Sunday 3 October 2010

Serious Threats Are Not Tackled With Hysterical Overreaction…

…yes, Tim Berners-Lee, I’m looking at you:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, has said “disconnection from the internet is a form of imprisonment”, and called the Digital Economy Act, which could allow families to be deprived of internet access, “worrying”.
Yes, it is worrying. No, it isn’t like being in prison, FFS..!
Sir Tim claimed that a right to the freedom to access the internet could even be linked back to Magna Carta.
It could? Wow! Who wrote that again, Nostradamus, was it?
“It is constitutionally serious to deprive someone from the web – it requires consideration in the law,” he said. “Magna Carta says that no free man shall be deprived of liberty without due process”.
I’m pretty certain when that was written, the right to 24 hour access to ‘Maidens who doth show some ankle!’ and the ability to download the latest hot top ten madrigal wasn’t foremost in their thoughts…

And besides, the government has already trampled all over the right to not be deprived of your actual liberty with hobnailed boots, courtesy of the detention of terrorist suspects…
“When you commit a crime you lose rights,” said Sir Tim. “If you think about the class of crime for which you’d be imprisoned, stealing a DVD for the first time would certainly not be one. Yet we’re talking about potentially disconnecting a whole family because a child has downloaded something. It seems to me to be unreasonable and impractical. The things which are being proposed at the moment are dangerously crossing the boundaries of people’s net rights.”
*sigh*

Now the net is another human right! I can't keep up with them....

12 comments:

Mr Civil Libertarian said...

But Lee never declared internet access to be a human right- merely a right, which it is if you are a paying customer to an ISP.

Yes, being cut off from services by the state, without any form of due process is more serious than it may strike you at first- Bernard Lee isn't over reacting all that much.

Angry Exile said...

To expand on Berners-Lee's point, let me tell you about a common occurrence of Exile piss boiling. Several states have enacted so-called 'Anti-Hoon Legislation' (which means boy racers rather than hopeless politicians called Geoff). One of the things this does is to give police forces the power to confiscate vehicles driven X amount over the speed limit or been caught doing burn ups, and they're not shy about using it. In fact both police and justice departments are happy to confiscate cars which are in fact the private property of a third party, and so we have cases like the Lamborghini owner in Western Australia whose car was confiscated for a month for speeding when he wasn't even in it, or the Mercedes dealership who lost one of their loaners for a few days after Lewis Hamilton smoked the tyres at the F1 GP in Melbourne, and yes, suburban housewives have had their teenage offspring sheepishly explain that the police have punished her for their behaviour by taking the family car away.

Now, back to Tim Berners-Lee:

"Yet we’re talking about potentially disconnecting a whole family because a child has downloaded something."

Sounds like the same thing to me. Calling it a form of imprisonment might be over egging the pudding a bit but the point is that it involves the punishment of innocent people. Not people who are tried and acquitted or people who are innocent as in innocent until proven guilty, but actually properly genuinely innocent people who aren't even suspect of a crime but who live with someone who is. Berners-Lee's use of the term 'net rights' is misleading because we're so used to hearing about human rights that it's the first thing we think of, but actually this is about property rights. Specifically the property rights of people who have done no wrong morally or legally being ripped up and shat on for convenience and to make the justice system look tough for the tabloids.

(Or maybe he's turning a bit Doc Brown and he really did mean human rights.)

Twisted Root said...

Losing internet connection for a while is no big deal as long as we are not moving inexorably toward a cashless society control grid... oh wait...

David Gillies said...

Yeah, I have to come down on TBL's side here: I could do a spell in choky but without Internet access it would be nearly intolerable (without Internet, how would one access the musings of the delightful and fragrant JuliaM?). Am I wrong in saying that access to reading material and writing implements are considered hallmarks of a humane incarceration sustem? The literature of imprisonment has a fine pedigree, whence the Gulag Archipelago and Ivan Denisovich (plus Great Expectations, The Count of Monte Cristo, Papillion, Dolgun etc.)

Captain Haddock said...

TB-L does make a valid point when he says that an entire family would not be collectively punished if a child stole a CD or DVD from, for example HMV ..

These days it would indeed be rare for the culprit to be punished in any significant way ..

I see this as being the "thin end" of the wedge .. it may well start off being used to protect the intellectual rights of performers etc .. but how long will it take for for "mission creep" to set in .. and for the sanctions be used against those who criticise the government or individual politicians etc ?

We've already seen the Police arresting photographers & confiscating cameras & film for photographing them .. how long before the same happens with Internet access being withdrawn for criticising them ?

If you're paying an ISP to provide a service, the government should have no more right to "withold" or "withdraw" that service, anymore than they should have the right to "withold" or "withdraw" Gas, Electricity or Water services .. for those paying for them ..

