A Digital Citizen's Bill of Rights 167
New submitter matt.a.f writes "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has published a first-draft Internet Bill of Rights, and it's open for feedback. He wrote, 'While I do not have all the answers, the remarkable cooperation we witnessed in defense of an open Internet showed me three things. First, government is flying blind, interfering and regulating without understanding even the basics. Second, we have a rare opportunity to give government marching orders on how to treat the Internet, those who use it and the innovation it supports. And third, we must get to work immediately because our opponents are not giving up.' Given the value of taking an active approach agains prospective laws such as SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, I think it's very important to try to spread awareness, participation, and encourage elected officials to support such things."
Government actually working for the people (Score:5, Funny)
This seems to be the twilight zone. An politician taking a stand to help protect freedom. Wow.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing the fact that all those silicon valley megatech companies that opposed SOPA fall in his jurisdiction and are potential campaign contributors may have helped a teeny bit...
Re: (Score:2)
Um. Its called Representing Your Constituents.
Its also the right thing to do on more than one level.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, I wasn't critisizing the bill, just wondering where the money is. Says something that I'm basically incapable of seeing a politician do anything (good or bad) without wondering where the money is.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean "donators." Subtle but important difference.
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes representing your constituents actually does align with doing The Right Thing.
It's getting unfortunately more rare, but it is nice when it happens.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, no. He represents the area north of San Diego, which does have some tech, but nothing on the scale of the Silicon Valley (which is several hundred miles away). He does, however, have a background in running an electronics company that made car alarms for the Viper and other such things.
On the other side of this, he is chairman on oversight and judicial committees in the House, so his putting this out on the net for commet and review is likely a good thing. Relevant link- http://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It is the twilight of US, if we continue to have corporate-greed write the laws of the land.
Maybe, this is a start of one of the things that will turn US around from greater mediocrity and failure.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't corporate greed that is bankrupting California, it is Union greed [wsj.com]. Corporations and unions are no different in their self-interest at the expense of everyone else.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:5, Insightful)
Citing the wsj for an anti-union story is like citing linux.com for an anti-microsoft article, or citing Fox News for an anti-Obama article. As to "Corporations and unions are no different in their self-interest at the expense of everyone else", that's incorrect. Whether you're in a union or not, you can blame or praise them for safer working conditions, wekends, paid vacations, sick leave, and a host of other things you would never have had were it not for unions. When the union wins, the only losers are management and the 1%, those who work for a living always win when the union wins whether or not they're in a union.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:5, Interesting)
I heartily agree that unions have helped with "safer working conditions, weekends, paid vacations, sick leave, and a host of other things ". However, they have also failed miserably when it comes to things like nonsensical work rules, seniority, and protecting useless workers.
The one example I can give is my first job (which was a union posiiton). There was a guy who used to hide in the toilet to read the paper or sleep. There was another guy who ran a vitamin supplements business from his desk. They were useless workers and yet every year we got the same pay raise. Management (also useless) tried to get rid of them several times, but the union reps always managed to save them.
In an ideal world, I would like to have the benefits that unions have brought without the the soul sucking lowest common denominator mentality that holds back conscientious workers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I find this refreshing. Issa admits that government doesn't understand the basics. Halle-effing-luiah! I'm so fed up with know-nothing politicians with zero practical experience in anything claiming to know more than I do about something.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you read it? Looks pretty scary to me:
"5. Creativity - digital citizens have a right to create, grow and collaborate on the internet, and be held accountable for what they create"
No more creating anonymous posts on the internet.
"10. Property - digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property on the internet"
lay ground work for SOPA 2.0
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:4, Funny)
I am actually waiting for a call from the red guy complaining that it's getting mighty cold.
Re: (Score:3)
I am actually waiting for a call from the red guy complaining that it's getting mighty cold.
Yippee!... Time to call Theresa Manyan [google.com].
