Coalition Issues Declaration of Internet Freedom, Lacks Specific Reform Agenda
By Dennis Kuba
July 3, 2012
July 3, 2012
A broad coalition of public interest groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Free Press, the Mozilla Foundation, and dozens of others have jointly issued the “Declaration of Internet Freedom.”- “We stand for a free and open Internet,” reads the document. “We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles.”
- 1) “Expression: Don’t censor the Internet.”
- 2) “Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.”
- 3) “Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create, and innovate.”
- 4) “Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users’ actions.”
- 5) “Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used.”
- The principles are intended to be nonpartisan and are supported by both liberal and conservative groups. There will be local meetups to discuss the principles and later plans to promote them to Congress.
- Still, the declarations are vague and will require focused political pressure to insure changes in public policy, notes Ars Technica. An example of public pressure is a campaign from Demand Progress — “the Internet vs. Hollywood,” which suggests that government seizure powers such as those exhibited in the Megaupload case could be used in the future against mainstream Web services like Gmail and Flickr.
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