Jonathan Penney, the Cyberlaw Fellow at Victoria University tonight gave a public talk about the idea of “internet as a right” and whether there is any basis for this in current New Zealand law.
I think I’ll acknowledge that I’m becoming a bit like a broken record on this issue.
But glad there’s some NZ discussion happening about it. Because access to the internet is access to the future.
NZCS released a research report into Digital Literacy a few months ago which concluded, amongst other things, that “Digital Literacy is … the right of every NZ citizen”. Digital Literacy these days encompasses access to online resources.
Here’s the report: http://bit.ly/diglit
NZ’s only about 4 years behind everyone else. Europe reached the same conclusion in 2006 through their i2010 eGovernment Action Plan.
These days digital literacy and access to online resources *is* a right. It’s becoming harder and harder for citizens to participate in first world society without it.
So broken record or not, you’re bang on the money.
Paul Matthews
CEO, NZ Computer Society Inc (NZCS)
Thanks for your input, Paul.
The social implications of having knowledge available for the masses scares many.
The net is also used as a tool for creating confusion and proliferation of propaganda – an extension of our media hierarchy.
Critical appraisal and independent thinking are much harder to launch.
Frightening pressure for conformity grows amid a fracturing of society.
Just watch the ads and you will know what to buy.
Education is about much more than silly national standards, but then is education wanted.
The net can help with following a wider educational expansion for individuals if their curiosity is ignited.
Enlightenment is along the path of discovery and reflection. This path can be traced by a mouse.
The issue of rights rest on objective philosophical principles & grounds, the nature of man. It’s irrelevant to redefine it in any other way or it’s got nothing to do with who is preaching it, be it law expert professors, Nobel Prize physicists/economists, wealthy like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, Fidel Castro or his hero comrade late Stalin, powerful leaders as Obama, Merkel, Sarkozy, etc… This means that it shouldn’t changed over whim of politicians or academics. It is like a constant of nature such as say speed of light. This light speed limit c will still be c in the next 100 million years or so, or at best until the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The invention of bogus rights like this, will indirectly require legitimate rights to be violated. I suggest that politicians & perhaps so called law experts who help advise our law makers to read up on political objective philosophy to get an understanding of rights. It is easy read, since there is no complex calculus there that make it hard to read & grasps the concepts.
Perhaps the discussion over whether the Net is a “right” can cloud the larger practical concerns. The mail service for example is something we take as a right, as it is the only compulsory mechanism for communication currently. That is, you might not have a phone to call your MP, but you can always send them a letter.
Because many services are now moving to the Net for some very good reasons we may see the day when the Net overtakes mail as the compulsory communication mechanism. I would say it is almost at that stage now. Once you can no longer use mail to communicate with Government it seems to me that there is a automatic responsibility on Government to ensure that people have equitable access.
In other words if they wish to communicate, and they have no computer, there should be free public access available. I’m thinking of libraries and other public places having terminals.
However, I do not believe that this principle can extend to forcing extensive roll out of broadband. Sometimes there are services which are more difficult and far more costly to deliver outside of cities and urban centres.
That is not to say that we should not encourage this development, just that we should not be making large investments into networks that will not cover their costs. Subsidies for broadband will only undermine providers solving the rural Net communication issues by innovative new solutions such as Mesh Networks.
I have changed my view on this issue Clare (and others) fromstaunchly defying it could be a right to agreeing that as a form of literacy it is a right. I also agree with Peter Harrison that forced braodband roll out is nothing to do with computer literacy for the masses and is a red herring in this discussion.
That 1.5 billion, straight into targetted schools compute rliteracy programmes could do an awful lot more for securing this “right”.
I would like to hear the BRT and others come out and thank all NZers for thier contribution to what is essentially, no matter how it is gift wrapped a business subsidy. Again, I am not saying that to be anti business but to draw attention to the way a number of sectors of society become “beneficiaires” of tax payer money.
Human rights are in some sense a legal fiction since there is nothing in physics or evolution which guarantees them. Rather, they are a way of agreeing a minimum set of standards to dealing with each. So arguments like “show me where said this don’t address the issue.
