The Internet and Internet Freedom as a human right
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
When the oppressed people's only means of raising awareness to their plight is found online then the freedom of the Internet is not a technological, political or social issue; it is a human rights issue.
Recently the Bundesgerichtshof, the highest German Federal Court, has ruled that Internet access is a necessity of life and thus has come down in its ruling almost to stating that it is, indeed, a human right.
Having said that, however, they are still, in Germany, playing with data storage of people's activities on the Net, in the same way as in the UK and other EU member states, almost forced upon the countries by the European Commission.
On the other hand Slovenia is one country where this has been totally ruled illegal and where, so the government says, it cannot and will not be implemented.
Someone give that country a big round of applause and force our countries to be as strong as little Slovenia and do the right thing.
It is amazing always when the countries in the so-called Free World, who now want to restrict their citizen's activities on the Internet and keep a data trail of each and every email, web search, website visit, etc., tell others, such as China, Iran and such like, how bad they are for restricting the Internet and the access to it. As in so many things it is a case of “do as we tell you and don't do as we do”.
It is the same in regards to torture, but that is just a “by the way” here, when the Free World tries to tell everyone else that it is a no, no, while the CIA and others happily carry on with the practice, often outsourcing the service.
With the double standard that the so-called Free World applies it is no wonder that the rest of the world mistrusts the “West”. Using drones to kill people also could have something to do with that as could regime change so that the big guys can get their hands on the countries' wealth, be it oil in Iraq, or minerals in Afghanistan, etc.
© 2013
