QOTD: Is Internet Access a Fundamental Right?

[pileofsmut]

Yes internet is a human right in the same way food is, I have to buy food but it's my rite

Anyone who says otherwise, you just put yourself on the other side of net neutrality, siding with ISP's who want to throttle your internet, denny you access to sites and goods from their competition ect.

If you americans could understand your constitution instead of just reading it maybe you would have impeached bush when he started pissing on it.

Please tell me how buying food is a fundamental right. That makes no sense.

 

[pileofsmut]

Water, food, shelter, clothing.
Yeap, those are our human rights.
I'd consider electricity, phone and internet to be basic rights for any country that can afford it.. Supplying electricity is a must, and and I'm accustomed to at least crappy old computers being in most libraries.

If I remember correctly, the province of P.E.I. has a law stating power companies cannot cut your power during the winter (as going without in -30 over extended can kill you). My power was cut in -30 a few years back, it was horrible.

We prefer being called socialists or liberals.
I don't mind paying taxes, I just hate seeing it being wasted when so much more could be done.

Water, food, shelter and clothing are not "rights". You can't walk into a grocery store and demand food. You can only get it if they are willing to sell it to you and you have money to buy it. Electricity a right? Give me a break. If you were to decide to live in the arctic circle far, far away from a power plant, you would be insane to think that they owe you electricity. None of these things are fundamental rights.

 

[eyemaster]

Internet is not a necessity. It's a luxury.

 

[pileofsmut]

Ever heard of socialism?
Do you like having a hospital near by? Do you like the ability to go in with a life threatening injury and have them save your life? Someone has to pay for it.
Unless your believe in a complete private system, were the poor can't even afford to get a annual checkup.
I, for one, gladly help pay for a hospital in my area for those in need.

 

[pileofsmut]

Im not sure about the wording of fundamental right, but there are two things to consider from my perspective:

1. Private companies paid for the infrastructure, and therefore charge money to profit from those efforts. The catch for us in Canada, is that our government offered large subsidies (and still do) to ISP's to expand the broadband availability to more population. For this reason, since the originating companies have already made lots more money than they spent on infrastructure, it would be fine to take away some control from them.

2. I absolutely agree that the internet is becoming a fundamental need, because without it in most fields you cannot be competitive. You can learn to do just about anything now from the internet, which is a massive advantage over someone who can only learn from another person or their company.

I DO feel that privatization of the internet should come to an end, and that pricing should be established accross the board for everyone within a country, with appropriate cost for maintenance and upgrading of the infrastructure as needed and nothing more. Costs could be well below their current level, because the cost of bandwidth continues to decline with cheaper technology and higher compression, but the price I pay keeps going up!

There are problems right now because there is not enough bandwidth to go around, for everyone to have 100% HD video streamed from any source they want. The technology DOES exist to make it possible, but that margin of profit should instead be allocated to increasing infrastructure to what we already need now.

1: What would taking away an ISP's control away do for anyone? I would think that the more you "change the rules" the less risk any company will want to take. For instance, I heard about a proposed change here in the US that will allow small cellphone companies to leech of larger companies networks for free. This will only encourage the larger companies to not invest in better infrastructure, since they aren't guaranteed to get a profit from it.

2: Just because it's an advantage, doesn't make it a right. A car is an advantage, so are rich parents. Neither of them is a right, nor should they be.

The cost of your internet is most likely going up exactly because everyone wants to stream HD video. While it's true that the cost of bandwidth is going down, usage is also going up. Having a monopoly (government-run) ISP will not bring cost down in the long run. Competition between companies is the time-proven way to decrease the costs of goods and services. Government should be preventing monopolies, not starting them.

 

[Guest]

ncarlson,
Our Declaration of Independence has never been, nor can it ever be amended. Our Constitution has been amended many times. The Constitution, so far, has not been amended to include access to the most convenient form of free information. It only states that the freedom of the press cannot be abridged by the government.

A fundamental right? No. The most useful tool for mass dissemination of information? Absolutely.

 

[LaughALot]

I'm a physical conservative, a social liberal leaning moderate.

But, for sometime now I've felt that the basic telephone (no long distance, no features) should be considered a basic human right, possibly provided free, at the very least stripped of all fed, state, county and city taxes. A phone costs roughly $16 a month but the taxes are about $12 a month. Local government now depends on the phone for emergency, example reverse 911. Imagine a deadly gas leak without reverse 911, now imagine that only the poor are found dead.

