[governance] Access to the Internet and Human Rights

[Paul Lehto]

If *access to* the internet is NOT a human right, then governments can
arbitrarily block access to the internet without due process of law of any
kind.

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."

But the key language in this debate in recent days has not, to the best of
my memory, ever raised the question of whether :"*government-paid* access
to the internet is a human right."

Also, the distinction between "enablers" of rights or "technologies" to
facilitate rights can be one that utterly destroys the underlying right if
it is conceptualized in the sense of "rights do not include tools to
facilitate rights.."  If that is indeed the case, then self-defense rights
do not include the right to use hands or sticks or anything else, all of
which the government could make illegal without due process to anyone.

The right to speak, if use of tools is not encompassed within it somehow,
would not include the ability to make sounds above ten decibels, or the use
of loudspeakers, or the use of the tool of paper (on the grounds that it
increases littering, or what have you).  Well, the "right" to speak would
only include these tools, or any other tools, if the government
specifically allowed it, because *"tools" would be wide open to
regulation,*whereas the rights themselves would not be.

Anyone who is serious about rights on the internet might profitably rethink
this proposed distinction between technologies and tools used to implement
rights "vs" the rights themselves.  It is a false distinction, as stated.
*There are some distinctions to be made vis a vis the technologies of
speech vs. speech itself, but the distinctions that are being made are so
overbroad as to extinguish free speech in their practical application.*

Paul Lehto, J.D.

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Joy Liddicoat <joy at apc.org> wrote:

> Hi all – sharing with you APC’s response to Vint’s recent New York Times
> column: http://bit.ly/zbp253 ****
>
> all the best for 2012****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Joy Liddicoat****
>
> Project Coordinator****
>
> Internet Rights are Human Rights****
>
> www.apc.org****
>
> ** **
>
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-- 
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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