PrintMarch 2, 2011
Do You Have a 'Right' to the Internet?
In response to events in Egypt, President Obama said, "I call upon the Egyptian government to reverse the actions that they've taken to interfere with access to the Internet, to cell phone service, and to social networks that do so much to connect people in the 21st Century." In context, the President clearly implied that all people -- Egyptian or American -- have a right to the World Wide Web. What is a right? What rights do Americans have and which ones are we denied?In common parlance as well as the dictionary, the words right and entitlement are almost interchangeable. Functionally both here and in ‘old Europe,' they have become identical. The U.S. Founding Fathers had quite a different intent. A right is a "normative rule about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory." You do not have to do anything or be anyone special to access such a right. Americans (and hopefully Egyptians)...(Read Full Article)