Someday soon it will be possible to make a similar argument the internet. So many government services are now available on the internet. If we decide that health care is a human right, than how about webcam access to that medical service? Can a life be saved if medical personal can see and interact with a patient will an ambulance is on the way? I can easily see a time in the near future where most government services are only available on the net.

 

[kittle]

Is it a "right" like we in the USA think of them? NO.
You can live fine w/o the internet (although some will disagree). You cant live witout basic food and water, and in some areas, due to weather, you cant live w/o shelter -- those are "basic rights"

I think it should be available to anyone who wants to pay the price for it.
Should it be given to people in their homes for free? No. Even the "basic rights" I listed are not given to everyone for free. I have to buy my own food.

 

[jgiron]

we all have the right to breath, the right to free speech and now we should have the right to be useless on the internet all the time to post meaningless....ah crap!
I want my life back

 

[cnox]

I agree, not a right.

 

[pim69]

1: What would taking away an ISP's control away do for anyone? I would think that the more you "change the rules" the less risk any company will want to take. For instance, I heard about a proposed change here in the US that will allow small cellphone companies to leech of larger companies networks for free. This will only encourage the larger companies to not invest in better infrastructure, since they aren't guaranteed to get a profit from it.

2: Just because it's an advantage, doesn't make it a right. A car is an advantage, so are rich parents. Neither of them is a right, nor should they be.

The cost of your internet is most likely going up exactly because everyone wants to stream HD video. While it's true that the cost of bandwidth is going down, usage is also going up. Having a monopoly (government-run) ISP will not bring cost down in the long run. Competition between companies is the time-proven way to decrease the costs of goods and services. Government should be preventing monopolies, not starting them.

1. North American ISPs are already well behind most of the developed world in terms of internet. We DO have geographical challenges, but what is the incentive for a company to rapidly increase available bandwidth if they are allowed to increase bandwidth prices at whim while reducing service? I propose that private companies owning such a vital service actually slows down development, because these same companies also are attempting to convince you to pay for their broadcast television services instead of those on the internet (which are heavily censored in Canada largely due to the CRTC canadian content rules).

Where I live, we really have only 3 options for TV, one cable company, one phone company (satellite tv, dsl internet) and a few channels you can pick up with an antenna. Smaller companies just buy bandwidth from these to sell to you, so they can't make it any cheaper. With only 2 companies competing, and both wanting your money from broadcast TV, there is no incentive to have affordable competitive internet pricing, and both keep reducing their bandwidth caps and increasing the penalties for going over.

2. I think I'll agree that the word "right" probably does not apply to the internet right now, but I believe it will only be more crucial to our world with time, and probably will be worth protecting as a right relatively soon.

I realize giving government control of anything can be scary due to fears of poor management and inefficiency, but at least then the will of the public means something. With only 2 companies to choose from where I am, with similar goals and little incentive to be affordable, I have a hard time believing it could be any worse.

 

[lightbulbsocket]

I do believe that it's a fundamental right to be able to access the internet to the point that it ties back into freedom of speech/press. I also believe that the government should limit its involvement as much as possible, and that it shouldn't be providing "free" internet access that you pay for with taxpayer dollars and then they tell you what you can see and what you can't.

I'd say it's really analogous to gun ownership, insofar as internet access is a great way for the people to keep a measure of control over the government.

 

[pim69]

Like I said, the CRTC (set up by the government) in Canada limits our ability to view something so petty as television shows. Their efforts to protect "canadian content" are more important than my freedom of choice and access to competition (further empowering the entertainment monopolies that exist here). The internet is already being censored for us, and the internet is not government owned here.

The government just needs to stand up for the consumer and demand fair treatment. I recall a number of years ago there was a push for government to force broadcasters away from selling only tv channel "packages" and allow people to choose what channels to pay for, but I guess that fizzled somewhere because it never happened.

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]groveborn[/nom]No, it is not a "basic" right. A basic right is something that cannot be done without. Speech, religion, not being beaten, those are basic rights. Internet access is a luxery. I'd much rather my country give us free water. Water should be a right. Electricity would also be nice, but that's asking a lot.[/citation]
I agree with most of what you said, but umm religion? really now? I'm sure I can live without it and have so far

 

[LORD_ORION]

Government wages are the biggest welfare program of all. I would rather see some snivel servants lose their jobs and everyone get free internet access. That would be my tax dollars well spent.

