[governance] RE: Has U.S. started an Internet war? By Bruce Schneier + tinyURL

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 20.06.2013, at 14:46, "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> Daniel,
>  
> You seem to have a somewhat odd and certainly not universally shared understanding of the nature and role of ``government`` perhaps reflecting your particular historical experience. 

This is certainly true and I understand that the lack of such experience definitely precludes the other participants to fully appreciate my concerns.

Let me say that I fully agree with the democracy/representation theory. I sincerely hope to live and see the day when it is fully implemented (even if I will have to live thousands of years)

>  
> In many (most?) jurisdictions ``government`` is seen as being the operational arm of processes of responsible democratic governance and thus at some level and in some form responding to the will of the citizens as articulated through these democratic processes.

This is the theory. Unfortunately, in almost every real life case, this is not the case. It is "almost" so, and as they say the devil is in the details.

> So, insofar as citizens have a right to (self)regulate affairs as might affect them and within certain circumscribed jurisdictional boundaries and within certain formalized procedures then of course, they (and their ``government``) have a ``mandate``to do what you are indicating they have no mandate to do i.e. regulate the actions of their fellow citizens including their actions with respect to the Internet.  (The Internet is a product of the actions and behaviours of persons and not a natural creation such as gravity so your example doesn`t fit.)

Here lies the problem!

>From the point of view of *any* national government and the individuals whose democratic will it theoretically represents, Internet is a natural creation.

If for no other reason, but the fact that it consists not only of those individuals in a single jurisdiction, but also of the individuals residing in other jurisdictions and "operating" under wildly different premises and regulations.

For example, do you believe the Bulgarian Government has any right to regulate the actions and behaviors of the fellow USA citizens? Or the fellow China citizens? Because, those citizens too are part of the Internet, not only Bulgarian citizens. 
By the same measure, does the Bulgarian Government have any say about the behavior of the Bulgarian citizens that happen to live say in the US? What if this contradicts with the requirements the US Government has for that same Bulgarian citizens while they do reside in the US?

We had this argument already in the past and it basically boils down to the fact that any Government's mandate is geographically (so to speak) defined and restricted, while Internet is not.


> Whether citizens through their government should or are able to effectively regulate x or y (including the Internet) is of course another issue.

This is where we switch from the theory to the practice. Nobody creates and put's in effect laws, that cannot be implemented (*). So why continue with the fruitless efforts, that leave a lot of Internet users (real citizens) frustrated in the process?

Daniel

(*) We in Bulgaria are special, because most of the "good" laws that we create, are not and sometimes clearly cannot be implemented.
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