corpus_id
int64 0
6.32k
| docid
stringlengths 32
32
| text
stringlengths 134
6.16k
|
|---|---|---|
100 |
9b10d302a8fd8413c0103e3ae405e72b
|
e internet freedom censorship ip digital freedoms freedom expression Advanced surveillance technology prevents dissidents from being able to organize and sue for freedom
High-tech surveillance technology has given repressive governments and police states a new lease on life. Now more than ever they can intrude into every aspect of people’s lives, ensuring that dissent is cowed for fear of the ever present threat of the security services. The vision of Orwell’s 1984 has become a living nightmare for people all over the world. Their power has made it extremely difficult for movements for reform, government accountability, and democracy, which have foundered when faced with these sophisticated security apparatuses (Valentino-Devries, 2011). [1] By dominating the flow of information states have the power to keep their people in check and prevent them from ever posing a threat to their repressive status quo. Thus China blocks access to the internet and to other forms of communications in Tibet to “ensure the absolute security of Tibet’s ideological and cultural realm”. It cuts the Tibetan people off from outside world so as to prevent any rerun of the instability that occurred in 2008, which China blamed on the influence of the Dalai Lama from outside. [2]
Only external help in alleviating this censorship could allow activists to organize effectively and perhaps to one day bring about genuine reform and justice to their societies. The surveillance equipment on which these regimes rely is often only available from firms and governments in the democratic world where, by and large, technology is generally far more advanced than in the non-democratic world. Without access to these technologies, the regimes would be far more hard-pressed to keep rigid tabs on their citizens, allowing for the seeds of dissent to take root. Only then can the forces clamouring for democracy hope to be able to organise networks of activists, and to have their views considered by the state.
[1] Valentino-Devries, J. “US Firm Acknowledges Syria Uses its Gear to Block Web”. Wall Street Journal. 29 October 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577001911398596328.html
[2] Human Rights Watch, “China: Attempts to Seal Off Tibet from Outside Information”, 13 July 2012, http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/13/china-attempts-seal-tibet-outside-information
|
101 |
2969e6b98bf4dac7dee3c1f7450ebe0b
|
e internet freedom censorship ip digital freedoms freedom expression It is hypocritical for democratic governments to utilize surveillance technology to watch their own people while denying that technology to others
It is a fatal conceit to consider democracies somehow above the influence of using their surveillance technology to curtail the freedoms of their own citizens. The biggest customers of Western surveillance technology companies are wealthy democracies. The United Kingdom, for example, has one of the most-watched populations in the world, with a saturation of CCTV cameras far in excess of any dictatorship. [1] The PATRIOT Act in America, also, has given the federal government enormous scope for domestic spying. These powers are no less simply because the government is composed in part of elected officials. The security establishment is appointed, not elected, and their servicemen are promoted from within. It is base hypocrisy to pretend that the security systems are inherently more just when employed in democratic states than in undemocratic ones. They are used for the same purpose, to ensure that the state is protected and the status quo maintained. Democracies have no moral basis on which to base this policy.
[1] BBC News. “Britain is ‘Surveillance Society’”. 2 November 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6108496.stm
|
102 |
3f6eb20625d74476d58496da8f16f521
|
e internet freedom censorship ip digital freedoms freedom expression The inability to use advanced technologies merely forces non-democracies to utilize more unsavoury methods to achieve their aims
If it is the aim of an undemocratic regime to use advanced surveillance technology to gather intelligence on, and ultimately crush, dissent it will find other means of doing so. Their calculus of survival is not changed, only their available methods. Their first port of call will be the more advanced non-democracies that might be able to supply comparable surveillance equipment. China’s military and surveillance technology is fast catching up to that of the West, and makes an appealing alternative source for equipment. [1] The only difference is that the Chinese have no compunction at all about how the technology is used, meaning worse outcomes for pro-democracy groups who run afoul of them. When this strategy fails regimes can turn to the tried and tested models of past decades, using physical force and other less technological modes of coercion to cow dissent. Again, this form of repression is quite effective, but it is also much more painful to those on the receiving end. Given the options, democracies supplying surveillance technology may be the best option for dissidents in undemocratic countries.
[1] Walton, G. “China’s Golden Shield: Corporations and the Development of Surveillance Technology in the People’s Republic of China”. International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. 2001.
|
103 |
510b4d4cf9fb455d53b617b4e7466225
|
e internet freedom censorship ip digital freedoms freedom expression Presuming democracy is the only legitimate or worthwhile form of government is both inaccurate and unproductive
As much as the more liberal citizenry of many of the world’s democracies wish to believe otherwise, democracy as a system of government is not the only game in town. In fact, the growth of the strong-state/state-capitalism approach to government has gained much traction in developing countries that witness the incredible rise of China, which will before long be the world’s largest economy, flourish under an undemocratic model. [1] Chinas ruling communist party have legitimacy as a result of its performance and its historical role reunifying the country. [2] Democracies pretending they are the only meaningful or legitimate states only serve to antagonize their non-democratic neighbours. Such antagonism is doubly damaging, considering that all states, democracies included, rely on alliances and deals with other states to guarantee their security and prosperity. This has meant that through history democracies have had to deal with non-democracies as equal partners on the international stage, and this fact is no different today. States cannot always pick and choose their allies, and democracies best serve their citizens by furthering their genuine interests on the world stage. This policy serves as a wedge between democracies and their undemocratic allies that will only weaken their relations to the detriment of both. When the matter comes to surveillance technology, Western states’ unwillingness to share an important technology they are willing to use themselves causes tension between these states. Non-democracies have just as much right to security that surveillance technology can provide as the more advanced states that develop those technologies.
