There seems to be “all-round support for the internet as a civil right” if we are to believe the Times, and we have no reason not to. Lawyer Antonio Ghio described it as “the legal crystallisation of a reality we live in”, which is an interesting statement for many a reason. Ever since PM Gonzi announced “four new civil rights related to online behaviour” there seems to have been much clapping and jumping with enthusiasm. J’accuse has a problem with this enthusiasm – yes we’re going to be the usual wet blanket but we feel duty bound to point at the herd of elephants presently occupying the centre of the debate.
Elephants, might I add, that seem to have escaped everybody’s attention. So here are the questions in short: What exactly are these rights and if we do not know what they are how can we be so bloody enthusiastic about them?
The pseudo-psychological analysis of the situation is simple. “The people” were pissed off about ACTA – all that yada yada about lack of consultation and infringement of rights without actually looking into the darn agreement still gathered momentum. Enter Castille Office’s new technique of tackling complaints yesterday and we get the impromptu promise of “new civil rights”. Which brings us to the first problem… does anybody know what these rights are… and more importantly do we need them?
Mysterious rights you (probably) already have
So what actual facts do we have about these new rights? Well we have a DOI press release (PR0293 – thank you Fausto for the split second research). The rights are mentioned in the introductory paragraph:
Il-Prim Ministru Lawrence Gonzi jemmen li l-aċċess mingħajr xkiel ta’ persuna għall-Internet; id-dritt għall-informazzjoni u l-libertà tal-espressjoni permezz tal-internet; u d-dritt li jiddeċiedi x’informazzjoni jikkomunika huma drittijiet ċivili ġodda li għandhom jidħlu fil-liġijiet ta’ pajjiżna. Għalhekk il-Prim Ministru se jressaq liġi fil-Parlament li tiggarantixxi dawn id-drittijiet ċivili ġodda f’pajjiżna.
There you have it we find a generally worded reference to the four “rights”:
1) a right of unobstructed access to the internet;
2) a right to receive information via the internet;
3) a right to freely express oneself on the internet;
4) a right to decide what information to communicate.
Let us assume that rights two to four overlap insofar as they can be generally summed up as the right to exchange information (send/receive, upload/download) using this technology. That leaves us with the right to access the internet and the right to use it to exchange information. Can someone in their right mind who has been unaffected by this civil right frenzy stand up and tell me which of these rights does not already exist today?
As somebody put it (rightly) – why not introduce the basic civil right to read books, to watch TV and to listen to radio? Do you know why? Because it is already there – in the fundamental rights and freedoms that even our supposedly faulty and archaic laws include. So what is Castille selling?
Well, the people at Castille are not that stupid. If I can get you to believe that I am giving you the right to the air that you breathe and that for that you will be extremely grateful then why not? So who is being a silly ninny then?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse
We’ve said it before and we say it again. All too often nowadays we are being besieged by an army of supposed experts wanting to tinker with our legislation. The Franco Debono Reform is fast becoming an example of that. What could start off as a well meaning change ends up becoming a sweeping bungling exercise by the uninformed. And that is dangerous.
The anti-ACTAvists had us all in a twist about strip-searches at the border and Big Brother and Corporate intrusion into our private lives. What almost every indignant ACTAvist missed was the simple point that even if the strip-search myth turned out to be true it would be conducted in order to discover and prosecute an illegality. Downloading bootleg copies is a crime with or without ACTA. Illegal use of the instrument called internet is just as illegal as the illegal use of a book, radio or TV.
The Gonzi Civil Rights are stating the obvious. What they do not do is tell you that you have the right to use the internet illegally. Downloading your favourite Lana Del Ray album from Pirate Bay remains a technical illegality. Caveat pirata. Expression? You have always had the right to express yourself on the internet.. you did not need Gonzi’s 4 rights to do so. Is it clear? For example if you have decided to publish something like “Li Tkisser Sewwi” (or any other literary essay) on your blog you are just as likely to be sued under Maltese laws as you would be if you printed it in pamphlet form.
We should not be confusing the medium with the content. Sure we all want the right to the internet and soon we’ll be claiming for the right to wifi and fast-speed access. But the basic rules of society that have evolved since Socrates and Plato need not change. You have a right to express yourself – from graffitti on a wall to pamphlets to a blog – whether your use of that right impinges on the rights of others is a choice you make and that right has consequences you that you must also consider. I shall never stop repeating it: we are servants of the law so that we may be free (Cicero).
