Broadband soon to be a legal right in Finland - Page 9

On October 17 2009 20:17 Phrujbaz wrote:
Integra does that mean that nobody can be banned from the internet, for any reason? That is what a legal right means.

On October 17 2009 20:35 Phrujbaz wrote:
Integra this is what I call moral corruption. What is the meaning of a legal right to broadband if it can be legislated away? What is the point of calling it a fundamental right then?

Freedom of speech is not a legal entitlement to speak. It is a negative right to speak. If I am in my house, I am free to say whatever I want. Nobody has the right to preventing me from speaking. However, if I am at a school, they might say "if you are here, be nice to your fellow students." They can have that restriction on my speech as a condition for me being a student at that school. I can't sue them for "hey I wanted to speak but they won't let me."

Freedom of the press is not a legal entitlement either. If I want to publish a newspaper, I should not get money from the government in order to publicize my thoughts. The only thing I have is a negative right to freedom of the press. If I buy my own paper and ink, then I can write on the paper whatever I want to, and I can sell that paper to whomever I want to. Nobody can prevent me. That is freedom of the press.

What is happening right in the developed world is that such rights are being diluted. Partly, subsidies are turning what used to be a negative right into a positive right. In The Netherlands, some people are making provocative and discriminating movies, offensive to minorities and contributing to the hate in society, and they are doing it from my tax money. All the tax payers are rightly pissed. However, the proposed solution is awful. They want to dilute the negative right to freedom of the press to put restrictions on it like "you can't incite hate." What will be left of our freedom of the press if we dilute it more and more?

This is the moral corruption I am talking about. One the one hand, there is growing acceptance in society for turning originally negative rights into positive rights, into legal entitlements. And I don't want people inciting hate from my tax money. And at the same time, we are diluting originally negative rights by putting restrictions on the kinds of opinions people can voice.

The Finnish broadband initiative does little to improve the situation of the negative right to broadband. You can still be banned for file-sharing. The only thing that is added is the positive right to broadband, to socialized internet. And it's championed under the banner of human rights. That is moral corruption.

On October 17 2009 20:52 Phrujbaz wrote:
What is the point of a legal right to broadband if it's not absolute? What does this legal right offer me above and beyond what I already have: the legal right to enter into contract with service providers to install broadband at my home? There are two possibilities:

1) legal entitlement
If there is no broadband provider that is willing to enter into contract with me, I have the right to sue them to provide me with broadband for free or at a price determined by law. Alternatively, the government provides me with broadband.

2) legal right
No person, law, or punishment shall prevent me from gaining access to broadband unless I myself break the law and thus forfeit my right to use its services.

On October 15 2009 20:24 Integra wrote:
"The Finnish government has done what no other nation has; it has made broadband Internet access a guaranteed legal right of its citizens. According to Finnish news site YLE, The Ministry of Transport and Communications says everyone in the country will be entitled to a guaranteed 1 Mbit connection by next July. This is fascinating, but it's really only half the story.

The real news is that the country considers this just a preliminary stepping stone to a 100 Mbit service guarantee by the end of 2015. According to the story, "Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity can be arranged through mobile phone networks."

Granted, Finland's population is more like a very large city than a country as big as the U.S. There are 5.3 million people residing in Finland, mostly in the south. This would place the country about 30th in the ranking of world cities by population, but it still makes it bigger than any U.S. city save New York. Which begs the question - if Finland can do this, why can't more major U.S. cities?"

Source:http://www.pcworld.com/article/173691/finland_makes_broadband_a_legal_right.html

I always thougth Sweden would be the first countrie to do this.

On October 18 2009 01:21 Integra wrote:

Fixed

On October 19 2009 08:45 Louder wrote:


No, I don't believe you did fix it http://begthequestion.info/

On October 17 2009 21:43 zatic wrote:
Well Integra, if that is how it is perceived in Sweden and/or Skandinavia then indeed it's completely worthless to make Internet access a legal right. If you break the law you should be fined or thrown in jail - not your internet access revoked.

And I seriously doubt that is or will be the practice in Skandinavia. You guys are usually smarter thatn this. I mean, if you break the law using your right to free speech you don't forbid people to speak at all in the future either, right?

On October 19 2009 16:34 Krikkitone wrote:


Well On that definition (not revoked even if punished) There are VERY few rights, possibly a right to life in European countries that forbid the death penalty.

but I believe most of your rights can be taken away by certain punishments, with a few exceptions (religion, ?speech?maybe.probably some cases when that could get taken away as a punishment, fair trial, no cruel/unusual punishment are some of the few rights that aren't ever taken away... right to vote is often taken from felons, as is right to bear arms, and of course liberty and property. right to assembly is often removed in gang cases)

Other than those rights specifically talking about the system of punishments and requirement of trials, then most rights are potentially forfeit temporarily as part of a punishment. (religion is the only one I can think of.. and possibly speech.)

On October 19 2009 17:00 zatic wrote:
Phrujbaz: Can you for once give a source for this? No article I read about this ever gives details for how this is going to be implemented. All I read is internet access will be a legal right. Where is the false pretence?