself can't be a
fundamental right, since we all have a right to commit genocide (since that's
one way to make sure no human can harm another human).

------
itmag
What is a human right anyway? Ask an Ayn Rand fan, a libertarian, a Hobbesian,
the United Nations, or a Swedish legal positivist, and you willl get different
answers.

We need to define these things, otherwise the discussion becomes a clash of
presuppositions and worldviews.

------
salman89
Internet access is not a human right, but right of free will when you are not
harming anyone and right of free speech (a derivative of free will) is. That
makes me think that when internet is taken away, there is a violation of human
rights.

------
siglesias
Cerf appears to be arguing semantics. What is one practical consequence of
Internet access being seen as a "human right" as opposed to "civil right," or
"really good thing to have"?

------
klixxrr
I disagree that the internet connectivity is not a right. It is the modern day
equivalent of a library. I also see a flaw in his logic with the horse. Horses
weren't owned by large monopolies and they didn't control how often you could
use your horse. Imagine if Verizon owned all the horses at the time of the
formation of constitution. With clauses like, "you can only use your horse
from 8am-2pm" and if you fail to pay your monthly bill we will take your horse
away from you. I would bet there would have been an amendment to the
constitution to govern the horse.

Now im not saying the internet should be free but it should be available to
all people, unrestricted by usage, uncensored by governments and affordable.

------
azernik
Forgetting the bit about human rights for a second, in his conclusion Cerf
goes for this odd statement that:

"In this context, engineers have not only a tremendous obligation to empower
users, but also an obligation to ensure the safety of users online." Ummmm,
yesssss

"Technologists should work toward this end." And, as far as I know, they are.

This entire column just seems like wasted space and time, arguing frantically
against... what, precisely? Engineers who don't think about "harms like
viruses and worms that silently invade their computers"? There's a lot of
alarmist language, and very little substance.

~~~
oracuk
I think it is statement that is worth repeating regularly. Too often I work
with technologists who refuse to consider a moral or ethical dimension to the
work they do.

The technology may not inherently have an ethical or moral dimension but the
uses to which it is put often do.

------
BerislavLopac
This is overly complicating a correct and basically simple issue.

In my view, a human right is something that, all things being equal, a human
being would be able to provide by him or herself, and which can be restrained
by another human. So there is a right to live, to eat, to speak freely etc.

Therefore, Internet access is not a basic human right, as it has to be
provided by someone and isn't available to a naked human in the middle of
nowhere, as we all once were.

------
tmsh
I disagree with this.

Human Rights should be as specific as possible (but no less specific). There
is real risk in making them too general. The Bill of Rights is a good example
of what works (freedom of the press, right to bear arms, etc.). Abstract ideas
that can be misinterpreted or interpreted under the aegis of whatever the mass
public can be sold with (often as mere lip-service) are what can be most
dangerous.

~~~
pjscott
I would prefer a combination approach: general, but with a list of specific
examples. It's the best of both worlds, albeit more verbose than either.

------
sliverstorm
I always clash with people on this topic, mostly because to me "Human Rights"
is mostly limited to "Natural Rights".

------
tjoff
I see internet as the fourth dimension to daily life. It certainly isn't an
necessity but making sure that it is available, if requested, is sane.

Related: _Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'_
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10461048>

------
signalsignal
Yes it damn well is. If telephone access to emergency health and hospital
services is a human right, then access to the VoIP telephone systems on which
mobile phones access emergency responders is a right which cannot be refused
by any lawful government.

------
stretchwithme
There are no rights that give you a right to someone else's property.

Freedom of the press means you can own one. It does not mean your printing
press can be taken from you and redistributed to some one else that can't
afford to buy a press.

~~~
danssig
Likewise, a right to the internet doesn't mean someone has to pay for it for
you but rather that you always have the right to participate if you can afford
to.

------
ck2
What if most everything you buy is full price unless you can buy it online?

So you'd have two classes of people, those with internet access and those
without. Those without pay much more for food and clothing and possibly
eventually shelter.

------
webrakadabra
Internet is nothing but Expression. Free expression should be human right and
so should be Internet. No less.

------
kasmura
Internet Access is a NEGATIVE right

------
acex
internet is not technology but a place and a medium to it.

------
hackermom
My personal view of this is that the internet is no different than access to a
telephone landline or a mobile network, a bicycle, a car or public transport.
No one denies you access to transport or communication - you have a human
right to them - but someone has to pay for the actual services in the end. The
reasoning that internet should be a human right is semantically the same as
people suddenly being given the right to claim someone else's vehicle or
someone's phone at their convenience - read: their human right to it - or to
claim a free ride on a public transport system. Cerf differentiates these
parts in a pretty clear way that I like, in a way that seemingly very few
others manage to do.

For some reason people partaking in this debate often feel that it's sane and
logical that use of the internet should be a human right in a free-of-charge
sense without a second's thought about the costs, while they realize the
ridiculous err in their reasoning when you put it in the context of transport
or communication. Somehow, in that context, they understand that these things
cost money, and that it's neither violation of human rights nor denial of
access to ask for payment prior to use.

------
sontorumnisse
I don't care about the semantics of "right". Free and easy access to all
knowledge so far would really improve our societies and that is the main
point.

------
gills
The piece does not address the fundamental point that you cannot with
intellectual honesty claim as a right that which, to be satisfied, requires
another human being to perform work.

~~~
nknight
So, I don't have a right to a trial, which requires the work of a prosecutor,
a defense attorney, a judge, and a jury? What about the right to vote, which
requires someone to count the votes?

~~~
doyoulikeworms
Well, those rights are a bit different from, say, free speech, methinks.

In my opinion, we have the right to free speech by virtue of being human. At
bare minimum, one has a brain, and that brain controls one's mouth. No other
human can control someone else's voice in any fashion similar to how he
controls his own. To restrict someone from exercising this right requires an
outside force to aggress against the speaker. Societies today more or less
agree, there's little (or nothing) one can say that should justify violence
against the speaker. Similar reasoning can be applied to the use of justly
acquired property as a means of disseminating information. It's a promise from
government: "I won't take this away from you".

The right to a trial is different. No human is born with this right, as no
human pops out of the womb with a staffed courthouse in his possession. In
fact, the notion of a right to trial doesn't make sense if there are no laws.
It also doesn't make sense if there are no conflicts (alone on a desert
island). It's also a promise from government: "I'll give you the right to
contest my decisions before I use force against you". It's more like a return
policy than a natural right, in my opinion.