Those who should know
So if Fr Joe Borg is the communications expert he claims he is I expect him to be more clear about this ploy and not call it a “noble and laudable” measure. As for Antonio Ghio, with all due respect, the whole point of the “legal crystallisation of a reality” is that the very crystallisation is futile. You don’t need to be given a right that you already have – unless you mistakenly believe that these new rights will give you something extra.
Which brings me to the masked men and women at MAAG. Here’s Ingram Bondin from MAAG speaking about the rights that aren’t new:
Ingram Bondin, from the Malta Anti-Acta Group, which staged the protest on Saturday, welcomed the initiative, saying the rights were a “step forward for Maltese society”. However, he cautioned that the proposals would not stop opposition to Acta, which was driven by a host of other issues.
A host eh? I’m still waiting for an answer about the Convention on Cybercrime. It’s the kind of convention that shows you the limits of internet rights – particularly because crimes are crimes no matter what the medium. The Convention is a perfect example of the limits to the freedoms (that you already have) on the internet. More particularly take a look at the Protocol on Racism and Xenophobia. Yes, you can express yourself on the internet but that does not mean you can do so illegally.
Same goes with downloading, uploading etc. J’accuse’s conclusion remains the same: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Gonzi’s new “Four Civil Rights for the Internet” are nothing more than a marketing ploy of appeasement. We can afford to say it here because we don’t need to pander to the people for a vote or two. Our spineless opposition is so lost in the knee-jerk pandering to the “civil rights on internet” that it has forfeit any possibility of exposing the Emperor’s latest set of clothes.
16 replies on “The Emperor’s New “Internet Civil Rights””
Gonzi PM and marketing. Whoda thunk it?
Not so sure about your argument. A law similar to the French HADOPI law, for example, would be rendered unconstitutional (the French Constitutional Court went only so far as requiring judicial review before denying intenet access).
I can see that line of reasoning Fausto but there’s nothing in the current protection of rights and freedoms that prevents a challenge to “obtrusive” laws anyway.
Excellent blog J’Accuse!! Was in the process of writing something similar, but this is perfectly expressed.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which we are signatories:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
ANY media includes the internet. This ‘new’ civil rights are completely unnecessary.
Dear all. I read these posts with interest. Unfortunately TOM published only a few lines from the 800 plus word comment I sent them so I’d take the opportunity to share some of those thoughts with you (respectfully of course :)) with the hope that this can generate some discussion:
Last year’s events in North Africa highlighted the importance that social media and ICT plays in today’s world. Many falling regimes decided that by cutting off their citizen’s access to information tools they could control the uprisings. They were very wrong.
Only recently the discussion of looking at the internet and all that it stands for as a civil right has emerged. Within this evolving discussion, one needs to distinguish between fundamental human rights and civil rights even though they go hand in hand. This distinction was clearly made by Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet as we know it, in his open letter to the New York Times only a few weeks ago.
A civil right is a tool to attain your fundamental human rights enshrined in our constitution and international treaties. In this sense, the internet can be seen as just a tool but a very important one. The recognition of a right to a networked society and to informational self-determination is a reflection that the principles on which societies are built are not static and the ways in which we can enjoy our fundamental human rights is in constant flux and depends on the appreciation that our society has of the very same tools which enable us to enjoy such fundamental rights as freedom of expression and our right to private life.
Whilst a handful of countries recognized the right to internet access or a broadband right, the proposed bill goes much beyond that. It is not just the recognition of universal service or the setting of some minimum level of service. It is the legal crystallization of a reality we live in and without which we cannot reach our potential as individuals but also as a society. Published figures relating to internet penetration rates in Maltese households and the utilization of social networks all point towards the importance that Maltese society gives to these technologies. The proposed rights should go beyond a mere right of access to the internet but should serve as guiding principles relating to internet censorship, free flow of information and privacy.
There is already a myriad of laws relating to issues such as privacy on the internet, the use of the internet as an important tool for commerce. These new rights will not re-invent this but should elevate the importance that we now give to these legal provisions, making them available and easily accessible to everyone without the need of being a lawyer or academic to establish where these legal provisions are contained. The new rights should endeavour to highlight the importance that laws relating to technology that have emerged during the past years have in today’s connected world, a clear statement that our fundamental human rights also apply to our online existence.
