[governance] NYT opinion by Vint Cerf: Internet Access is not a HR

[Daniel Kalchev]

On Jan 5, 2012, at 2:38 PM, Roland Perry wrote:

> In message <4F05927F.3040302 at cafonso.ca>, at 10:07:27 on Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca> writes
>> Hmmm... strange indeed. Internet access is access to the huge and
>> diversified space which represents this network of networks in its
>> multiple instances, levels, layers etc. It is far from being "just
>> technology", as the very extensive debate on Internet governance going
>> on since the WSIS process exhaustively demonstrates -- not forgetting as
>> well that the right to communicate is a fundamental right.
> 
> What Vint is saying is that while there's strong support for a right to communicate, that doesn't mean there's a right to have every means of communication (that's where he's coming from with analogy about horses).

I read it more like human rights should not be reduced to right to access the Internet. That is, the human right is to access information trough any available means, including the Internet. The analogy with the 'to have a horse right' simply says that at some time, in the future, there may not be necessary to have access to Internet in order to communicate with others -- therefore, 'Internet access as your human right' will be pretty much useless.

This time we seem to be in agreement with Vint. 

Daniel

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