[1] Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J. “Is State Capitalism Winning?”. Project Syndicate. 31 December 2012. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-china-s-growth-model-will-fail-by-daron-acemoglu-and-james-a--robinson
[2] Li, Eric X, “The Life of the Party”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2013, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138476/eric-x-li/the-life-of-the-party?page=4
|
104 |
dcebf8561dec8f8993379002195010e0
|
e internet freedom censorship ip digital freedoms freedom expression This ban will alienate non-democracies from discourse and stifle reform efforts
When a state is declared illegitimate in the eyes of a large part of the international community, its natural reaction is one of upset and anger. A ban on the sale of surveillance technology to non-democracies would be seen as a brutal slap in the face to many regimes that consider themselves, and are often considered by their people, to be the legitimate government of their country. The ban will result in further tension between non-democracies and democracies, breaking down communication channels. Democracies are best able to effect change in regimes when they seek to engage them constructively, to galvanize them to make gradual connections to the development of civil society and to loosen restrictions on freedoms, such as reducing domestic spying. The ban makes it clear that the ultimate aim of democracies is to effectively overthrow the existing governments of non-democracies in favour of systems more like their own. The outcome of this conclusion is far less willingness on the part of these regimes to discuss reform, and makes it more likely that they will demonize pro-democracy activists within their borders as agents of foreign powers seeking to subvert and conquer them. This particular narrative has been used to great effect by many regimes throughout history, including North Korea and Zimbabwe, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa for example denounced a travel and arms sales ban as attempting to “undermine the inclusive government”. [1] By treating non-democracies as responsible actors democracies do much more in effectively furthering their own aims.
[1] BBC News, “Zimbabwean minister denounces EU”, 14 September 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8254367.stm
|
105 |
2d26756a6f9ed921bff0e056b7864ddc
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Although ideas are not tangible intellectual property generally, and copyright in particular, is far from a fiction. Rather it is a realization of the hard work and demiurgic force that sparks the generation and fulfilment of artistic endeavour. The property right assigned over these things to their creators is a very real one that recognizes their fundamental right over these works as owners, and the right to profit from them. The artist must have the right to prevent even non-commercial use of the idea if it is to maintain its value and so retain for the creator the ability to commercialise it. These protections are critical to the moral understanding of all property and must be rigorously protected, not eroded for the benefit of some nebulous notion of social good.
|
106 |
46f8a65099cac948468921edfd3a1331
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all There are many ways to correct for the dearth of some works on the market such as orphan works. By simplifying copyright law, reducing lengths of copyright and more robust searches for legal provenance can all help correct for the shortfalls without eroding an important part of law and material rights. Or indeed the law might be revised simply to free works that have unclear ownership from copyright by default. Creators should retain, no matter how annoying it may be to would-be enjoyers of their work, control over their artistic output. Artists’ creations are fundamentally their own, not the property of the state or society.
|
107 |
23e73deb121179a75add5c1f775bf926
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.
|
108 |
945423723f612ecd6adf2fa6a5707046
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Choosing to release one’s work into the viral market may be a shrewd business and artistic move, or it might not. All of this depends on the individual artist and the individual work. Nine Inch Nails both has the money that they can afford to take the risk and the name recognition that means they can be sure some fans will purchase the music, this is not the case with most artists. Thus the decision can really only be made effectively and fairly by the artists themselves. Trying to usurp that choice through a state mandate only serves to undermine the artist’s creative vision of how he or she wishes to portray and distribute their work to the world.
|
109 |
b790abe0a63efaa833b07d5676ae2cbb
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all People deserve recompense for their work, but the stifling force of current copyright prevents the proper sharing and expansion of the artistic canon, to the intellectual and spiritual impoverishment of all. Creative commons licenses strike an important balance, by leaving artists with the power over commercial uses of their work, including selling it themselves, while permitting it to permeate the public sphere through non-commercial channels. This is the best way to weigh these competing needs in a complex society. It is not preventing the creator from profiting from his work. It is not a total abrogation of people’s rights, but a giving over of some rights for the benefit of all.
|
110 |
5608b684220fa4d17e36395a4172edfc
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Artists rarely make all that much money in the first place, and a great many only work as an artist part time. More importantly, they can still profit from their art, since they retain exclusive commercial rights to their work. Oftentimes they will actually benefit from operation under a creative commons license because it provides wider dispersal of their work, which builds a broader name and market for their work.
|
111 |
8120f7741c5de38d6de6a1ce4b9673d9
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Few artists ever see much profit from their work anyway, many choosing the life of bohemian squalor in order to keep producing art rather than taking up more profitable pursuits. Vincent van Gogh sold almost nothing, but his drive to create never abated. No doubt the true artists will continue to feel the urge to create under this policy, and the loss of a few marginal cases must be weighed against the massive losses to art in general, such as the huge curtailment of exploration of and response to existing works, which are often artistically meritorious in their own right, and also the rendering unavailable of much of the artistic output of the world.
|
112 |
c61fcf06b35a825108d5cd82e415ca4e
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Upon entering the public arena works of art take on characters of their own, often far different than their original creators did, or could have, imagined. The art is consumed, absorbed, and reimagined and takes on its own identity that the artist cannot claim full ownership over. It is important that art as a whole be able to thrive in society, but this is only possible when artists are able to make use of, and actively reinterpret and utilize existing works. That art does, due to its origination belong more to the people, who should have access, even if the artist, like Beckett has bizarrely rigorous feelings about the work.
