Re: [ICANN-EU] Article 31

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2000-08-28 01:59:13 +0300, Constantine S. Chassapis wrote:

>  "Every human being has the right freely to receive material from
>   and freely to transmit material to the cyberspace, currently
>   known as the Internet."

> Now what do you think about that? When I finished the 
> phrase I felt something weird and wonderful inside. 

Why should this be valid just for cyberspace?  Look, for instance,
at article 5 (1), phrase 1, of the German Grundgesetz:

	Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild
	frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein
	zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten.

Basically, this means that you have freedom of speech, and freedom
of information when informing yourself from publically accessible
sources.

My point here is that we shouldn't start to re-invent the wheel,
just because this is cyberspace.  Actually, re-inventing the wheel
has done more damage to the internet than anything else, I believe.

Think, for instance, about all the Communications Decency Act and
it's relatives in other legislations.  Most of the debates held, and
many of the problems perceived, have been solved in the past.

However, the application of the existing solutions and thoughts to
the net was often flawed, or new (and worse) solutions were sought
because "everything is different on the net", because "it's like
broadcasting", etc.  It's often interesting to see the arguments and
ideas of law scholars change once they have understood that the
internet is just "some thing" facilitating point-to-point
communications between participants.  (Note that I don't deny that
there legal concepts which just don't scale to internet dimensions.)

It's also interesting to watch how new generations of officials and
politicians repeat the mistakes of the past, verbatim.

So, dear candidates, please always have a look at the arguments and
solutions of the past, before trying to come up with solutions of
your own. Please, try to avoid re-inventing the wheel all the time,
and don't assume that everything which works off-line must
automatically fail on-line.

-- 
Thomas Roessler                         <roessler@does-not-exist.org>