Re: (Score:2)
He got an A in Chem. E. but failed Logic 101. A -> B does not mean that !A -> !B (A = Theresa has slept with him, B = there has previously been a cold night in hell).
Re: (Score:2)
He got an A in Chem. E. but failed Logic 101. A -> B does not mean that !A -> !B (A = Theresa has slept with him, B = there has previously been a cold night in hell).
It didn't occur to you that "time to call" could mean "Let's give it a try, now that the restriction is lifted", did it?
(if you are so geeky that cannot grasp the real life, here's the explanation in formal logic: A->B means !B->!A. Since !B is now F, if you go back to your Logic 101 and check the truth table for implication, you'll discover A can be now in either T/F and the !B->!A is still T. It means either A and !A are both now possible without contradicting the original A->B rule. At this
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't follow OP's link and read the joke. Then you would have realized I was commenting on that story, not on OP's comment. The student in the story clearly concluded !B from !A.
Re:Government actually working for the people (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. It's rare to see a politician, let alone a Republican, taking a stand to help protect freedom.
I'm nott surprised. No matter how evil you might think that a person is I have strong doubts that you can find a person who doesn't consider themselves as good.
Conflict doesn't occur because there is a good and evil side, they occur because there are two or more views on what is good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
People that post this seem to forget the massive party switch. When some Republicans were for equal rights they caused an uproar in the party. They left to become Democrats, and the Democrats that were upset over it left to become Republicans. It basically ended up with all the racists in the Republican party. Some refused to leave their original party such as the Dixiecrats.
Read up on your history.
Re: (Score:2)
Based on the number of times I've heard Republicans scream about 'States Rights' lately, I bet if that same situation were to come before the Republicans of today, a fair number of them would vote to allow slavery because "government just gets in the way" and "regulations stifle innovation" and "the government which governs least governs best". Look at the hard work going on in conservative America right now to roll back labor laws, all the comments made by people like Newt Gingrich about how we should put [latimes.com]
Is that really happening? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really hope something good will come out of this, but I won't hold my breath.
Re: (Score:1)
I hope something good comes of it, but this is a pretty meager effort. For starters, any "bill of rights" with exactly ten rights was probably forced to that number, rather than arrived at naturally. That's not a good start. Cheesy, meaningless terms like "digital citizen" give me even less confidence. "Digital citizens are created equal on the internet"? Come on, that's just a stupid little throwaway line intended to appeal to the sort of person who starts every sentence with "We, the people..."
I'm gl
Re:Is that really happening? (Score:4, Insightful)
Granted, but you have to give him some slack. He did say publicly that the government (which refers to him) is flying blind and doesn't even understand the basics of what it is they are trying to regulate. Whenever a person is willing to admit ignorance, the person is open to teaching.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is that really happening? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality is, all you can do is publicly support it. Even if it is empty politics, the greater the public support the more they will have to take notice of it and the greater the risk of ignoring it. It matters not what party, whether conservative or progressive is arbitrary, at the end of the day all that counts is policy. The internet bill of rights for individuals is good policy, the greater the support, the greater the impact of the policy. Even if it is a political scam, should the response be strong enough, the politician will find themselves bound by as the backlash would be to severe to just ignore it. So pile on there and pass it on and then see what will come of it.
Election year window dressing. (Score:1)
"Will it be simply ignored, shelved or "noted as valuable input" and then ignored"
I'm inclined to believe that is is not a really serious proposal. They will submit it as a bill and do nothing about it "because there are more important things" . When the elections are over tabled and left to die. It will be reintroduced in 2014 in time for the next election.
We already have one (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need an "Internet Bill of Rights." The government just needs to adhere to the actual "Bill of Rights" that's already in the Constitution, and we'll be ok.
Re:We already have one (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need an "Internet Bill of Rights."
I don't know about that. I think the internet has developed into something bigger, It's an entity all to itself. I think it pretty well needs to be or have it's own government to protected it from all other governments. It's not just the US government that's attacking the internet and it's users and we need a collective voice out there telling all governments to "step off", this is outside their realm of influence and anyone anywhere at anytime should be able to use the internet as a medium to share ideas.
