[governance] Rights like ownership, and Privatization via ICANN, etc.

[Eric Dierker]

Paul,
 
I like where your going with this but I do not like where you have been.  Ownership rights are indeed a concept imagined in most inalienable rights matrix. But are they, or should they be equal to "dignity" rights?
 
I think if we look hard we will find that it is not the property right itself that is so important but rather the due process that goes along with denying that right.  It is and I think it should be very strong.  However when human dignity rights like the right not to be persecuted due to religious beliefs comes into conflict with a property "right" such as ownership of copyrights (not a right) the former must take precedence &carry more water.
 
This list is an easy example.  Assume we have a license to be here. (yes a license is a property right -- usually shorter in duration and for limited purpose than a fee simple absolute which probably no longer exists) That is a property right. They will deny your right to be HERE, but they cannot deny your right to speak -- just go do it on a truly open list. The due process here amounts to ten folks getting together in private and off list.  This works for HERE and this license. It can not work for my dignity right to speak.
 
IP interests are likewise interesting. Somewhere someone confused copyright with rights. Not the case and now we must undue this backward conception.
 


--- On Wed, 8/19/09, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>
Subject: [governance] Rights like ownership, and Privatization via ICANN, etc.
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 5:17 PM


All political power emanates from rights, which include ownership,
free speech, and on...

If the rights of ordinary people have to take "baby steps" or child
steps when in fact in real courts are applied grown  up concepts of
free speech and property rights (albeit to a new context of
cyberspace), then the following results:

The rights of ordinary people are reduced to childlike status, and
property rights, believe me, are ALWAYS enforced like grownup rights,
no matter how young the "child" is.

I encourage all not to be taken by modesty or the concept of child
steps, which are not only violations of rights (as I pointed out
earlier, all compromises of basic rights are violations of them and
nothing more, unless a right of equal or greater weight were directly
in conflict, which is rare) but also if adopted broadly would
virtually guarantee an internet that is fundamentally privatized,
because the public interest is slow in advancing its cause, while
private interests are not, and will not be, similarly slow or
unimaginative in advancing their cause.

The classic example of inappropriate privatization is ICANN itself, a
creation of the US Commerce Dept, by delegating authority to this
corporation without setting detailed standards to run it by as
required by the constitutional "non-delegation doctrine."  IN sum,
this doctrine requires that government not abdicate (like they do in
privatizing core functions) their authority to any third party without
such standards to guide that third party such that it can FAIRLY be
said that the people, via their legislators, are still in control (via
the standards or rules)

Suffice it to say that the standards and rules on ICANN are insufficient.

All forms of privatization, at bottom, move things out from under the
umbrella of rights and constitutions (by making them
non-governmental), thereby reducing the people's power and rights.

One is not neutral when riding on a train, so if we go with the flow
of the internet privatization, one is committed to a process of
privatization whether one knows it, or not, and whether they intend
it, or not.

Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor


-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box #1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-2333
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20090819/8d0cc8d5/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance