[pp.int.general] Looking for a Declaration of Internet rights?

[bakel362 at planet.nl]

I think that many measures considered by governments for "improving" Internet safety violate *todays* widely recognised human rights. For instance, a renowned Dutch law professor (Dommering) recently wrote an article (in Dutch, sorry) saying that filtering is definitely a form of censorship, i.e. disallowed under most constitutions (e.g. the Dutch constitution that does not allow contents to be checked prior to publication - whether contents violate law is only to be checked afterwards). Another example: German lawmakers still struggle with the Data Retention Directive implementation which is fundamentally irreconcilable with the German constitution. And so on.

Creating a new Declaration of Rights, getting it accepted, and then enforce it imho is a complicated route to achieve what can be achieved in a direct way by insisting on a proper application of *present* rights.

Nowadays politicians (in particular Christian democrats and other "law and order" conservatives) adopt the perception that all the technology that is available to improve internet safety and security should be exploited, as opposed to the "old" idea that there are limits imposed by privacy considerations. The argument is that the government can't effectively fight terrorism and protect the rights of people (copyright!) if its hands are tied by privacy legislation. Another argument is child porn (incidentally, the Dutch pedo-party has recently been revived, and may participate in elections again - but our PP should obviously not be identified with this PP).

Perhaps the most effective way to oppose all this frenzy is to show that arguments like terrorism and child porn are abused as a pretext (e.g. to filter other "undesired" websites). And again it should be emphasized that it is nonsense to say that "someone who has nothing to hide, has nothing to fear". There are a lot of examples that this is simply not true (think of identity theft).

And I still wonder whether pervasive internet surveillance conflicts fundamental religious principles. Christian democrats should oppose attempts to mimic god, who "knows everything". Does anyone know a biblical citation that explicitly relates to this perception? Then the Cristian democrats may be forced to admit that they are not Christian at all - and everybody will vote for the other Christian! 

reinier
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