However, human rights have shown themselves to be a good way of thinking about how we relate to each other. The UN Declaration of Human Rights (commonly thought to have been drafted by Eleanor Roosevelt, btw) was put together in the late 40s while the world was still reflecting on the treatment of the Jews and other minority groups in Nazi Germany. (Subsequently Stalin and Mao treated whole also classes of people like this, but their nations did not sign up to the notion of human rights.) Setting human rights as a basic standard
There is certainly an argument that says agreeing to human rights such as freedom from unjust imprisonment is qualitatively different to saying that access to a good or service like food or broadband is also a human right. We can agree that killing people is wrong, but to some it’s a further step to say that you should feed someone who would otherwise starve.
My perspective on this is that human rights are part of the way which we mutually agree to treat each other. I don’t think it would be acceptable for people to starve or freeze to death for lack of food or shelter and I’m happy to give up a proportion of my resources to ensure that. The actual job of distributing those resources is outsourced to the state. So, to me, extending the language of human rights to the basic necessities of life is entirely appropriate.
The question we are now facing is whether access to broadband can be seen as a human right. You can certainly argue that people should have the right to participate in society and the the economy, and I can cheerfully assert that broadband will soon be essential for those things if it isn’t already. So, the question is whether participation in society and the economy is a human right.
It seems to me that these things are real human rights. We are social creatures who can’t survive without the assistance of others. Cooperation is a major distinction between us and animals. If you accept this, then refusing to guarantee access to the tools required to participate is effectively condemning some people to lives of isolation and alienation.
To sum up: I think there is a real case for regarding broadband access as a human right. I’m delighted to see Finland – a country with a great many similarities to New Zealand – legislating for this.
Falafulu Fisi – it’s not a matter of creating a new right out of nothing.
Indeed, Jonathan Penney was explicitly making the connection with the right to free expression – “to seek, receive and impart receive information” that is already enshrined in New Zealand’s Bill of Rights.
Freedom of speech is a core right, and I believe that there are reasonable grounds to say that the right is meaningless if a significant number of people can’t access the means to exercise it.
I’m not sure whether we want to take the Finnish approach of mandating internet for all, but I do believe that for both economic, political and environmental reasons we should be encouraging more and better internet in New Zealand.
@John W – agreed.
The internet is important and everyone should have broadband, at a reasonable rate.
The discussion is obviously timely. Many drivers are combining to make it so – Internet suspension for copyright infringement, a greater drive for Gov’t use of cloud computing, the recent release of the TCF’s emergency calling code – http://www.tcf.org.nz/content/a21f526e-5f82-41fa-9aa8-4dd8538b6b7d.html (if we’re all going to use VoIP, then the Muliaga scenario, also back in the news, is instructive), broadband rollout, etc.
However, I agree with the thrust of some of the previous comments – it is all very well to talk about “rights” but that means different things to different people and cannot take place without a discussion also of the limits to those rights and the responsibilities that go with them. It was after all your predecessor, Judith Tizard, who declared internet access to be a right back in 2008 – http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/6DC929097F31FF8ECC2574B8006D45D8 – and then in the same breath slipped in the now infamous section 92A.
Bad form to follow one’s own post I know but I saw this literally as soon as I’d finished.
Education is a right surely and you’d be hard pressed to say that you don’t need internet access as part of it; yet look what is being done by some US Universities based on accusation of one copyright infringement alone – http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20009386-261.html?tag=nl.e703
Rights can clearly conflict as well.
The discussion has been going on a long time – and not necessarily online either! I’ve spent many years travelling round New Zealand introducing people to the online environment, helping them to improve their digital literacy and work out better ways for them to gain and maintain access either as individuals or organisations. Those I am fortunate enough to meet in this way have no hesitation in declaring web access as a right and there is a great deal of frustration laced with spots of anger, particularly in rural communities, over the lack of access due to infrastructure shortcomings and the high cost of services.
As mobile access becomes the norm, there will have to be a wider debate (and/or action and regulation) on the pricing and services available via the telecommunications companies here (few though they are) as the current situation is restrictive for many and a major barrier to access. Those presently ‘outside’ the loop of access have a harder time than most getting their voices heard. They can’t comment on blogs like this or tweet the CEO because they can’t get past the ‘on’ switch, for economic, geographic or service reasons. Surveys may suggest we are ‘only four years behind’ – but take a walk in the fresh air and talk face-to-face with real people about their real experience of digital access and engagement in New Zealand and you’ll find the lag time is significantly greater. So keep that record playing – loud!