|
113 |
15866ec0a1b263e14947064d7bfff078
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all The default of total copyright is harmful to the spreading of information and experience
Current copyright law assigns too many rights, automatically, to the creator. Law gives the generator of a work full copyright protection that is extremely restrictive of that works reuse, except when strictly agreed in contracts and agreements. Making Creative Commons licenses the standard for publicly-funded works generates a powerful normalizing force toward a general alteration of people’s defaults on what copyright and creator protections should actually be like. The creative commons guarantees attribution to the creator and they retain the power to set up other for-profit deals with distributors. [1] At base the default setting of somehow having absolute control means creators of work often do not even consider the reuse by others in the commons. The result is creation and then stagnation, as others do not expend the time and energy to seek special permissions from the creator. Mandating that art in all its forms be released under a creative commons licensing scheme means greater access to more works, for the enrichment of all. This is particular true in the case of “orphan works”, works of unknown ownership. Fears over copyright infringement has led these works, which by some estimates account for 40% of all books, have led to huge amounts of knowledge and creative output languishing beyond anyone’s reach. A mix of confusion over copyright ownership and unwillingness of owners to release their works, often because it would not be commercially viable to do so, means that only 2% of all works currently protected by copyright are commercially available. [2] Releasing these works under creative commons licenses will spawn a deluge of enriching knowledge and creative output spilling onto the market of ideas. It would mark a critical advancement in the democratization and globalization of knowledge akin to the invention of the printing press.
[1] Creative Commons. “About the Licenses”. 2010. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
[2] Keegan, V. “Shorter Copyright Would Free Creativity”. The Guardian. 7 October 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/07/shorter-copyright-term
|
114 |
dbd7251471ba6b36eec33f4b6ce4ffb3
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all The creative commons is a more effective means for artists to build and expand their reach and markets than traditional copyright licensing arrangements
The nature of the internet and mass media on the 21st century is such that many artists can benefit from the freedom and flexibility that creative commons licenses furnish to them. Wider use by other artists and laymen alike helps artistic works “go viral” and to gain major impact that allow the artist to generate a name for his or herself and to attain the levels of earnings conventional copyrights are meant to help artists generate but that ultimately hamstring them. A major example of this is the band Nine Inch Nails, which opted in 2008 to begin releasing its albums through the creative commons. [1] Creative commons licenses are so remarkable because they can be deployed by artists to expand their markets, and to profit even more from their greater recognition. After all, the artists still retain control of the commercial uses of their work and are guaranteed under creative commons licensing regulations to be credited by users of their content. [2] Giving undue artistic and distribution control to the artists through constricting and outmoded copyright may mean less significant reach and impact of the work. The state should thus facilitate the sharing by mandating the distribution of art of all kinds under creative commons licenses.
[1] Anderson, N., “Free Nine Inch Nails albums top 2008 Amazon MP3 sales charts”, arstechnica, 7 January 2009, http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/01/free-nine-inch-nails-albums-top-2008-amazon-mp3-sales-charts/
[2] Creative Commons. “About the Licenses”. 2010. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
|
115 |
f7119a14f4c77a1bd9a921b8b288d42d
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all The costs of monitoring copyright by states, artists, and lawyers far outweigh the benefits, and is often simply ineffective
The state incurs huge costs in monitoring for copyright infringement, in arresting suspected perpetrators, in imprisonment of those found guilty, even though in reality nothing was stolen but an idea that, once released to it, belonged to the public domain more or less. [1] Furthermore, the deterrent effect to copyright piracy generated by all the efforts of the state and firms has proven generally minimal. In fact, the level of internet piracy of books, music, and films has increased dramatically year on year for several years, increasing by 30% in 2011 alone. [2] This is because in many cases copyright laws are next to unenforceable, as the music and movie industries have learned to their annoyance in recent years, for example ninety percent of DVDs sold in China are bootlegs while even western consumers are increasingly bypassing copyright by using peer to peer networks. [3] Only a tiny fraction of perpetrators are ever caught, and though they are often punished severely in an attempt to deter future crime, it has done little to stop their incidence. Copyright, in many cases, does not work in practice plain and simple. Releasing works under a creative commons licensing scheme does a great deal to cope with these pressures. In the first instance it is a less draconian regime, so individuals are more willing to buy into it as a legitimate claim by artists rather than an onerous stranglehold on work. This increases compliance with the relaxed law. Secondly, the compliance means that artists are given the vocal crediting under the license rules that gives them more public exposure than clandestine copying could not. Ultimately this adaptation of current copyright law would benefit the artist and the consumer mutually.
[1] World Intellectual Property Organization. “Emerging Issues in Intellectual Property”. 2011 http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/studies/
[2] Hartopo, A. “The Past, Present and Future of Internet Piracy”. Jakarta Globe. 26 July 2011. http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/bytethis/the-past-present-and-future-of-internet-piracy/455291
[3] Quirk, M., “The Movie Pirates”, The Atlantic, 19 November 2009, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/the-movie-pirates/305886/
|
116 |
ba36f56bd51f387bfa69f1d3fd5da45b
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Artists should retain the right to control their work’s interaction with the public space even if their work is publicly funded
Art is the expression of its creator’s sense of understanding of the world, and thus that expression will always have special meaning to him or her that no amount of reinterpretation or external appreciation can override. How a work is used once released into the public sphere, whether expanded, revised, responded to, or simply shown without their direct consent, thus remains an active issue for the artist, because those alternative experiences are all using a piece of the artist in its efforts. Artists deserve to have that piece of them treated in a way they see as reasonable. It is a simple matter of justice that artists be permitted to maintain the level of control they desire, and it is a justice that is best furnished through the conventional copyright mechanism that provides for the maximum protection of works for their creators, and allows them to contract away uses and rights to those works on their own terms. Many artists care about their legacies and the future of their artistic works, and should thus have this protection furnished by the state through the protection of copyright, not cast aside by the unwashed users of the creative commons. Samuel Beckett is a great example of this need. Beckett had exacting standards about the fashion in which in his plays could be performed. [1] For him the meaning of the art demanded an appreciation for the strict performance without the adulteration of reinterpretation. He would lack that power under this policy, meaning either the world would have been impoverished for want of his plays, or he would have been impoverished for want of his rights to his work. These rights are best balanced through the aegis of copyright as it is, not under the free-for-all of the creative commons license.
