
U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right - nephics
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/
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jamesaguilar
I was about to get up in arms about this, but it turns out they didn't really
declare internet access a human right. The human right is the right to
proportional punishment. Their claim is that cutting someone off from internet
access just because of copyright infringement is not proportional punishment.
At least, that's my reading. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

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gnoupi
"The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from internet access,
regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of
violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a
violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights."

The important part is "regardless of the justification provided", in my
opinion.

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Mithrandir
So they mean that if you already have internet access and it's taken away due
to _any_ condition on purpose, then your human rights have been violated.

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ams6110
Great, so I don't have to pay my Comcast bill anymore and they can't take my
internet access away?

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ugh
That's not how human rights (usually and also in this case) work. You yourself
are responsible for getting internet access.

Newspapers that don't pay their bills have no right to be bailed out. One
reason for this is that freedom of speech and freedom of press are negative
rights: the government is not allowed to stop you from publishing your
newspapers but they also don't have to provide you with the means for
publishing newspapers[#]. That's your own responsibility.

The second and related reason is that private entities like companies or
people are (usually) not limited by human rights. Those rights (usually)
protect people from the government, not from each other. A journalist can't
sue her editor for not allowing her to publish an article. (Well, she can sue
but wouldn't win.) Only governments have to respect human rights. (Again,
usually.)

[#] As always, plenty of funny and interesting edge cases are worth
discussing. What if the government bans paper? Or requires all print products
to be printed on super-expensive paper that's not economical for newspapers?

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jrockway
Do governments care about human rights? How is canceling someone's Internet
connection for downloading a movie worse that putting someone in a metal cage
for 30 years because they made some drugs?

There is only one human right: the right to kill yourself. Everything else is
a privilege that can be taken away for no reason.

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fuzzmeister
"There is only one human right: the right to kill yourself."

That would seem to be more easily taken away than, say, the right to think.

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jrockway
That's true. Thinking about it more than I want to, it's probably possible to
take away everything.

A long time ago, I asked on HN how to kill myself if I was, say, tied to a
chair. The answer is to bite your tongue off (so you bleed to death), but I
suppose that someone who has tied you to a chair can simply put a gag in your
mouth (or cauterize off your tongue). Similarly, there are plenty of drugs
that can be injected into you to stop you from thinking.

Anyway, with this in mind... I don't think I'll be able to ever sleep soundly
again. Thanks! :)

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j_baker
I was going to say the best way to take away your right to kill yourself is to
kill you first. You can't kill yourself if you're already dead.

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joelhaasnoot
I wonder what consequences this is going to have for countries in the long run
with big firewalls or filtering. UN doesn't have much jurisdiction and can't
do much, but these maps always paint an interesting picture:
<http://map.opennet.net/filtering-pol.html>

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ltamake
That's awesome. This should have been done a while ago, though.

The record/music industries must feel pretty screwed right about now. A judge
declared that an IP address != a person, and now they can't unfairly cut
people off. I'd say that's a win for free speech.

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j_baker
I don't see why some people dislike this idea. If you think about it, this is
really just an extension of the right to speech and the right to assembly. The
only new thing is officially recognizing the Internet as an avenue for these
things.

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bugsy
There's a lot of other stuff I would much rather see "declared a human right".

I'd also like to see what we mean by "human right" defined more clearly. It
certainly doesn't seem to mean that everyone has a right to it, or that
depriving it from someone is a crime against humanity.

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DanielBMarkham
As with many things, I don't think the U.N. advances discussion as much as it
obscures key issues.

I firmly believe we are all moving toward a transhuman time when connectivity
is king. My computers and connections are a part of my brain -- or at least
will be -- and governments' role in my life end where my brain begins.

But making everything in the world a "right" is totally fracked.

It concerns me that well-meaning people are trying to create more and more
controls on top of rapidly-advancing technology using terms and concepts they
don't fully understand. In this game of "where's humanity going?" You don't
get extra credit for good intentions. I don't mean to selectively pick on the
U.N. The same is true for dozens of governmental and treaty efforts around the
globe.

The way to deal with these governments cutting off internet access is in the
streets, which the protesters are doing.

