A ‘Fundamental Right’ To Net Regulation
BBC World Service just released a global poll that sends conflicting signals about people’s attitudes toward the Internet.
On the one hand, 79 percent of the 27,000 adults polled in 26 countries believe that Internet access “should be a fundamental right for all people.” (Half of them strongly agree with that proposition.) But on the other hand, 53 percent believe that “the Internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere.”
The two answers may not seem to conflict on the surface. After all, wanting Internet access for all is consistent with hoping government leaders, especially those in dictatorial regimes like China, keeps their regulatory mitts off the Web.
But proclaiming something a “fundamental right” is more than a deterrent to bad behavior; it’s also an invitation for government intervention. In the case of Internet access, it is an invitation to destructive bureaucratic meddling in the digital marketplace.
Advocates of network neutrality want to persuade people that Internet access is a fundamental right because they want government to “protect” that right with regulation. “Net neutrality safeguards everyone’s fundamental right to an open Internet,” Tim Karr of Free Press said in a Save The Internet piece headlined “Seven Reasons Why We Need Net Neutrality Now.”
And last year in France, the Constitutional Council embraced Internet access as a right in striking down an anti-piracy law. It found that only courts can deny intellectual property thieves the Internet connections they use to steal content.
“The Internet is a fundamental human right that cannot be taken away by anything other than a court of law, only when guilt has been established there,” the council said.
People need to remember sound bites like that before they endorse the concept of Internet access as a right with constitutional weight. In the long run, the world may lose more freedom in the marketplace than it will gain in democracy.
1. When people say “right”, they often mean it in the context of “entitlement” as in taxpayer subsidized entitlement. This is why the people in those polls oppose the “right”. It’s not that they oppose the right in the true meaning of the sense as in the right to pursue Internet access or property, they oppose entitlements.
2. Is a driver’s license a “right” or a privilege? Do you get to keep your license if you drive drunk?
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[...] all Americans need broadband access — Commissioner Michael Copps this week even joined the chorus of people proclaiming it as a “right” — so the government must take steps to ensure that [...]
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