<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Daniel Kalchev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:daniel@digsys.bg">daniel@digsys.bg</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div><div>Who is the "government" in your scenario, and "whose" money does it spend?</div></div></blockquote><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div>If it is legitimate government, then it is "our" government, spending "our" money. ("Our" is the grammatically parallel term for "We" as in "We the People") <br>
<br>I am not saying, <i>per se</i>, that no one ever has, or could have, a right to government-paid access to the internet. That can be discussed elsewhere, separately. <br><br>What I am, instead, saying is that it is very destructive of the internet and especially the concept of rights of users regarding the internet to claim, (as is conceded in the blog linked to at the outset of the thread) that it is somehow a good point to believe that there is no right of "access to the internet". That's a false statement.<br>
<br>Anybody that stops somebody else from accessing the internet is wrong and violating the rights of the person they are obstructing. (This does not mean that one has a right of access to the internet for ANY purpose whatsoever, or at any time whatsoever, or at all places whatever...) Depending on the jurisdiction in question, one may or may not have a cause of action and therefore a remedy for such obstruction depending on whether the obstructer is governmental or private, but it is nevertheless a violation of rights to obstruct someone's access to the internet in the vast majority of instances, regardless of whether the law provides a remedy for financial or other damages, or not. The question of effective remedies, while quite important and indeed related, is also a separate question from whether one's rights have been violated or not.<br>
<br>Paul Lehto, J.D. <br><br></font></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Paul,<div class="im"><div><br></div><div>On Jan 16, 2012, at 9:58 PM, Paul Lehto wrote:</div>
<div><div><br><blockquote type="cite">If <i><u>access to</u></i> the internet is NOT a human right, then governments can arbitrarily block access to the internet without due process of law of any kind.<br><br>I am confused as to why anyone on this list or elsewhere would deny that "access to" the internet is a human right OTHER THAN the acknowledged confusion of when "access to" is interpreted as meaning "government-paid access to." <br>
<br>But the key language in this debate in recent days has not, to the best of my memory, ever raised the question of whether :"<i>government-paid</i> access to the internet is a human right."<br></blockquote></div>
<br></div></div><br></div></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Paul R Lehto, J.D.<br>P.O. Box 1 <br>Ishpeming, MI 49849 <br><a href="mailto:lehto.paul@gmail.com">lehto.paul@gmail.com</a><br>906-204-4026 (cell)<br>
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