Maybe I’m being thick, but I really don’t get this argument. Maybe it is because I live in the UK, and a lot of our law depends on case law rather than a constitution. Nevertheless, here I am tapping away at a little box to reply to another comment of someone, somewhere else in the world. You can argue that this is not ‘speech’ because I am not speaking, and if I maligned someone the law does distinguish between libel and slander. I don’t think anyone should argue that only ‘speech’ is a human right, and other forms of other communication are not protected. I do not argue that my access to my computer, or the internet, or this newsgroup is a human right. I would argue that if an isolated South African township has its internet connection deliberately cut, depriving a particular community of its voice, then this violates human rights. We can go back fifty years: a newspaper does not print a letter I write to the editor, but intercepting the only mail service to a township is wrong. The issues remain the same.
I don’t think I am using semantics to do something dishonest here. I want to ring-fence the general rights of people to communicate with their peers to a similar degree. I am made nervous by people who want to codify which forms or communication are protected, and which are not. Is access to the internet - a communications body with all the root servers in the US - to be protected, but not other forms of communication? They were discussing the roll-out of broadband in the US: does this human right to access to the internet stop at the US border? Why make a distinction that protects some, and not others? Human rights are supposed to be common to all.
I reserve a particular place in Internet Hell for the people in this group who argue that the internet or the use of sidewalks or X is a basic human right; then argue that person Y should have such rights taken away for expressing the wrong opinions.