JuliaM said...

"Yes, being cut off from services by the state, without any form of due process is more serious than it may strike you at first..."

Oh, I agree. But it isn't comparable to prison!

Not when you can still access the net on a mobile phone/works PC/ intenet cafe/friend's house...

"Several states have enacted so-called 'Anti-Hoon Legislation' (which means boy racers rather than hopeless politicians called Geoff)..."

Ah, yes! Oddly enough, I've just been watching an Aussie reality cop show on Sky ('Highway Patrol'). The number of offences is utterly amazing! Things that UK police wouldn't even bother with - minor things - are automatic fines, sometimes for the passenger!

Best case was the oriental gentleman stopped driving a hotwired car with no license plates (though he produced them when stopped. From the glovebox...) and no lights.

Cop: Who owns this car? You?
OG: My friend.
Cop: Why isn't he driving it?
OG: He can't.
Cop: Why not?
OG: It's got no lights!

/facepalm

JuliaM said...

"...Berners-Lee's use of the term 'net rights' is misleading because we're so used to hearing about human rights that it's the first thing we think of, but actually this is about property rights."

Indeed. But there's the property rights of the copyright holders of illegal downloaded material too.

"...I could do a spell in choky but without Internet access it would be nearly intolerable (without Internet, how would one access the musings of the delightful and fragrant JuliaM?)."

Thank you kind sir! :)

I suspect I'm blocked anyway, though! :D

"Am I wrong in saying that access to reading material and writing implements are considered hallmarks of a humane incarceration sustem?"

Oh, indeed. Wouldn't be surprised to see the Home Office insisting on NetNanny software of the most restrictive sort in prisons, though...

"I see this as being the "thin end" of the wedge .. it may well start off being used to protect the intellectual rights of performers etc .. but how long will it take for for "mission creep" to set in..."

Not long, if other examples are anything to go by!

"If you're paying an ISP to provide a service, the government should have no more right to "withold" or "withdraw" that service, anymore than they should have the right to "withold" or "withdraw" Gas, Electricity or Water services..."

But (taking Twisted Root's point about the move to a cashless society on board), can access to the net be considered to be in the same category as things vital for health?

Captain Haddock said...

Your point is well made Julia ..

And of course the two cannot be compared in that manner .. just as doing without Internet access cannot be likened to imprisonment ..

Anyway, I suspect that were Government to "withdraw" or "withold" Internet access .. it wouldn't take someone long to find a way round it ..

After all, there are people "hooking-up" to neighbours Satellite dishes, without them even being aware of the fact .. (I met one such individual on a course a couple of years ago) and he was quite open & unashamed about it ..

JuliaM said...

"After all, there are people "hooking-up" to neighbours Satellite dishes..."

Wow! I knew this happened in the states, but I ddn't know it went on here too!

Anonymous said...

'Nonsense on stilts' used to be the cry on mention of human rights. But hell, the idea of a ban on Geoff Hoon - I mean sometimes you have to go with the flow!
Cops in Glasgee have long confiscated such items as illegally 'driven' hi-fis from neighbour yobs, and Merseyside gleefully crush thousands of yob-scum-criminal pool cars.

Scum who impose their ego-shape on other's peace should be stopped. Let's go Aussie.

banned said...

Internet access has been enshrined in law in Finland and the Human Rights Act enshrines our right "to recieve information".

This was tested several times by residents of a newly refurbisehed fomer hospital building. The Council refused them planning permission to erect Sky dishes on their property citing Grade 2* listed building status.

In each of several cases the magistrates said that the Human Right to recieve information (ie the news) overode that status and the residents won.

Angry Exile said...

"But there's the property rights of the copyright holders of illegal downloaded material too."

Indeed, though IP is itself a whole other minefield and badly in need of reform, and I say that despite being an IP owner myself. However, even with IP as is infringement is not a justification for cutting services to innocent third parties who are paying for it. It'd be a bit like cutting off the electricity to a whole block of flats because one or two residents are fiddling their meters. In any case there are already laws dealing with IP infringement and this is a reform in the wrong direction. I'd say get the government out of it altogether and say sold/service supplied subject to condition of blahblahblah. Get IP infringements away from being tort issues and into contract law, in other words.

... I've just been watching an Aussie reality cop show on Sky ('Highway Patrol').

We know that one. Because it's shot in Melbourne we like to play Spot The Street That We Know. I think we saw the one about the OG with no lights and had a similar fly trap mouth moment and the lunacy of some people. Watch the Kiwi version (Motorway Patrol?) if they put it on there - it's even funnier. But yes, cops down under do ticket you for breaking wind in the wrong direction if you haven't got your Farting Certificate (part 14b - outdoor flatus in oncoming breeze) from VicRoads.