[1] Catron, L. “Copyright Laws for Theatre People”. 2003. http://lecatr.people.wm.edu/copy.htm
|
117 |
0cdb450e63b26c052455504e8d49d47e
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Artists often rely on copyright protection to financially support themselves and their families
Artists as they are often not paid for anything else may rely on their creative output to support themselves. This is certainly no crime, and existing copyright laws recognize this fact. Artists often rely wholly on their ability to sell and profit from their work. This policy serves to drain them of that potential revenue, as their work is shunted into creative commons, and available to all. Artists often also have families to support, and putting the added financial burden on them of stripping them of their copyright only serves to further those problems as they exist. A robust system of copyright is a much better protection to struggling and successful artists alike who like all talented individuals seek to assuage their material wants. Artists cannot live on appreciation alone. With much less secure copyright many would have to find other work.
|
118 |
e130390a1d4289977812e76e9a581d4c
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Artists have a fundamental property right over their creative output
Whatever the end product, be it music, film, sculpture, or painting, artistic works are the creations of individuals and a property right inheres within them belonging to their creators. An idea is just an idea so long as it remains locked in someone’s mind or is left as an unfinished sketch, etc. But when the art is allowed to bloom in full, it is due to the artist and the artist only. The obsession, the time, the raw talent needed to truly create art is an incredible business, requiring huge investment in energy, time, and effort. It is a matter of the most basic, and one would have hoped self-evident, principle that the person who sacrificed so much to bring forth a piece of art should retain all the rights to it and in particular have the right to profit from it. [1] To argue otherwise would be to condone outright theft. The ethereal work of the artist is every bit as real as the hard work of a machine. Mandating that all forms of art be released under a creative commons license is an absolute slap in the face to artists and to the artistic endeavour as a whole. It implies that somehow the work is not entirely the artist’s own, that because it is art it is somehow so different as to be worthy of being shunted into the public sphere without the real consent of the artist. This is a gross robbing of the artist’s right over his or her own work. If property rights are to have any meaning, they must have a universal protection. This policy represents a fundamental erosion of the right to property, and attacks one sector of productive life that is essential for the giving of colour to the human experience. This policy serves only to devalue that contribution.
[1] Greenberg, M. “Reason or Madness: A Defense of Copyright’s Growing Pains”. John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 2007. http://www.jmripl.com/Publications/Vol7/Issue1/Greenberg.pdf
|
119 |
18d52dfc28e8ca625ad94456b6e3ec4d
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all The lack of control over, and profit from, art will serve as a serious disincentive to artistic output
Profit is as much a factor in artists’ decision to produce work, if not more so, than the primordial urge to create. Without the guarantee of ownership over one’s artistic work, the incentive to invest in its creation is certainly diminished. Within a strong copyright system, individuals feel free to invest time in their pursuits because they have full knowledge that the final product of their labours will be theirs to enjoy. [1] Without copyright protections the marginal cases, like people afraid to put time into actually building an installation art piece rather than doing more hours at their job, will not opt to create. If their work were to immediately leave their control, they would most certainly be less inclined to do so. Furthermore, the inability of others to simply duplicate existing works as their own means they too will be galvanized to break ground on new ideas, rather than simply re-tread over current ideas and to adapt existing works to markets. Art thrives by being new and original. Copyright protections shield against artistic laziness and drive the creative urges of the artistically inclined to ever more interesting fields.
[1] Greenberg, M. “Reason or Madness: A Defense of Copyright’s Growing Pains”. John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 2007. http://www.jmripl.com/Publications/Vol7/Issue1/Greenberg.pdf
|
120 |
ea1bf901b9c016e50b93d6b38fdfb10d
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms This is clearly not always the case. Often transparency means that the public becomes aware when there is little need for them to know. There had been previous nuclear accidents that had caused no damage, and had not been noticed, such as in Goldsboro, N.C. in 1961. [1] If there had been a media frenzy fuelled by released information there would clearly have been much more of a public relations disaster than there was with no one noticing. Since there’re was no harm done there is little reason why such a media circus should have been encouraged. And even without media attention the incident lead to increase safeguards.
[1] Stiles, David, ‘A Fusion Bomb over Andalucia: U.S. Information Policy and the 1966 Palomares Incident’, Journal of War Studies, Vol.8, No.1, Winter 2006, pp.49-67, p.51
|
121 |
8414e4254b854a82f39dea1f7c7e4b12
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Being a citizen does not come with a right to know everything that the state does. In much the same way being a shareholder does not mean you get to know absolutely everything every person in a business does. Instead you get the headlines and a summary, most of the time the how the business goes about getting the results is left to the management. Ultimately the state’s purpose is to protect its citizens and this comes before letting them know everything about how that is done.
|
122 |
669b66c5254b042f7fdf8e3dafcb8a0b
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency may mean that mistakes or problems are found faster, but it does not mean they are going to be corrected faster. Waste in the defense budget has been known about for years yet it still keeps coming up. Transparency shines a light on the problem but that is not helpful if it does not result in action to solve the problem.
|
123 |
111d28308056b7bde04aa9dfb31ed7ef
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency in situations of international tension is tricky; with complete transparency how do you engage in bluffing? The state that is completely transparent is tying one hand behind its back in international negotiations.
It is also wrong to assume that transparency will always reduce tensions. Sometimes two countries just have completely incompatible interests. In such instances complete transparency is simply going to set them on a collision course. It is then much better for there to be a bit less transparency so that both sides can fudge the issue and sign up to an agreement while interpreting it in different ways.
|
124 |
8222066b85109d2a33c55a3163c44a4a
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Trust goes two ways; the people have to trust that on some issues, such as security, the government is doing the right thing to protect them even when it cannot release all relevant information. But even if the military and security services do claim to be completely transparent then how is everyone to know that it really is being as transparent as they say? Unfortunately there are information asymmetry’s between members of the public and the government; the member of the public is unlikely to have the capability to find out if the government if hiding something from them. [1] Other countries too are likely to be suspicious of ‘complete transparency’ and simply believe that this is cover for doing something more nefarious. Trust then cannot only about being transparent in everything.
