Internet Access: A Budding Right?

[Che Guava]

As someone who's been a part of a university community for the last 8 years, an issue that has come up often is services and student spaces within the campus setting. One of the issues that I've heard more talk about lately, however, is the installation of wireless networks and public computers for the public, most usually cited with the right that all students have to access the internet.

Which made me think, is this a right that will one day need to be enshrined in national constitutions? In the future, will the access to the internet be a crucial need for an individual's success in a society?

A quick internet search got me this abstract of a legal paper from Georgia State, and I thought it would be a good starting point for discussion:

Spoiler :

Cyberplace: Defining a Right to Internet Access Through Public Accommodation Law

COLIN CRAWFORD
Georgia State University College of Law
Temple Law Review, Vol. 76, pp. 225-276, Summer 2003


Abstract:
Cyberspace is being propertized at a dizzying pace. Boundaries are being drawn, electronic fences are going up and territory is being staked out all over the Internet. What was once - or is at least idealized as - an electronic commons, now more closely resembles a series of gated communities than an open range. This closing of the commons raises, in turn, serious concerns of access, since it makes it evermore possible for those with resources to erect fences and keep out unwanted visitors. Assuring equal access to cyber-resources is nonetheless an essential civil rights issue; access reinforces democratic ideals, helps guarantee equal opportunity to cyber-resources, and combats status discrimination. This article therefore argues that it is appropriate to turn to the property law principle of public accommodation. Recent scholarship documents the post-Civil War narrowing of the antebellum common law right of access from a regime permitting almost complete access to the post-Civil War principle of public accommodation, which, paradoxically, restricted access to large segments of the public. In light of this scholarship, the article suggests that treating the various layers of the Internet - its physical architecture and cables, its code and its content - as places of public accommodation is consistent with the earlier, more egalitarian common law tradition and the underlying goals of public accommodation law today. Given the reach, influence and potential of the Internet, this more expansive approach should, the article explains, be applied to regulation of today's cyberplaces. While conceding that conceptual problems exist in order to conceive of Internet space as equivalent to real space, the article nonetheless contends that a focus on the right of access and a corresponding duty to serve can resolve any hesitation in approaching regulation of the Internet as a place of public accommodation. It therefore outlines various approaches to the regulation of the Internet's parts as places of public accommodation, both in light of decided case law (mostly in the disabilities rights context, the most active area of public accommodation jurisprudence today) and contemporary property theory that insists upon a multi-faceted, entitlement-based approach to ownership.

link

So what say you, is the access to the internet a right we should have?

 

[Atlas14]

I'm not sure why it would be a right. It seems more like a privilege to me. We survived for thousands of years without it, I think we can continue to survive and thrive without it (being a right).

 

[Che Guava]

We thrived for centuries without freedom of expression, but I don't think to omany people would be volunteering to give that one back...

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Mandatory Alpha Centauri Quote

As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

Commissioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"

Yet, internet access is not and should not be a right. However, neither should the congress restrict internet access.

 

[skadistic]

Not a right. Much like driving.

 

[Kozmos]

EDIT: Sisyphus beat me to it, DAMN YOU!

 

[Che Guava]

Yet, internet access is not and should not be a right. However, neither should the congress restrict internet access.

Umm..those seem like rather contradictory statements. If there are laws in place to prevent congress/gov't from restricting it, wouldn't that make it a right...?

 

[Paradigne]

Is owning a tv a right? How about a car? or a radio?

These are not rights, they are luxeries.

 

[Atlas14]

We thrived for centuries without freedom of expression, but I don't think to omany people would be volunteering to give that one back...

Fundamental human rights are not the same as civil rights. Right? Its just my opinion that it is a luxury, not something anyone inherently needs to successfully compete in this world.

 

[Guangxi]

well, once it becomes as common as telephone usage then it should be a right.

 

[Kozmos]

Is owning a tv a right? How about a car? or a radio?

These are not rights, they are luxeries.

You misunderstand. You cannot reach the world or gain unlimited information about anything though TVs, cars or radios. Access to information and knowledge should be a right in my opinion.

 

[Che Guava]

Fundamental human rights are not the same as civil rights. Right? Its just my opinion that it is a luxury, not something anyone inherently needs to successfully compete in this world.

I never specified human right, did I? And maybe it doesn't dictate success now, but how much has the world changed in the last 10 years because of internet technologies? How much will it change in the next 50?

Is owning a tv a right? How about a car? or a radio?

These are not rights, they are luxeries.

If you don't get the news from the radio or the tv, there's always a newspaper or some kind of media availible.

If you need to get from A to B, you can take a car, bicycle, train, bus...

Is there anything that matches the internet's ability to simultaeneously gather, organize, and disseminate information? Methinks not!

I put the internet in the same catagory as the printing press, and there are laws in place everywhere (well, most places) making sure that the press is free, and diverse, bcause we all have a right to different opinions and information about current events. If the internet is the most powerful tool we have to do this to date, I think we should start looking at it as more than another luxury...

 

[Paradigne]

You misunderstand. You cannot reach the world or gain unlimited information about anything though TVs, cars or radios. Access to information and knowledge should be a right in my opinion.

We spend millions a year on public libraries, most of them have internet as well.

 

[Che Guava]

We spend millions a year on public libraries, most of them have internet as well.

And that's a step in the right direction! In fact, if it were incorporated into a national constitution, I'm sure legal scholars would agree that it could be fulfilled by public library initiatives.

But it's nice to have it on paper, no? I man, we're a far way from the P.R.C., but I think the case shows the [potential problems with denying people access to the web...

 

[ArneHD]

We spend millions a year on public libraries, most of them have internet as well.

Just millions?

 

[Paradigne]

I don't think everyone has a 'right' to there own PC and internet access. I don't think the government should get involved. Does it make information more available? sure. But there is no 'real' information on the internet that cannot be gotten by other means.

 

[Knowltok]

I can't see it as a fundamental right, but I can see it as something the government should encourage, and something that needs to spread.

Also something that should be allowed for in welfare. Computer literacy and internet use is fast becoming the new reading, and to deny that to the economically challenged is not a good recipe for lifting them out of poverty.

 

[Kozmos]

There is plenty of stuff on the internet that you cannot find anywhere else.

 

[Norton II]

Internet access is neither a right nor a privilege, but a commodity, like most other things. To say that you have a right to internet access is to say that someone else has an obligation to provide you with internet access, or to bear the costs of providing you with it.

 

[Elrohir]

What do you mean by "a right"? Does that mean everyone should have access to it by the virtue of simply being born? Or simply that it's wrong to deny it to someone, outside of exigent circumstances? I would disagree with internet access being a right under the first definition, but agree under the second.