Vint Cerf is certainly a respected figure in the Internet world. I respect his view but I am not sure where that article is going.
I also have a question: If I were to follow his logic, then why is the right to sit wherever you want in a bus a "human rights" issue? After all, having to sit in the back of a bus does not affect your ability to move from point A to B.
I think the point that "Internet access is a human right" should be looked at from the point of "access", not "Internet".I got this comment back:
Dan Kozlowski - +Wei Wang +Rafiki Cai The problem with comparing the "Right" To access to the internet to the "Right" to sit where you want on the bus is totally different. The right being infringed upon by forcing people to sit at the back of the bus was the right that people have to not be treated differently because of the color of their skin. The bus was a sympton of their right being violated. Likewise in this instance the right is not access to the internet but access to information. The goverment should not be able to tell you what you can and can not know. However They are under no obligation to provide you with access to the internet. They are under obligation to not prevent the free flow of information, be that internet newspaper or street corner preacher.I think Dan Koziowski missed this in my post: If I were to follow his logic. Here is the logic in Vint's article I followed:
But that argument, however well meaning, misses a larger point: technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself. There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things. For example, at one time if you didn’t have a horse it was hard to make a living. But the important right in that case was the right to make a living, not the right to a horse. Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I would put it. (Emphasis added)So I think my question remains, because, not being able to sit wherever one may want to in a bus does not seem to be an issue that rise to the height of being among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. I, of course, could be wrong in that judgement.
Back to the original article, and Dan's argument above, I think I see their point. What they are arguing seems to be that Internet service providers have no obligation to provide universal access to every human being, which I don't disagree completely. Yet even at that, I believe their arguments are flawed. Even in the case of the right to a horse, I would believe that I have the right to a horse because I am not asking a horse be provided to me -- If you believe that I am trying to split hair here, I think it is anyone's obligation to point out the flaw in Vint's argument when he uses such a blanket statement like "Internet Access Is Not a Human Right".
My concern is not so much on what the ISPs do in this country. I believe there are plenty of watchful eyes on them. When I read the article, my thoughts almost immediately went to China, where ordinary people's rights to access the Internet is mostly under the mercy of the government. Please note that I am not even mentioning access to information. I do mean access to technology that may in anyway enhance an ordinary person's ability to communicate with others. If access to the Internet is not a human right, then we may not call what the Chinese government does a human rights violation. That is what I must disagree. I may risk barking on the wrong tree here. But I do think the Internet has ceased to be an American-only issue long ago.