The problem is the internet can't fight back because there is not central authoritative "leader" to fight back, but it is powerful, which is why I think governments are working to control it and it's contents. Look what happened when SOPA was proposed, all the sudden there was outrage. Using the internet we were all able to collectively say fuck off and what happened!? The government backed down. Unfortunately they've only backed down until people have forgotten what they tried to do, they'll learn form their mistake and come after the internet again. Next time we might not be able to stop them.
Being able to get all governments to agree anyone using the internet should have certain rights is the first step to creating an internet government that will have the ability to fight for what all it's users collectively want.
Re: (Score:2)
What you perceive to be a weakness is actually the strength.
The fact that the Internet does not have a central government is a positive, not a negative. You can view different attempts at regulating the Internet as opportunities for competition among various networks.
If there was a central government of some sort, then it would become a tyranny on its own, while it would also become the single point of failure, how would such a structure protect itself from all the other governments of the world exactly?
I h [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that the Internet does not have a central government is a positive, not a negative.
I can't dispute this. I don't know what's best or what will work, but there has to be some methodology to tell governments to back off. I should have put government in quotes when referring to the internet "government", because obviously you're right and government in the traditional sense would be a single point of failure and eventually become bloated and tyrannical.
The "government" I'm envisioning would be different, it wouldn't be elected or appointed bodies, but there would be some kind of governing
Re: (Score:2)
The Bill of Rights only restricts what government can do to you, not what commercial enterprises can do to you.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:better than what we have now (Score:3)
Dammit, you're falling into the meta-trap.
It's *worse* than what we *used to have*. The public internet has been here a modestly long time. Remember the good old days of Pets.com, AOL and Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, Who Had Mail? Remember that the only thing we really could gripe about was AOL mass marketed CD's, Microsoft's OEM games, and the depressing fall of Netscape?
The Internet hasn't really changed since then. Sure, storage has increased, speeds have increased, so what. It's the same good ol' net that s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hi there.
By "meta-trap" I am referring to how the mood of an age used to include certain tacit understandings of how things worked. Easy example: In the 80's and even 90's, you could make mix tapes and mix CD's with your friends and really didn't have to worry about it. If you weren't selling them, it went below the radar. Now, if you bit-torrent something off the wrong site too many times you risk losing your internet.
Look carefully at the nature of the types of laws being tossed around - SOPA, which we be
Re: (Score:2)
Hear Hear! That is exactly what I came in here to say.
Good to see someone else beat me to it.
So much would be better in this world -- especially in regards to Law -- if people stopped looking at electronic media and the Internet as some "different" place where current law does not apply. Popular Culture referring to the WWW as the Wild Wild West and some virtual no man's land helped foster this mind-set. And while the Internet is a new Frontier, it is still a part of every day life, we are still dealing wit
The problem with these efforts (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians eventually end up consulting "industry experts" (read that as corporate representatives) for advice/bribes to help craft the legislation. Then, we end up with a watered down or punched-full-of-loopholes version of a great idea. We're a full blown fascist government now. There simply aren't enough politicians willing to give up the power and post-Congress paybacks to make something like this happen.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The problem with these efforts (Score:4, Insightful)
"Fascism" isn't really the most accurate term for what passes for government in the US. "Plutocracy" is much, much more appropriate, because at least in fascism, there is no pretense of a two-party system, in which dissent is superficially tolerated as a means to divert attention from those who are actually in control. Governance by the wealthy, for the wealthy is what we have had for quite some time now, and a true republic under the principles set forth in the Constitution that establishes equal representation, has really been a pretty fantasy repeated to the electorate in order to give them the illusion that they have any actual power. In the meantime, you have plenty of folks waving their flags and embracing their Bibles, calling out anyone who exhibits even the slightest criticism of their blind nationalism as a turban-wearing terrorist (or back in the McCarthy days, the term of art was "pinko/commie").
