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The article is not that great, but my reading is that they based their decision on the 11th provision of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The article is not that great, but my reading is that they based their decision on the 11th provision of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which is confirmed by the contemporary French constitution. "The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law." I am no legal scholar, but it seems to me that the decision is essentially that while they can monitor and potentially even punish offenders, they cannot do so by simply terminating their access. I don't think this is trendy or thoughtless at all, even if my reading is totally wrong. I don't think the discussion of human rights can ever be trendy or thoughtless, regardless of the inspiration for the discussion. These conversations need to take place in the light of day and they need to happen as often as the world changes, which as we are all aware, happens every day.

byrneseyeview 17y ago
"A right to Internet access" != "Protection from your Internet access being terminated as a legal punishment." You can have the latter right without infringing on everyone else's property rights; the former gives you a prior claim to anyone's ownership of devices that can grant Internet access, which is a terrible idea. It's the same as understanding that freedom of the press doesn't give you the freedom to tell the NYT what to print on their front page tomorrow. I don't think the discussion of human rights can ever be trendy or thoughtless I don't understand. Just turning the discussion to human rights makes it non-trendy and non-thoughtless? I don't understand why. Human rights are abstractions we use to interact with each other; just like politeness, but backed by force.
- smhinsey 17y ago
  I am not sure I follow your analogy. I think the key distinction here is that you are not being convicted of a crime prior to having your rights taken away. In the US, this would be analogous to losing the franchise, e.g., without being convicted of a crime. It is unclear to me that a similar bill that included an actual prosecution would be struck down on the same basis. To be honest your comment really rubbed me the wrong way because I believe it insinuates a degree of bad faith on the part of the decision makers that I feel is unwarranted. I don't really mean to say that every discussion is equally valuable, but rather that it serves no larger good to dismiss the conversations out of hand. If that wasn't your intention, I apologize. [edit: removed "not" from "it is not unclear" to me. whoops!]
  - pixcavator 17y ago
    How about this analogy: taking away your driving license? UPDATE: Just like using a bus instead of a car, you can access the internet from a library.
    - smhinsey 17y ago
      A driver's license is a privilege, at least in the US, whereas speech is a right. I don't know if things are different in the EU/France.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - byrneseyeview 17y ago
    it serves no larger good to dismiss the conversations out of hand. Read any newspaper from more than a few years ago, and I think you'll see that most of it is quite trivial. And yet, that was the content judged newsworthy! I think it's clear that people vastly overestimate the importance of their own words and opinions. The person who decided that there is a "right" to Internet access has a similarly worthless opinion. I think Internet access is important, but creating new rights is an extremely bad idea. Every time you add another absolute, you create more cases that your rights-system can't cover.
    - smhinsey 17y ago
      I can't argue that most newspapers and the media in general are pretty weak these days, and I work for one of them. I don't think this is about creating a new right to internet access, per se, instead, I think that the point is being made that the right to free speech extends across multiple mediums, not just the press. In other words, the government cannot interfere with your right to publish a newspaper, and similarly it can't interfere with your right to publish on the internet. In a sense, this is a question of due process. Note that I am not advocating the position that there should be no way for the government to sever your connection or that there should be any obligation for it to be provided. The government does not provide printing presses, either. If you commit a crime and are convicted of it, you can have your right to internet access terminated in the same way in the US you'd lose the right to bear arms or vote. That you say this is a worthless opinion doesn't really help your position. Ad hominem argumentation does no one any good. I see this situation as being similar to what happens in the US when legislation is overturned by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. You have the opportunity to go back and make the legislation compliant. It sounds like that could be done in this case.

byrneseyeview 17y ago

"A right to Internet access" != "Protection from your Internet access being terminated as a legal punishment." You can have the latter right without infringing on everyone else's property rights; the former gives you a prior claim to anyone's ownership of devices that can grant Internet access, which is a terrible idea. It's the same as understanding that freedom of the press doesn't give you the freedom to tell the NYT what to print on their front page tomorrow. I don't think the discussion of human rights can ever be trendy or thoughtless I don't understand. Just turning the discussion to human rights makes it non-trendy and non-thoughtless? I don't understand why. Human rights are abstractions we use to interact with each other; just like politeness, but backed by force.

smhinsey 17y ago
I am not sure I follow your analogy. I think the key distinction here is that you are not being convicted of a crime prior to having your rights taken away. In the US, this would be analogous to losing the franchise, e.g., without being convicted of a crime. It is unclear to me that a similar bill that included an actual prosecution would be struck down on the same basis. To be honest your comment really rubbed me the wrong way because I believe it insinuates a degree of bad faith on the part of the decision makers that I feel is unwarranted. I don't really mean to say that every discussion is equally valuable, but rather that it serves no larger good to dismiss the conversations out of hand. If that wasn't your intention, I apologize. [edit: removed "not" from "it is not unclear" to me. whoops!]
- pixcavator 17y ago
  How about this analogy: taking away your driving license? UPDATE: Just like using a bus instead of a car, you can access the internet from a library.
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    A driver's license is a privilege, at least in the US, whereas speech is a right. I don't know if things are different in the EU/France.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- byrneseyeview 17y ago
  it serves no larger good to dismiss the conversations out of hand. Read any newspaper from more than a few years ago, and I think you'll see that most of it is quite trivial. And yet, that was the content judged newsworthy! I think it's clear that people vastly overestimate the importance of their own words and opinions. The person who decided that there is a "right" to Internet access has a similarly worthless opinion. I think Internet access is important, but creating new rights is an extremely bad idea. Every time you add another absolute, you create more cases that your rights-system can't cover.
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    I can't argue that most newspapers and the media in general are pretty weak these days, and I work for one of them. I don't think this is about creating a new right to internet access, per se, instead, I think that the point is being made that the right to free speech extends across multiple mediums, not just the press. In other words, the government cannot interfere with your right to publish a newspaper, and similarly it can't interfere with your right to publish on the internet. In a sense, this is a question of due process. Note that I am not advocating the position that there should be no way for the government to sever your connection or that there should be any obligation for it to be provided. The government does not provide printing presses, either. If you commit a crime and are convicted of it, you can have your right to internet access terminated in the same way in the US you'd lose the right to bear arms or vote. That you say this is a worthless opinion doesn't really help your position. Ad hominem argumentation does no one any good. I see this situation as being similar to what happens in the US when legislation is overturned by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. You have the opportunity to go back and make the legislation compliant. It sounds like that could be done in this case.