Stello's Choice

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch has made an admittedly tall order, calling for a "Digital Bill of Rights."  While Erick gives no details as to what government body would enforce such rules or whether it would be implemented internationally, he does make some good observations on the convoluted world of digital rights management and online privacy law.  I agree with most of his concerns, though he glosses over some key areas of contention and approaches the issues from a US vantage point.

For example, he argues that net-neutrality gets bogged down in a debate over internet service providers' prioritizing packets and that we must avoid censorship at all costs.  In everything I have read from both conservative and liberal media sources, the controversy lies in two main areas: whether or not the government or a government agency such as the FCC could operate as an adequate enforcer of net-neutrality (or if it even has the right to regulate ISP behavior), and whether or not such regulation would help or hinder technological innovation.  It should surprise nobody that the largest content creators (the RIAA, the MPAA, NCTA) want internet service providers to have the authority to control content, as this bolsters their ability to police piracy.  On the other end, you have the advocates of a completely open system who refuse to compromise on allowing any domineering force to handle the conveyance of information.  You can read more of their arguments in this post.

Organizations pushing for a market-only solution have to assume that large telecoms will operate as benevolent, 'network-agnostic' messengers of data, and the recent FCC order against Comcast gives strong reason to doubt that possibility. It is in their financial interest to maintain a system of content delivery much more similar to cable TV, where customers do not distribute content they create- they only consume it. People on this side of the debate also maintain that if we allow the government to regulate our net traffic by restricting ISPs, it will ultimately subsume all authority to monitor online communications and eventually censor data à la 1984. This elides the notion that the internet is a highly decentralized network, making nation-states hardly capable of policing traffic only within their borders and only to the extent they are technically able.  Cooperation with ISPs would be necessary for them to wield real power.

Internationally, it seems near impossible to police all internet traffic because of technical schisms, residual problems of sovereignty, and the vast number of competing interests. This doesn't stop groups from attempting to hash it out, however. The Internet Governance Forum is the result of a mandate by the World Summit on the Information Society, where stakeholders can air concerns they have with potential regulation. Browsing their website, particularly the 'Multistakeholder Advisory Group,” gives a frank portrayal of how messy and bureaucratic it can be to deal with said competing interests- and it remains ambiguous what sort of tangible power they exercise over the web.

Some organizations have formed a dynamic coalition to support an “Internet Bill of Rights” with a different set of goals, the first two of which are:

• Bring awareness and promote fundamental human and civil rights and liberties on the internet;

• Identify ways in which these rights and liberties can be translated on the Internet, and evaluate the applicability of existing legislation;

And as for focusing on the US viewpoint, there is this nice piece of umbrage from the Brookings Institution's "Improving Technology Utilization in Electronic Government around the World" :

“In general, e-government is not radically transforming the public sector. While some countries have embraced digital government broadly defined, the United States is falling behind in broadband access, public sector innovation and in implementing the latest interactive tools to government websites. This limits the transformational potential of the Internet and weakens the ability of technology to empower citizens and businesses. Government websites must make better use of available technology, and address problems of access and democratic outreach.”