Money--and we're not talking a few dollars here or there, but mind-numbingly enormous sums--is an inherently corrupting force in any political system. Citizens United was only the latest example of how corporate power has so flagrantly rewritten the rules in their favor. It is the coordinated collusion of financial corporations, mainstream media, elected officials at the state and federal levels, local and federal law enforcement, and the military industrial complex that has successfully stripped citizens of their rightful and primal role in governing a just society.
In a sense, a fascist state may be preferable to what the United States has become--for at least a fascist state would be more likely to incite a revolution, rather than perpetuate this sickeningly cowed, brainwashed, and indentured so-called "American public," fattened on a steady diet of processed foods to make them weak, 'popular entertainment' that doesn't invigorate their passions, and propaganda designed to curtail critical thinking. In this context, then, a "digital Citizen's Bill of Rights" is about as absurd as demanding that the rights nominally codified in that thing we call the Constitution actually be respected in the first place.
Re: (Score:1)
+1
What about The Original Bill of Rights ? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That Bill of Rights only has is your (Americans) problem. Americans are just a small percentage of the internet's demographic.
Indeed. As I am Canadian. I just like to point out that Americans are worrying about fixing the new plumbing while the basement is flooding.
If the government really understood the internet.. (Score:1)
Re:If the government really understood the interne (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand the retort. Just because they created it doesn't mean they understood it, or what it would do to their "nightly news" propaganda system.
Darrel Issa (Score:5, Interesting)
and Polis, and Lofgren are probably the most Internet-literate people I had ever seen as politicians.
That Issa did not follow Smith's leadership in the House Judiciary Committee when it came to marking-up internet-hostile bills like SOPA was refreshing when watched live on CSPAN.
His social-conservatism in other areas, leaves much to be desired, but at least he's not like that scumbag Goodlatte who brought up child-porn as a justification for SOPA every time he got the chance to speak.
I think Maxine Waters was one of the most despicable on the other side of the aisle. The blatant anti-debate "let's all just go home, you're wasting my time" bullshit she was pulling made me want to scream.
The amount of illogic on both sides of the aisle except for a handful of people is disheartening.
Issa understands the Internet, and so do a few others. He is part of a very small minority. The rest are technophobes who have no idea what they are trying to regulate and simply don't care.
--
BMO
Re:Darrel Issa (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think Issa fully understands. Look at #10 of his Bill of Rights:
Property - digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property on the internet
The first part sounds okay. But the second part, no. What does "secure" mean here? Worse than that, he said "intellectual property".
He may be opposed to the details of SOPA, but not the essence. He wants some magic way to make intellectual property just work, acts as if it can be done, and seems unquestioning in moving ahead as if it's a good idea.
Then, how about #5?
digital citizens have a right to ... be held accountable for what they create
That's not a right! That's some kind of obligation.
Re: (Score:3)
>Worse than that, he said "intellectual property".
So? Copyright and trademark exist. You think that The Oatmeal should have no recourse against Funnyjunk?
The GPL depends on copyright for its existence. Should authors of GPLed software have no recourse against those who would take their code and close it off?
>be held accountable for what they create
We have libel and slander laws. You are already held accountable for what you create.
--
BMO
Re:Darrel Issa (Score:4, Insightful)
Then say "copyright and trademarks and patents". They are nothing like property.
Property is inalienable from the person, it's one of the reasons governments exist.
Copyright is _meant_ to expire and soon.
Patents are _meant_ to expire and soon (no, really, that's why we as a society have them: so they expire).
Your deed for your house is not meant to expire.
So use the right words and not 1984 newspeak.
Re: (Score:1)
>Copyright is _meant_ to expire and soon
No, copyright is life of the author + 70 or 90 years, I forgot which, it keeps getting longer. There is no "soon" about it. You only believe this because you stopped paying attention to copyright law in the 70s.