[1] Stiglitz, Joseph, ‘Transparency in Government’, in Roumeen Islam, The right to tell: the roll of the mass media in economic development, World Bank Publications, 2002, p.28
|
125 |
2eafb3797f068beb299caa9d706002d4
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Drones are an unusual example (though not unique) because they are a new form of warfare over which there are few clear rules and norms. This means that making it transparent will create new norms. However in the vast majority of covert operations if made public they would clearly be illegal and would have to be ended. Drones are also unusual in that the public sees few downsides to the killing, this means there would be less public pressure than in most such operations.
|
126 |
09379b5481b93d163504bdcf5b12e9c9
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Coalitions can form behind expansionist policies regardless of whether there is transparency. If there is no transparency then it is simply an invitation for these groups to overestimate the strength of their own state compared to their opponents. Where there is transparency the figures will at least be available to counter their arguments. It should not be surprising that interest groups do not have as much influence in creating expansionist policy in democracies. [1]
Transparency showing when a state is to be eclipsed is a greater concern but a lack of transparency in such a case is just as bad. No transparency will simply encourage the fears of the state that is to be eclipsed that the rising state is hostile and not to be trusted.
[1] Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire, Cornell University Press, 1991, p.18
|
127 |
5ee863b175d8bc7f083fcb10f9f8e6b7
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms The public is rational and can make its own assessment of risk. The best course in such cases is transparency and education. If all relevant information is released, along with analysis as to the risk presented by the threat, then the public can be best informed about what kind of threats they need to be prepared for. Terrorism has been blown out of proportion because they are single deadly incidents that are simple to report and have a good narrative to provide 24/7 coverage that the public will lap up. [1] As a result there has been much more media coverage than other threats. It can then be no surprise that the public overestimate the threat posed by terrorism as the public are told what risks are relevant by the amount of media coverage. [2]
[1] Engelhardt, Tom, ‘Casualties from Terrorism Are Minor Compared to Other Threats’, Gale Opposing Viewpoints, 2011
[2] Singer, Eleanor, and Endreny, Phyllis Mildred, Reporting on Risk: How the Mass Media Portray Accidents, Diseases, Disasters and Other Hazards, Russell Sage Foundation, 1993
|
128 |
ee9b4226c39f4e02bd155a90b722c72c
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency clearly does not have to extend to things like technical specifications of weapons. Such information would be a clear benefit to a competitor allowing them to build their own while being of little help in terms of transparency as most people could not understand it. On the other hand knowing what a weapons system does simply prevents misunderstanding and misjudgement.
|
129 |
5b60c17aa62dd87a3c11971948e3c787
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Clearly transparency in real time might cause some problems allowing the disruption of ongoing operations. However most of the time information could be released very shortly afterwards rather than being considered secret for 25-30 years. [1] A much shorter timeframe is needed if the transparency is to have any meaning or impact upon policy. In the case of WikiLeaks most of the information was already a couple of years old and WikiLeaks said it made sure that there was no information that could endanger lives released.
We should also remember that a lack of transparency can also endanger lives; this might be the case if it leads to purchases of equipment of shoddy equipment without the proper oversight to ensure everything works as it should. For example many countries purchased bomb detectors that are made out of novelty golf ball finders, just plastic, that do not work from a Briton looking to make a fast buck. It has for example been used to attempt to find car bombs in Iraq. A little transparency in testing and procurement could have gone a long way in protecting those who have to use the equipment. [2]
[1] National Security Forum, No More Secrets, American Bar Association, March 2011, p.8
[2] AFP, ‘Iraq still using phony bomb detectors at checkpoints’, globalpost, 3 May 2013
|
130 |
557898b82fdb4fc4ca3bdcb7096ac0bb
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Citizens have a right to know what is done in their name
The nation exits for its citizens; it depends on their consent to maintain order and to raise finances. The main purpose of the state is law and order, and national defence, both of which are covered by security. As an area that is so central to the role of the government it is vital that the stakeholders in that government, its citizens, know what it is the state is doing in their name for their security.
The Obama administration for example refuses to acknowledge that it is carrying out a campaign using drones while at the same time saying it is “the only game in town in terms of confronting and trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership.” [1] If the US government is bombing another country then the US people have a right to know with much less ambiguity what exactly is being done, who is being hit, when and where. They also need to be informed of any possible consequences.
[1] Kaufman, Brett, ‘In Court Today: Fighting the CIA’s Secrecy Claims on Drones’, ACLU, 20 September 2012
|
131 |
8c971b2f19f8dfd929bf86c54c4978ef
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency helps reduce international tension
Transparency is necessary in international relations. States need to know what each other are doing to assess their actions. Without any transparency the hole is filled by suspicion and threat inflation that can easily lead to miscalculation and even war.
The Cuban missile crisis is a clear example where a lack of transparency on either side about what they were willing to accept and what they were doing almost lead to nuclear war. [1] It is notable that one of the responses to prevent a similar crisis was to install a hotline between the White House and Kremlin. A very small, but vital, step in terms of openness.
