[governance] regulating the digital space - whose laws apply, and whose do not

[Paul Lehto]

On 8/30/11,Paul Lehto wrote:
>> Why would the fact that the "heart" of a communications medium is
>> technological mean anything in terms of whether or not the law can
>> facilitate such things through what I'm calling structural law (such
>> as copyright law for printed works), or whether the law can proscribe
>> abuses of that technology through the criminal law and consumer
>> protection law (such as proscribing typed death threats, or false
>> advertising using the printing press)???
>>

McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote/replied:
>
> I think you missed my point.  TCP/IP is ~40 years old.  It has never
> been enshrined in any laws AFAIK.  Would you seek to regulate it now?

 TCP/IP is useless without the computer networks attached to it which
it allows to communicate with each other, so it is misleading to call
TCP/IP standing alone as the "heart" of the internet.  More like the
specialized carrier blood cells carrying nutrition and messages to the
"body" of computer networks without which TCP/IP is unnecessary.

Communication has always been regulated, and its regulation supported
EVEN by the vast majority of "free speech" advocates.  The reason
regulatory issues concern "epiphenomenon" and not TCP/IP itself is
that TCP/IP is irrelevant and useless without the *communicating*
computer networks it connects.  And regulation of communication has
always been supported by even free speech advocates, the issue being
one of how much regulation is appropriate, not IF there should be
regulation at all.  Here's some examples:

Even free speech advocates don't claim death threats are legally
protected speech, or that fraudulent advertising is not actionable.  O

In fact, even where free speech advocates *win* they still claim the
law should be involved in regulation in the broadest sense because
free speech advocates invoke the *protection* of the law to insist
that courts enforce limits on governmental action where the limits are
exceeded.  But courts are government, too.

it's only a question of what kind of law, and how much law, when it
comes to communication.  The only exception is for something so
narrowly defined (TCP/IP) that, standing alone, it is useless and/or
unoffensive.  Of COURSE, it's the communication that is the fit target
for regulation, because communication has and always will be regulated
in some way, at least until death threats are not against the law.
Maybe that's the case right now in Libya?  Perhaps we have a Libyan
member on this list if the internet is big in Libya in the past and/or
now?


-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026 (cell)
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