And as far as corporations are concerned, they'll just keep extending it forever. That's the reality.
>patents
I said nothing about patents
>Trademarks
Trademarks are your property, forever for as long as you choose to use them. You can even give them
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Copyright is _meant_ to expire and soon
No, copyright is life of the author + 70 or 90 years, I forgot which, it keeps getting longer. There is no "soon" about it. You only believe this because you stopped paying attention to copyright law in the 70s.
And as far as corporations are concerned, they'll just keep extending it forever. That's the reality.
To be fair, the parent specifically said "meant to", while you specifically said "is".
These two things are both true, and goes to show how wide the gap between what it should be and what it is.
That is also the root of the complaint. Personally I have no issue with copyright as it was meant to be, but have huge issues with what it is.
Most likely the best proof of this is the original copyright laws.
First, the constitution had an amendment (Article 1, section 8) stating vaguely what copyright should be.
Seco
Re: (Score:2)
>The question is, if "limited time" as stated in the constitution was intended to mean ~180 years, then why was the first iteration of the law only providing for 28 years?
This, unfortunately, was settled in a SCOTUS case that basically said that anything less than the heat-death of the Universe is "a limited time"
I can't be arsed to look it up, but I assure you it's out there if you look.
Oh hell, I looked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_v._Holder [wikipedia.org]
That and eldred vs ashcroft, which is listed as a refere
Re: (Score:1)
Wrong. It's what leftists precisely mean with the death tax.
DAMN YOU LEFTISTS!!! *shakes fist* roman_mir for president!
Re: (Score:2)
So? Copyright and trademark exist.
Trademarks are property, copyrights and patents are not; at least, not according to the US Constitution that politicians must swear an oath to uphold when being sworn in to office. If you rent your house, it isn't your property; it belongs to the landlord. You merely have a limited time monopoly on that property. You do NOT own it, and "intellectual property" gives the impression that I own the material I hold copyright on, when I do not. The very term "intellectual propert
Re: (Score:2)
>Steamboat Willie and Dumbo belong to us.
Nope, and you have not paid attention at all to Eldred vs Ashcroft.
The SCOTUS determines what's Constitutional. They said "limited time" is vague and as long as it lasts for a time shorter than infinty, it's limited.
That is a mathematical definition of "limited", and contrary to the popular definition of "limited" meaning the 14 years originally mentioned, but them's the breaks.
--
BMO
Re:Darrel Issa (Score:4, Informative)
Property - digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property on the internet
And there it is, folks. This is just another cock getting stuck in our collective mouth, and this politician is hoping that if he puts some sugar on it we won't notice.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't think Issa fully understands. Look at #10 of his Bill of Rights:
I would, but I don't trust governments or politicians to run scripts on my computer, and his bill of rights doesn't fucking load unless you do that. He can attempt aviary copulation with a ventrally rotating toroidal pastry.
Re: (Score:3)
Then, how about #5? ... be held accountable for what they create
digital citizens have a right to
That's not necessarily a violation of free speech as it could refer to malware or creating derivative works without a licence. Still its meaning is as ambigous as the rest of the "bill", which is why it's no more than populist bullshit.
The Government Completely Understood The Internet (Score:1)
And, they removed it from our grasp, a long time ago.
What we "think" of as the Internet is simply a stripped down version which they allow us to have, not nearly 1/100th as dangerous as the real and complete Internet.
Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
I miss my Telegraph Citizen Bill of Rights.
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (Score:5, Interesting)
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
by John Perry Barlow
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.
You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.
In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.
You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.
In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blankete
Re: (Score:2)
While an independent Internet would be the best thing that's not going to happen anytime soon. Until then, securing our rights country after country is a reasonable compromise.
Re:A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly, which is why an independent Internet could only be ensured by international treaties, and there is no political will in any country for that.
Re: (Score:1)
An independant internet runs into a practical problem: The hardware has to go somewhere, and wherever it goes there will be someone governing the region who can take control of it by force - or at the very least, physically destroy it if their demands are not met.
