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

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 20.06.13 18:10, michael gurstein wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> */[MG>] true, but they do have the right to regulate their own 
> citizens and collectively they have the right to regulate the 
> collective actions of all citizens of all countries (again of course 
> in theory) and this would be my understanding of, for example the UD 
> Human Rights and say the International Court (at least for those 
> countries which have signed on to it... And I think it is this kind of 
> approach which we are discussing in this specific context is it not.../*
>

We just observed this with the request by the "Commission of Gambling" 
(for lack of better translation), requesting the filtering of some 21 
gambling sites by Bulgarian ISPs. (*)

Now, while I have no problem personally to see this implemented - I am 
never interested in gambling and those customers who are and feel 
betrayed, can unfortunately leave or find some other (easy) way to 
access those sites. This is a "small" cost to pay, for not breaching the 
law and not being used as a scapegoat for someone's political agenda.

But I have wider problem, related to Internet neutrality and free flow 
of communications and ultimately human rights. Let me try explaining it.

Here we have, several parties.

A. The Government via it's Commission of Gambling.
B. The non-conforming web sites.
C. The end users who access those web sites.
D. The ISPs who provide communications between D.

In essence, *A is asking D to prevent any communication between B and C, 
because B would not agree to pay taxes and obey whatever regulations A 
deemed appropriate*.

Therefore, in order to comply with it's Government regulation, D is 
going to breach their contract with C and knowingly cause harm to B.

Now, the premise is that B is an non-Bulgarian entity. Say, an US 
corporation (Zynga is a good example, although they are not in the list 
--- even if they do offer an Poker game -- gambling, without question :))

You still with me? You still think it is ok for the Bulgarian Government 
to cut off the US corporation from the Bulgarian Internet user, because 
the US corporation does not want to pay additional taxes in Bulgaria AND 
they also do not want to be subject to an (not yet existing) licensing 
regime...

My concern is that if we support behavior like this, we will end up in 
an very interesting world.

As a side note, the law in question is so absurd, it says that 
commission can put a list of web sites on their web site, and that ISPs 
are obliged (or they are criminals) within 24 hours to implement the 
filtering. As you can imagine, that web site could end up with any web 
site listed there.....
(sorry to sort of merge this discussion with the other one)


> *//*
>
> 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?
>
> */[MG>] as above although (I`m not s a lawyer) the Bulgarian 
> government would I imagine have some residual rights with respect to 
> it`s overseas citizens (as for example with respect to taxation) as 
> long as they retain their citizenship, passport, and the 
> ``privileges`` that go along with that citizenship. /*
>

In any case, I am quite sure the Bulgarian government cannot ask 
Bulgarian citizens to break the laws of the country they reside in or 
visit, just because they happen to posses Bulgarian passports. This does 
not seem related to Internet in any way, but considering that Internet 
information "travels freely" worldwide, it is very much related.

Daniel

(*) We know why this is happening and why it is happening now. It is 
happening because a well known businessman with well known connections 
with the just elected political parties owns two of the three licensed 
gambling enterprises in Bulgaria. But even if this was not the case, it 
is a dangerous precedent.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20130620/4356b982/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t