 

[theubersmurf]

[citation][nom]LaughALot[/nom]I'm a physical conservative,[/citation]you mean fiscal?

 

[Djhg2000]

In a way, the internet can help you get food, water and other stuff by communicating with others.

Yes, access to the internet should be a human right (in the sense that you cannot be denied access).

 

[FloKid]

LoL I would like to see any of you without phone, internet, or TV for at least a month... Your perception might change then. A while back some companies offered dial-up for free, so why not 1Mbit for free today? Sounds good to me.

 

[kmelsha]

If you live in the United States and believe in out constitution, that question doesn't even need debate. Of course not! Now, if you are a young person and have been brain washed by our current education system into thinking the constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on (as did Woodrow Wilson and FDR) then you may disagree.

 

[tylneren]

People here are I think confusing the idea of a basic human right to say, an essential service. Here in Australia when we connect a phone line to a house, this is considered an essential service, and therefore comes with tight regulation on downtime and service requirements.
Internet as an essential service makes complete sense as a lot of people now may have businesses, jobs, family concerns. Many Banks here are moving to online only statements.
Much the same as we cannot expect a whole country to live from a public telephone we cannot expect them to rely on an internet cafe.

 

[ultameca]

pileofsmut if I were to say to you something like you can't eat any form of food for the next year, would you still say ok I don't have the right to eat so I guess I can't.

or a more realistic setting would be if you were in jail, is it ok to feed you once a week or just not feed you and watch you die?

food is a right in that no one can deny you food.

Just because something is a right doesn't mean it has to be paid for but, that really depends on what the freedom is.

freedom for food means people can't starve you to death.. can't die from no food in a cell, your parent's can't feed you once a week to save money for the internet if you are a child.

as I said before if internet is not a fundamental right then your isp can do all kinds of things to you, like not allow you to access sites their benefactors pay them not to let you.

if you are on the other side of this issue you are against net neutrality. really anyone who is on the other side of this issue is fundamentally none American.

saying that you are none American or none Canadian really, has to do with protecting your rights, especially with regards to freedom of speech which ties into this. I won't go into detail on that because others have in previous posts if anyone bothered to read them.

BTW John Galt, maybe if you read the posts people posted before you would know that what you said has been said 5 times already and I even made a post about people answering that same post over and over again without bothering to read after and see that it has been replied too.

 

[kmelsha]

ultameca, your argument makes no sense at all. The food thing is nonsense. We in America do not need laws to define rights like eating!

From the Declaration of Independence:

"The Declaration of Independence, one of our nation’s foundational documents, states in simple eloquence a philosophy of government which is profound, viable, and Biblically correct. In the words of the Declaration,
We hold these truths to be self–evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Life is an unalienable right. No need for a law that says you can't kill someone or starve them to death. You do have the right to PURSUE an internet connection (pursuit of happiness), but it is NOT a basic right.

 

[patrik888]

Just to start, yes, it should be a fundamental right. And now to clear something, the internet is a right in Finland, BUT it is also paid.

Second, at least here in Brazil, water, shelter, etc... are basic necessities, BUT they're also paid. What people should understand as a basic right, is not necessary FREE, the conception is that it should be ACESSIBLE to everyone.

A fact is, to the government, to schools, to all types of system, the internet is a cheaper and much more effective way of communicating and getting people connected. In Finland as an example, almost everything is obtained Via Internet, im talking about admissions, taxes, requisitions, applications, everything. In that aspect it's NECESSARY to have internet. And, as you can see, it's not for free only because it's in the constitution... or it could seem to be, if your blind and don't know WHY you pay taxes.

Some argue that there are other types of communication. Telephones cost a lot, really, A LOT, and in fact are not a basic right. Face to face talk, costs a lot, A LOT of time, lines, and people and is the only communication so far that is a basic right! Letters take a lot of time and are NOT... a basic right.

Now that thing have been cleared, can someone really state that there isn't a better, cheaper, way of communicating, that should be the FIRST basic right in terms of communication, than INTERNET?

 

[kmelsha]

Sorry patrik888, you haven't cleared up a thing. Just restated the same old worn out idea that if you need something to function in a given society, that makes it a right. I will agree that outside of the US this seems to be the prevailing idea. We call that a nanny state. We in the US believe that having the right to PURSUE something like the internet means 1: Get a job, 2: Save your money, 3: Buy anything you like, such as the internet. Oh, by the way, we DO NOT believe that rights outlined in the constitution should be free. Not sure where that came from.