Clearly the only solution is to move all the major hardware to Antarctica. I'm not sure what to do for power, but just think of how much you could overclock those mainframes!
Re: (Score:2)
An independent internet is exactly what will happen when the need drives it. The internet is just a communication network, and communication networks have a long history of going underground when forced to by oppression.
Re:A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (Score:5, Funny)
"You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants."
Says the Fetus who thinks that nobody was here when he got here. I've been ONLINE cince 1986 exploring UUNET before you were even though of. There are a lot of us old farts here that are the real natives, not you come later johnny's that think you own this place. Befoer you we had peace and harmony. We lived among and with the data... but YOU came along with your Goatse and your Hot Grits and disrupted the data. And now we look at what you have brought, us.... LOL cats, Facebook, and morons on Youtube.
Proud of yourself?
mod up (Score:2)
Wish I had a mod point. This is very insightful.
Re:A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (Score:5, Funny)
Says the Fetus who thinks that nobody was here when he got here. I've been ONLINE cince 1986 exploring UUNET before you were even though of. There are a lot of us old farts here that are the real natives, not you come later johnny's that think you own this place.
The piece was written, if the basic facts of Wikipedia are correct, in 1996 by somebody who is now age 64 and:
"In 1986, Barlow joined The WELL online community, then known for a strong Deadhead presence. He served on the company's board of directors for several years. In 1990, Barlow founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) along with fellow digital-rights activists John Gilmore and Mitch Kapor. As a founder of EFF, Barlow helped publicize the Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games."
Get off his lawn.
Re: (Score:2)
I still blame him for Youtube and Facebook.
Dang you Barlow!
Re: (Score:2)
and, in conclusion.... get off my lawn!!!
There is only one thing this bill has to contain (Score:3)
"on the internet" is not a valid reason to treat it differently.
That's basically ALL it takes. The rest is handled by the original bill of rights and accompanying laws.
There's internet outside the US y'know (Score:1)
The US Bill of Rights applies only in the US. So it's fucking useless in the EU, Canada, UK, Australia, anywhere else. This is intended as guideance for non-US govs as well. Dickhead.
Re: (Score:2)
And why do you think any non-US governments care more about a "digital bill of rights" than they do about a real one? Either they already follow the US or they won't, another pointless paper won't change either.
blindly regulating (Score:2)
First, government is flying blind, interfering and regulating without understanding even the basics. Hmm...Sounds like we're off to our typical start in yet another sector. I'm sure the bigger, well-financed firms will send lobbyists and free aides to help them make rules designed to frustrate disruptive startu...er..."dangerously inexperienced firms" messing with nation's critical infrastructure. From the creation of TSA to financial regulators, government's ready to execute smartly to ensure that the
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I have kids that will foot their incredible tax bill.
That's only *IF* they survive the coming collapse, the famines, the riots & violence, the government crackdowns, mass re-locations, and the "re-education" and forced-labor camps.
Strat
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, a time traveler, eh?
Re: (Score:2)
Late model and sticker-less Volvo wagon, but still an okay guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Let me guess, you have a 'Nobama' sticker on your truck.
Let me guess, you have PETA, OWS, and "Yes We Can!" stickers on both your Chevy Volt and Segway, are a vegetarian, and you think that anyone that doesn't agree with your views isn't as smart as you.
Strat
lol (Score:5, Informative)
Re:lol (Score:4, Funny)
This is normal. (Score:3)
Most industries deal with this sort of thing all the time.
Doctors, heavy industry, power generation, farmers... all of them get handed down legislation by people that often don't know what they're talking about. They often have good intentions and are trying to fix a real problem. But because they don't know what they're talking about it causes problems.
This is why regulations should be kept small and flexible. Understand that people are going to make mistakes and not understand. The system has to anticipate a certain percentage of legislation is going to be stupid. So be it. Just make sure that no one bill can be so influential that it can ever matter. And make sure nothing is written in stone unless everyone really knows what they're talking about.
