[governance] Another Immovable Legal Object Meeting An Irresistable Internet Force (this time it ain't Taipei...

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 18.08.11 15:18, Paul Lehto wrote:
> Daniel Kalchev's point, in a nutshell, appears to be that the
> 'internet is too big to regulate by any single democratic entity.'

My point is rather, that any 'democracy' is only possible within well 
defined borders.
As long as Internet spans those borders, the said democracy cannot be 
enforced.

>   He challenges me to point to an example.
To reiterate:

    Let me ask again: how does a "democratically elected" entity in
    one country have any power in another country, where that same
    entity is NOT democratically elected to have that power?

> My point is that the internet does not have a credible 'anarchy option', and it relies upon legal frameworks of DEMOCRATICALLY determined laws to operate, even when a
> hands off, laissez faire policy is pursued by governments.

I have never, ever advocated anarchy in any form. Nor I have advocated 
abandoning of Governments and especially their duties.

It is your choice to call private, non-corporate management 'anarchy'.

> Thus, we only have a choice of regulation in pursuit of the public interest via democratic laws, or regulation by private interests via contracts and the like. Both public and private regulation outcomes rely on democratically passed laws for their very existence. The internet does not and cannot run in a legal black hole of zero law.

Yes, as long as you assume that governance == enforcement.

> Whatever problems may exist in the challenges of global internet
> policy in terms of democratically passed laws having sufficient global
> reach to satisfy Mr. Kalchev personally APPLY EQUALLY to the 'hands
> off' approach of laissez faire, which still relies upon a huge number
> of laws from numerous countries.

These laws govern the relationship of the entities, that use Internet, 
outside of Internet. This is because outside Internet there are borders, 
there are local and more global laws, local and more global Governments 
(democratically elected or not -- with the same effect as to their 
effective powers).

> It's fairly simple at bottom: Shall we choose democracy, or something
> else for internet governance??

Why you insist there is no democracy in Internet? It is just covering 
specific areas, exactly like the 'real world' democracy does.

If you speak of the world outside Internet, divided by borders, 
governments and laws --- how you imagine every one related to Internet 
(in theory, every human being on Earth), having a democratic vote for a 
single planetary democratic Government -- thus having universal 
democracy and universal democratic laws.


>   The plus for democracy is that we can
> still choose laissez faire policy after appropriate debate and vote,
> and reverse that choice later on, if desired. On the other hand,
> giving up on democracy as unworkable is a revolutionary coup d'etat,
> with yet another revolution needed to get democratic power back.

So we come back to my original statements on the topic....

> I sit here in one place and contract with websites whose contracts recite in one that
> US-California law applies, another says New York law, a third Japanese law and a fourth may demand Chinese law. Even lawyers don't know what these all mean, even if they know a couple.

There is always the "common sense law" -- unfortunately, I don't believe 
it is something  lawyers study or apply. :)

> The law, under Any system of government constitutes another kind of
> 'operating system' without which no one would have felt safe enough to
> privately invest in the internet at the levels seen in the last few
> decades.

This is interesting... My observation is exactly opposite. Many have 
invested - collectively, a lot more than the richest corporation has 
ever invested in Internet. Yet all these individuals did not care much 
under what law this happened or what their profit would be. I understand 
this is different way of thinking from Corporate America, but it did 
involve some bright US fellows as well.

Don't get me wrong - I will be more than happy, if there could eb 
democratic form of Internet governance. I just see none, two decades 
since Internet has become accessible to anyone and changing everyone's life.
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