Today this is still a problem; China currently worries about the US ‘pivot’ towards Asia complaining it “has aroused a great deal of suspicion in China.” “A huge deficit of strategic trust lies at the bottom of all problems between China and the United States.” The result would be an inevitable arms race and possible conflict. [2]
[1] Frohwein, Ashley, ‘Embassy Moscow: A Diplomatic Perspective of the Cuban Missile Crisis’, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 7 May 2013
[2] Yafei, He, ‘The Trust Deficit’, Foreign Policy, 13 May 2013
|
132 |
1ca11382acfc6861183dfdf775423f0c
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency is a good in and of itself
The most essential commodity within a state is trust. Trust is essential in all sorts of aspect of our lives; we trust that the paper money we have is actually worth more than a scrap of paper, that doctors performing surgery know what they are doing, that we won't be attacked in the street, and that the government is looking after our interests. In order to create that trust there needs to be transparency so that we know that our institutions are trustworthy. It is the ability to check the facts and the accountability that comes with transparency that creates trust. And this in turn is what makes them legitimate. [1]
The need for trust applies just as much to security as any other walk of life. Citizens need to trust that the security services really are keeping them safe, are spending taxpayers’ money wisely, and are acting in a fashion that is a credit to the country. Unfortunately if there is not transparency there is no way of knowing if this is the case and so often the intelligence services have turned out to be an embarrassment. As has been the case with the CIA and it’s the use of torture following 9/11, for which there are still calls for transparency on past actions. [2]
[1] Ankersmit, Laurens, ‘The Irony of the international relations exception in the transparency regulation’, European Law Blog, 20 March 2013
[2] Traub, James, ‘Out With It’, Foreign Policy, 10 May 2013
|
133 |
2494278a88bfb0294a3cda5ace3a9ba3
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency prevents, or corrects, mistakes
Transparency is fundamental in making sure that mistakes don’t happen, or when they do that they are found and corrected quickly with appropriate accountability. This applies as much, if not more, to the security apparatus than other walks of life. In security mistakes are much more likely to be a matter of life and death than in most other walks of life. They are also likely to be costly; something the military and national security apparatus is particularly known for. [1] An audit of the Pentagon in 2011 found that the US Department of Defense wasted $70 billion over two years. [2] This kind of waste can only be corrected if it is found out about, and for that transparency is necessary.
[1] Schneier, Bruce, ‘Transparency and Accountability Don’t Hurt Security – They’re Crucial to It’, The Atlantic, 8 May 2012
[2] Schweizer, Peter, ‘Crony Capitalism Creeps Into the Defense Budget’, The Daily Beast, 22 May 2012
|
134 |
a2c61e7d5a261b887f7baffa69e21599
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms In security too much transparency endangers lives
Transparency is all very well when it comes to how much is being spent on a new tank, aircraft, or generals houses, but it is very different when it comes to operations. Transparency in operations can endanger lives. With intelligence services transparency would risk the lives of informants; it is similar with the case of interpreters for US forces in Iraq who were targeted after they were told they could not wear masks because they are considered to be traitors. [1]
In military operations being open about almost anything could be a benefit to the opposition. Most obviously things like the timing and numbers involved in operations need to be kept under wraps but all sorts of information could be damaging in one way or another. Simply because a state is not involved in a full scale war does not mean it can open up on these operations. This is why the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen in response to WikiLeaks said “Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing… But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.” [2]
[1] Londoño, Ernesto, ‘U.S. Ban on Masks Upsets Iraqui Interpreters’, Washington Post, 17 November 2008
[2] Jaffe, Greg, and Partlow, Joshua, ‘Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen: WikiLeaks release endangers troops, Afghans’, Washington Post, 30 July 2010
|
135 |
c68405c453794f19c4fdf3ceffc8e00b
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Provides information to competitors
Where there is international competition transparency can be a problem if there is not transparency on both sides as one side is essentially giving its opponent an advantage. This is ultimately why countries keep national security secrets; they are in competition with other nations and the best way to ensure an advantage over those states is to keep capabilities secret. One side having information while the other does not allows the actor that has the information to act differently in response to that knowledge. Keeping things secret can therefore provide an advantage when making a decision, as the one with most information is most likely to react best. [1] Currently there is information asymmetry between the United States and China to the point where some analysts consider that the United States provides more authoritative information on China’s military than China itself does. [2]
[1] National Security Forum, No More Secrets, American Bar Association, March 2011, p.7
[2] Erickson, Andrew S., ‘Pentagon Report Reveals Chinese Military Developments’, The Diplomat, 8 May 2013
|
136 |
fde44dfde57e4fe7ac171eb412494d22
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency can lead to conflict
The idea that transparency is good assumes that the people watching the government be transparent are likely to provide a moderating influence on policy. This is not always the case. Instead transparency can lead to more conflict.
First a nationalist population may force the government into taking more action than it wants. One obvious way to quiet such sentiment is to show that the country is not ready for war; something that may not be possible if being transparent. Instead if it is transparent that the military could win then there is nothing to stop a march to war. It then becomes possible for multiple interest groups to form into coalitions each with differing reasons for conflict trading off with each other resulting in overstretch and conflict. [1]
Secondly when there is a rapidly changing balance of power then transparency for the rising power may not be a good thing. Instead as Deng Xiaoping advised they should “Hide your strength, bide your time”. [2] Showing in the open how your military is expanding may simply force action from the current dominant power. Transparency, combined with domestic media worrying about the other’s build up can make the other side seem more and more of a threat that must be dealt with before it can get any more powerful. It is quite a common international relations theory that one way or another relative power and the quest for hegemony is the cause for war, [3] transparency simply encourages this. William C. Wohlforth points out when studying the cause of the First World War that it is perception of relative power that matters. Germany’s leaders believed it had to strike before it out of time as a result of Russia rapidly industrialising. [4] Transparency unfortunately reduces the ability of the government to manage perception.
