Is Internet Access A Human Right?

[Blake]

So you think a state run by a Republican/Democrat that only allowed one voting place (coincidentally in the middle of a red/blue district) would be kosher/cons utional?

That extreme situation would absolutely suck.

But as long as every voter standing in line is given the opportunity to vote, it is absolutely cons utional, imo.

I think that was his point though, that the government blocking access to sites might be considered limiting a person's freedom of speech.

Yes, blocking particular sites based on the content can definitely be considered as an infringement of 1st Amendment rights.

Blocking internet access entirely is a different matter.

(To be fair, it was an open-ended question.)

"Human right" has not really been defined in this thread either.

Most have been playing the American 1st Amendment card to which I've been playing along.

At a base level, it seems like a spoiled kid crying that his daddeh has no right to take away the PS3.

[boutons_deux]

"moral" rights are irrelevant.

You may think you have the "moral" right to privacy, but it will be violated when TSA takes your laptop and pda, without a warrant, copies everything, sends it all into the govt servers, stored forever. You have no right to stop them.

moral rights are as useful as thinking Corporate-Americans have "ethical" responsibilities.

[ChumpDumper]

And, if you change "pursuit of happiness" to "property," you have the basics of a libertarian ideology.

There must be a reason they didn't use the word "property" then.

[ElNono]

Super bowl related?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_817458.html

Yep... Most of those sites already relocated to non-VeriSign TLDs though...
It's sad too, because Rojadirecta was sued twice in Spain and both times it won.

[ElNono]

Ah, didn't think about redirecting. I guess it wouldn't be too hard if all that info was located/routed on Verisign servers/routers.

.com and .net are handled by their datacenters in Maryland. They also manage .edu, but I'm not sure if they're the final authority on that one.

One way or another, a US-based company DOES have the ability to cripple the Internet world-wide, regardless of worldwide DNS server location. Assuming, of course, that ICANN doesn't have backups of all .com/.net DNS entries to relocate to some other server somewhere else, along with the routing required to shift said traffic.
I'm guessing they don't.

Well, all root servers are supposed to be able to handle failover, so the data is certainly distributed if the VeriSign servers actually go down. The problem is if Verisign intentionally redirects to a dummy spot. I don't know they can do much about that, as the other root servers would propagate that info also.

[Wild Cobra]

Why assume it's a human right? Because it's popular to do so? Just curious.

Oh, I know it's not a right. I am just curious what the answer is of those who believe it is a right.

[LnGrrrR]

Well, all root servers are supposed to be able to handle failover, so the data is certainly distributed if the VeriSign servers actually go down. The problem is if Verisign intentionally redirects to a dummy spot. I don't know they can do much about that, as the other root servers would propagate that info also.

Hm... couldn't they just kill the routing links/zone transfers from the offending nameservers?

[LnGrrrR]

Yes, blocking particular sites based on the content can definitely be considered as an infringement of 1st Amendment rights.

Blocking internet access entirely is a different matter.

Agreed. It wasn't clear, I don't think. He was trying to draw a parallel with what's happening in Egypt today, where large parts of the Internet are shut down due to gov't action.

"Human right" has not really been defined in this thread either.

True that.

[LnGrrrR]

"moral" rights are irrelevant.

You may think you have the "moral" right to privacy, but it will be violated when TSA takes your laptop and pda, without a warrant, copies everything, sends it all into the govt servers, stored forever. You have no right to stop them.

moral rights are as useful as thinking Corporate-Americans have "ethical" responsibilities.

You're a putz. You can have a "moral" right and still not be able to exercise it. For instance, you have a choice whether to steal from your boss or not. The MORAL choice is to not do so, but that has no final say on what your ACTUAL action is.

Per your logic Boutons, we should not worry when Republicans do something bad, or when TSA invades our privacy, etc etc, because there's no inherent right they're affecting.

[LnGrrrR]

That extreme situation would absolutely suck.

But as long as every voter standing in line is given the opportunity to vote, it is absolutely cons utional, imo.

I believe there was a court case that says otherwise, but I'll have to look it up.

[Yonivore]

I believe there was a court case that says otherwise, but I'll have to look it up.

I say anything that intentionally serves to suppress a legal vote should be uncons utional.

[coyotes_geek]

So 8 pages later have we figured out whether or not a parent who takes away their kid's computer is committing a human rights violation?

[Winehole23]

Not even close."Human rights" and "access" are still more or less undefined.

[ElNono]

Hm... couldn't they just kill the routing links/zone transfers from the offending nameservers?

Potentially, but it depends when they figure out that the redirects commenced.
It's a lot easier to do when you know it's going to happen.

[ElNono]

Good to see Senator Ron Wyden probing the DOJ and ICE about the domain seizures. He sent a letter today that really hits on all points, imo. The letter can be read here:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...seizures.shtml

[LnGrrrR]

Potentially, but it depends when they figure out that the redirects commenced.
It's a lot easier to do when you know it's going to happen.

I would hope it'd be relatively quick, but even 10 mins of worldwide .edu/.com downtime would drive the world berserk. Heck, when email goes down on-base we have brass ringing our phone all over