Last year Malta experienced the introduction of the civil right to divorce but very few of our community will end up using this right. We are here faced with something much larger. We are now talking about a civil right which will not affect a minority but all of us, from my nanna in Gozo using skype to chat with my cousin in Poland to my 8 month old son who is already chewing my iPad.
The proposed digital civil rights should set the bar of how we value the role of technology and our right to privacy and information today. These new principles should serve as a litmus test against
which we measure any new law which would be perceived as invading our private lives, our right to be part of a digital community, our right to express ourselves freely on the net.
I think this is more the realization of how dear the internet has become to all of us and to the fact that we do not want anyone to mess with our internet and with our online experience. This does not mean that these rights are not already there.
But what wrong in enshring those rights in a constitution? After all, we have tons of laws relating to employment. Does that mean that any reference to the right to work and protection from forced labour in our constitution is futile? So I guess rather tha a legal crystallisation this should be a constitutional crystallisation. Is that wrong?
A
[…] discussion. We mentioned Dr Ghio’s short quip in the Times interview in our earlier post (The Emperor’s New “Internet Civil Rights”) and Dr Ghio chose to reply with his own thoughts that will surely help to generate more […]
And downloading an illegal bootleg is a copyright infringement but not a crime. That makes quite a bit of a difference
So the copyright holder is simply told that his right has been infringed and that’s that I guess. Makes you wonder what the point of copyright is.
My point is that it is not a crime but there is still a question of balance of rights and whether you infringe copyright on the internet or by purchasing a fake cd on the monti the net activity is the same.
In both instances you have the right to go to the market (monti) and the right to purchase goods. Whether you use that right to purchase legally marketed goods or goods that infringe copyright is an act that entails consequences.
The copyright holder can seek redress for copyright infringement through the courts. Re: monti comparison: you are right. And that is different than expecting that everything at the monti is ‘free’.
Re: “And downloading an illegal bootleg is a copyright infringement but not a crime.”
Placing any work for public accessibility is inviting viewing which, in this digital medium, is technically downloading (the work) even if not saved.
(Lest anyone thinks that I am confusing ‘public accessibility” with the “Public Domain”, rest assured that I am not … though it seems that, in Malta, even seasoned journalists, and certain lawyers, tend to equate the two.)
I would think that only the “uploader” of the work (uploaded without permission) can be held for Copyright infringement.
Downloading requires the making of a copy. Online streaming might not. The first is clearly a copyright infringement so in that case both uploader and downloaded are in breach of copyright provisions
Dr. Gio, anytiime I see “might”, “should”, “could”, thrown in the argument, a red flag pops up … anything is possible.
Whenever you view a webpage, you are actually downloading the page, that is, a copy is being made, by your browser, and stored in a Temporary Internet File, for easier re-loading the next time you ‘visit’ the same webpage.
Don’t let that label “Temporary” fool you … it is permanent on your hard-disk, and whatever files are in the folder which holds them, are accessible for viewing even when offline.
Streaming:
Streaming depends on downloading, that is, the video is actually downloaded even before it is streamed. At tmes the downloading and streaming seem to conflict, and you’ll get that little twriling icon. But again, a copy of the video is being implanted on your hard-disk for easier re-loading.
There is no escaping the copying to your hard-disk (without permission), of the Copyrighted works being viewed. As is often said, of many things, it’s the nature of the beast. Are we all, then, Copyright infringers?
P.S.
Read the following and shed a tear:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Consulting-parliament-on-ACTA-beforehand-was-logistically-impossible-20120217
The mind boggles!
If streaming is creating a temporary copy then it is already copyright infringement under present laws and (yes) probably we have all breached copyright laws one time or another. That does not make us criminals.
Given the technical nature of streaming, the doctrine of Implied License will kick in to save us all from the ‘sin’ of Copyright infringement … at least, in Canada where I live, and in neighbouring USA. (In Malta, too?)
Since one of the problems with ACTA seems to be whether downloading material protected by copyright is legal or not, I would suggest that this matter will be spelled out in a revised ACTA or in national laws.
Since the rights of the individual are to my mind more important than intellectual property rights, I propose that simple downloading and also sharing without an economic or profit motive should not be illegal. Similarly, to my knowledge, photocopying a book for private use is not illegal according to copyright laws.