[1] Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire, Cornell University Press, 1991, p.17
[2] Allison, Graham, and Blackwill, Robert D., ‘Will China Ever Be No.1?’, YakeGlobal, 20 February 2013
[3] Kaplan, Robert D., ‘Why John J. Mearsheimer Is Right (About Some Things)’, The Atlantic, 20 December 2011
[4] Wohlforth, William C., ‘The Perception of Power: Russia in the Pre-1914 Balance’, World Politics, Vol.39, No.3, (April 1987), pp.353-381, p.362
|
137 |
57d978c0658ee5b8e228d32d58bc1ad7
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency can result in normalisation
While something is secret it is clearly not a normal every day part of government, it is deniable and the assumption is that when it comes to light it has probably been wound up long ago. However making something transparent without winding it up can be a bad thing as it makes it normal which ultimately makes a bad policy much harder to end.
The use of drones by the CIA may turn out to be an example of this. At the moment we are told almost nothing about drones, not even how many strikes there are or how many are killed. There have however been recent suggestions that the drone program could be transferred to the Department of Defence. This would then make the targeted killing that is carried out seem a normal part of military conflict, somehting it clearly is not. [1] And the public reacts differently to covert and military action; already more Americans support military drones doing targeted killing (75%) than CIA ones (65%). [2]
[1] Waxman, Matthew, ‘Going Clear’, Foreign Policy, 20 March 2013
[2] Zenko, Micah, ‘U.S. Public Opinion on Drone Strikes’, Council on Foreign Relations, 18 March 2013
|
138 |
f98bb4959d33dea7830b3fa122bec2e0
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Don’t panic!
The role of the security services is in part to deal with some very dangerous ideas and events. But the point is to deal with them in such a way that does not cause public disorder or even panic. We clearly don’t want every report detailing specific threats to be made public, especially if it is reporting something that could be devastating but there is a low risk of it actually occurring. If such information is taken the wrong way it can potentially cause panic, either over nothing, or else in such a way that it damages any possible response to the crisis. Unfortunately the media and the public often misunderstand risk. For example preventing terrorism has been regularly cited in polls as being the Americans top foreign policy goal with more than 80% thinking it very important in Gallup polls for over a decade [1] even when the chance of being killed by terrorism in Western countries is very low. If the public misunderstands the risk the response is unlikely to be proportionate and can be akin to yelling fire in a packed theatre.
While it is not (usually) a security, but rather a public health issue, pandemics make a good example. The question of how much information to release is only slightly different than in security; officials want to release enough information that everyone is informed, but not so much that there is panic whenever there is an unusual death. [2] In 2009 the WHO declared swine flu to be a pandemic despite it being a relatively mild virus that did not cause many deaths, so causing an unnecessary scare and stockpiling of drugs. [3]
[1] Jones, Jeffrey M., ‘Americans Say Preventing Terrorism Top Foreign Policy Goal’, Gallup Politics, 20 February 2013
[2] Honigsbaum, Mark, ‘The coronavirus conundrum: when to press the panic button’, guardian.co.uk, 14 February 2013
[3] Cheng, Maria, ‘WHO’s response to swine flu pandemic flawed’, Phys.org, 10 May 2011
|
139 |
c286c72df1c770697be9c616ea76399c
|
nce censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all Intellectual property is a legal fiction created for convenience in some instances, but copyright should cease to be protected under this doctrine
An individual’s idea only truly belongs solely to them so long as it rests in their mind alone. When they disseminate their ideas to the world they put them in the public domain, and should become the purview of everyone to use. Artists and creators more generally, should not expect some sort of ownership to inhere in an idea they happen to have, since no such ownership right exists in reality. [1] No one can own an idea. Thus recognizing something like a property right over intangible assets is contrary to reason, since doing so gives monopoly power to individuals who may not make efficient or equitable use of their inventions or products. Physical property is a tangible asset, and thus can be protected by tangible safeguards. Ideas do not share the same order of protection even now because they exist in a different order to physical reality. However, some intellectual property is useful in encouraging investment and invention, allowing people to engage their profit motives to the betterment of society as a whole. To an extent one can also sympathize with the notion that creators deserve to accrue some additional profit for the labour of the creative process, but this can be catered for through Creative Commons non-commercial licenses which reserve commercial rights. [2] These protections should not extend to non-commercial use of the various forms of arts. This is because art is a social good of a unique order, with its purpose not purely functional, but creative. It only has value in being experienced, and thus releasing these works through creative commons licenses allows the process of artistic experience and sharing proceeds unhindered by outmoded notions of copyright. The right to reap some financial gain still remains for the artists, as their rights still hold over all commercial use of their work. This seems like a fair compromise of the artist’s right to profit from their work and society right to experience and grow from those works.
[1] Fitzgerald, Brian and Anne Fitzgerald. Intellectual Property: In Principle. Melbourne: Lawbook Company. 2004.
[2] Walsh, K., “Commercial Rights Reserved proposal outcome: no change”, Creative Commons, 14 February 2013, http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/36725
|
140 |
04ab403cbe5fefe3364b36e9f3d654bf
|
e media and good government politics defence government digital freedoms Transparency prevents public relations disasters
Transparency is necessary to avoid public relations disasters; particularly in countries where the media has some freedom to investigate for themselves. It is clearly the best policy for the military to make sure all the information is released along with the reasons behind actions rather than having the media finding individual pieces of a whole and speculating to fill the gaps.
A good example would be a collision on 16th January 1966 between a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanker while attempting to refuel that destroyed both planes. Accidents happen, and this one cost 11 lives, but could have been much worse as the B-52 had four nuclear bombs on board were not armed and did not detonate. In this case an initial lack of information rapidly turned into a public relations disaster that was stemmed by much more openness by the military and the US Ambassador in Spain. The release of the information reduces the room for the press to fill in the gaps with harmful speculation. [1] In this case there was never much chance of national security implications or a break with Spain as the country was ruled by the dictator Franco, someone who would hardly pay attention to public opinion. But in a democracy a slow and closed response could seriously damage relations.