Summary (Score:1)
People to have full enforceable rights over their data
Corporations are People
Humans are not People
No right to free speech or anonymous communication (Score:3, Insightful)
Where is the right to free speech on the internet in this doc? And a corollary of a right to free speech should be the right to communicate anonymously and pseudo-anonymously, without which there can be no safe free speech.
"Bill of Rights" cliche (Score:5, Insightful)
I am getting annoyed with lawmakers calling this or that a "Bill of Rights." We've have the Airline Traveler's Bill of Rights, and the Credit Card User's Bill of Rights, and now this. To call these feeble gestures "Bills of Rights" cheapens the real Bill of Rights.
If the legislature and courts would pay attention to upholding the real, one-and-only Bill of Rights, this Internet "bill of rights" would emerge as corollaries to Amendments #1 and #4.
Re: (Score:2)
What about the real amendments of the real Bill of Rights? Our current #1 was actually #3. One of the first 2 took 200 years to pass.
Re: (Score:3)
What are you, one of those Ron Paul supporters?
Look, if politicians don't make up superfluous tripe like this to appease the masses, what are the talking heads at MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News going to bicker about? What are the politicians going to be talking about when they say, "We need to get to work doing the people's business (instead of talking about our graft and corruption)"? How can they talk about how they "got things done" if they've not written or sponsored a list of innocuous single-page bills tha
Politician support (Score:1)
Lose "digital" and "internet" (Score:2)
"Digital citizen" sounds stupid and isn't any different than any other sort of citizen, unless you're trying to discriminate against people who have had bandsaw accidents. "Person" will do fine.
The focus on the Internet isn't too bad, but why bother? No reason to exclude LANs or (shared?) single node systems. Just lose the "on the internet" part of each one and you've got something just as good.
Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea is sound, the implementation is lousy.
5. Creativity - digital citizens have a right to create, grow and collaborate on the internet, and be held accountable for what they create
Since when is the "right to be held accountable" a "right"? This is a clear attack on anonymity, as is the glaring omission of a right to anonymity from the list of bullet points!
I fail to see how most of the things listed have anything to do with the internet. Equality, Association and Privacy are rights we have anyway, so they should already apply to the internet as with everywhere else.
I like that he's got "Sharing" in there and I think I understand why, but we already have freedom of speech and I don't see how this is any more than that.
The bullet on Property is worrying at best. We already have a right to property, are we now trying to codify additional rights for the ill conceived notion of "Intellectual Property"? Is this supposed to imply DRM requirements as a matter of law for all digital "property"? I don't see that this can lead anywhere good.
So yeah, nice idea but horrible details which are either due to innocent misunderstanding or a veiled ulterior motive. Given the source, I'm guessing that the language here is something that some unknown corporate masters thought would be good for them and not something people who know anything about the internet told him would be a good idea.
Original Bill of Rights should cover it (Score:2)
Garbage In = Garbage Out (Score:3)
The cited Web page (at Keep the Web Open) has 39 XHTML errors and 71 CSS errors. I cannot read the comments or any details about Issa's 10 points.
warrant-less wire tapping (Score:1)
Skeptical (Score:2)
5. Creativity - digital citizens have a right to create, grow and collaborate on the internet, and be held accountable for what they create
10. Property - digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property on the internet
When I saw it was a Republican sponsored bill, I was skeptical. Sorry, just my bias that the Republican party represents business rights over individual rights. I added emphasis to two provisions that I think are really just back doors/foundations for later SOPA/PIPA style legislation. Note the term 'digital citizen' - since corporations have personhood, I am sure entities like Reddit and Slashdot would be digital citizens subject to ensuring "their" (ie, user submitted) "creative content" (content and l
Can't help but notice (Score:2)
...that he couldn't resist the opportunity to practice a bit of demagoguery in his announcement.