Soud, what makes you think you will be amongst those for whom the new fast broadband is made accessible and affordable? I have NO expectation for myself, or the schools it was campaigned for. I suspect it willbe women, children, and students stand aside, business first.
Soud? I take it you’re talking to me?
I didn’t say that I thought we’d get it, I said that I thought we should have it!
Sorry sPud, I thought you were getting excited cos you thought we masses would be near the top of the line.
About digital literacy – we seem to be hedging this subject first mentioned in the first post by Paul Mathews:
I object to the idea of labs of computers where students are taught computing as part of their normal day. The computer is a tool and should be used as such unless students chose to study them. The use of computers in the classroom today feels like having a class about a hammer. Instead, a hammer is used as a tool in other subjects (science when talking about magnetism, wordwork etc.)
Back to the point though – I think Peter Harrison is onto something. If access can be guaranteed in the form of public access (and hopefully without the terrible filtering of words that American libraries employed) then perhaps Internet can become a right within this country.
I still have reservations about the way that data is charged for in this country. I’ve said it before – the term “datacap” is used as a shortened form for data capture anywhere but NZ. Until we can get access that is on par with the rest of the world, I really don’t see that declaring Internet as a public right is practical.
Apology accepted
Clare, thanks for the post on my talk. And glad to see the great discussion here in comments. Colin’s comment, I think, has really nailed it; there is an opening here for NZ to be leader in this area.
Falafulu Fisi: please don’t re-judge my talk without actually hearing it, or reading my paper. I critique notions of Internet rights-talk founded on abstract notions of natural human rights. As Thomas points out, I draw connections between the idea and concrete legislative and quasi-constitutional documents here in New Zealand.
Broadband access to the internet is the transport system of the 21st century. Of course everyone should have access.
Do we suggest there should be restrictions on who can walk down the road?
And it should be free (ie publicly funded), but I hold out little hope for that as a future outcome.
A useful discussion, but to some extent we might be overtaken by events as I seek to point out here
http://bit.ly/aHwOcS
If I am correct then Clare’s call for ‘Open ‘ Access becomes more important, especially when one considers that some major information sources are now tailored more for the mobile data world than the browser based one
Lawrence Miller, the only legitimate rights were the ones that the American founding fathers fought for (ideologically) that lead to the 4th of July independence.
Your example of the suggestion there should be restrictions on who can walk down the road, is irrelevant and has got nothing to do with rights. Roads are publicly owned. Internet/telecommunication companies are privately owned. It is wrong to dictate to a private company to give access to others simply because of the misguided notion that they have a (bogus) right to get access to the internet. Do you see the difference? It is something (legitimate rights) that the US founding fathers realized long time ago.
Falafulu Fisi: Again, you’re making presumptions. One of my arguments, for example, is that section 14 includes a negative right, not a positive one. In other words, there is no risk that the government will be ordering private companies around. Rather, I argue the right prevents government interference in people’s right to access the Internet, if that access is available.
But putting that aside for a moment, I don’t see how the “only” legitimate rights are those in the Declaration of Independence. Many countries, including New Zealand, have their own unique rights tradition that are both legitimate and worthy of inquiry.
F.F., got to agree with JP here: I mean, have any peoples or countries around the world actually adopted the US founding forefathers views as the only true values and principles?
I don’t think any have.
That tells me that its a very US-cultural centric view which a some espouse but not the rest of the world.
Tracey, I find your comments about accessibility curious. In the rollout of any new technology (electricity, telephones, internet) it has always been large organisations that are early adopters -it is never an average household.
That is already happening with fibre rollout. The Labour BBC fund was specifically aimed at these organisations – particularly central and local government and large health and educational institutions (incidentally at which the students are benefiting). Again the Labour BIF requirements would have met the same criteria.
Such early adopters are willing to sign up because they are prepared to pay the up front costs on higher initial monthly fees to get started. The fibre backbone created can then be used to push out to other groups that have lower price thresholds until over time (the less the better) we have adoption by all.
It is also government/business (mainly the latter) that will drive the applications that general users will use. And it will be content that drives uptake. If there is none, then why would you use fibre. And I do not buy that greater speed in itself will be enough. That speed will drive content and if that content does not come then FTTH will be of next to no added value.
So I do not see it as a business subsidy and neither did the last Labour government or the current National government.
As for the BRT, it is largely an irrelevant organisation these days. It’s day has gone.