[1] Stiles, David, ‘A Fusion Bomb over Andalucia: U.S. Information Policy and the 1966 Palomares Incident’, Journal of War Studies, Vol.8, No.1, Winter 2006, pp.49-67, p.65
|
141 |
7e30a92905e9c1f2c7de5ec464b9ee5d
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor We already frown upon certain forms of speech [1] as we recognise that it is important to protect groups form prejudice and hatred. Allowing the expression of hatred does not automatically mean that ordinary people will denounce it as evil; rather, it normalises hatred and is more likely to be acceptable in the public domain. It also appears to show implicit acceptance or even support from the government when we take no steps to prevent this kind of damaging expression; as such, the government fails in its duty to ordinary citizens to protect them and represent their best interests.
[1] Tatchell, Peter, ‘Hate speech v free speech’, guardian.co.uk, 10 October 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/oct/10/hatespeechvfreespeech on 09/09/11.
|
142 |
89b7d4d043ab16bc40e86ed7f6fad440
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.
|
143 |
4b84b7f37087aba0f6512443c23e66f5
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor The Internet may be a global resource, but if information on it is have a detrimental effect upon a particular country, it certainly is that government’s responsibility and right to tackle it. If it affects their society and the citizens within it, it affects the government and the means by which they can govern, particularly in relation to social policy. Moreover these websites, and specifically religious opinion websites, often seek to ‘recruit’ others to their school of thought or even to action; their purpose is often to gather support and followers [1] . Therefore there certainly is a risk that these people, who are often very intelligent and persuasive [2] , might lure others to them without protection by the government. It is a very real danger, and needs real protection.
[1] Kiley, Sam, ‘Terrorists ‘May Recruit On Social Networks’’, SkyNews, 12 July 2011, http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16028962 on 09/09/11.
[2] Ali, Iftakhar, ‘Terrorism – The Global Menace’, Universal Journal The Association of Young Journalists and Writers, http://www.ayjw.org/articles.php?id=944449 on 09/09/11.
|
144 |
63701d7fd42ab82224d5ca73ffa55d62
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor Outright banning this kind of prejudice does not directly tackle it – it ignores it. A better way for the government to tackle derogatory and prejudicial speech is to engage with it in a public forum and reasonably point out the flaws and ignorance that it embodies, rather than desperately trying to hide it from public view. In this way, those who are being attacked by these websites would feel as if the government is actively protecting them and their rights and punishing those who have violated them, rather than simply closing a few websites and allowing their authors to continue in other ways. This motion does not solve the problem of prejudice in the way it claims to.
|
145 |
9642012fabf69edc21605dffe53c6546
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor Any information from television or newspapers has already been regulated, so it is not a problem that it may now appear somewhere on the internet. It is exactly because the internet is a forum for free information and expression that so many people engage with it; removing this is a dictatorial move against ordinary citizens who seek information without bias and undue censorship.
|
146 |
e0d72292dbef7f359432250daa48e270
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor Given the number of people who actually use Facebook [1] and other social networking sites, these occurrences were remarkably small [2] . These riots cannot be attributed to Facebook; it was the mindset of the rioters rather than Facebook itself which provided the raw determination for these riots to occur. If Facebook had been censored, they may have simply used mobile phones to co-ordinate their actions instead. Censoring these sites would not prevent such events, and would anger those who use Facebook to communicate with friends [3] and share photos [4] innocently.
[1] BBC News, ‘Facebook hits 500m user milestone’, 21 July 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10713199 09/09/11.
[2] BBC News, ‘UK Riots: Trouble erupts in English cities’, 10 August 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14460554 on 09/09/11.
[3] Santos, Elena, “The ultimate social network”, softonic, http://facebook.en.softonic.com/web-apps on 09/09/11.
[4] Santos, Elena, “The ultimate social network”, softonic, http://facebook.en.softonic.com/web-apps on 09/09/11.
|
147 |
a7e2cb25b88f1db89a49535ba3783453
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor While in a tiny minority of cases, such social networking sites can be used malevolently, they can also be a powerful force for good. For example, many social networking pages campaign for the end to issues such as domestic abuse [1] and racism [2] , and Facebook and Twitter were even used to bring citizens together to clean the streets after the riots in the UK in 2011. [3] Furthermore, this motion entails a broader move to blanket-ban areas of the internet without outlining a clear divide between what would be banned and what would not. For example, at what point would a website which discusses minority religious views be considered undesirable? Would it be at the expression of hatred for nationals of that country, in which case it might constitute hate speech, or not until it tended towards promoting action i.e. attacking other groups? Allowing censorship in these areas could feasibly be construed as obstructing the free speech of specified groups, which might in fact only increase militancy against a government or culture who are perceived as oppressing their right to an opinion of belief [4] .
[1] BBC News, ‘Teenagers’ poem to aid domestic abuse Facebook campaign’, 4 February 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12367525 on 16/09/11
[2] Unframing Migrants, ‘meeting for CAMPAIGN AGAINST RACISM’, facebook, 19 October 2010, http://www.facebook.com/events/168254109852708/ on 16/09/2011.
[3] BBC News, ‘England riots: Twitter and Facebook users plan clean-up.’ 9 August 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14456857 on 16/09/11.
[4] Marisol, ‘Nigeria: Boko Haram Jihadists say UN a partner in “oppression of believers”’, JihadWatch, 1 September 2011, http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/09/nigeria-boko-haram-jihadists-say-un-a-partner-in-oppression-of-believers.html on 09/09/11
|
148 |
e1d192514b54c85a12e0192a2964e9d2
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor The Internet is a free domain and cannot becontrolled by the government.
Given that the Internet is used as an international [1] and public space [2] , the government has no right over the information which may be presented via the Internet. In Western liberal democracies, governments are elected on the basis by which they can serve their own country – how they will create or maintain laws that pertain specifically to that nation, and how they will govern the population. The Internet is not country-specific, but international and free. As such, no individual government should have a right to the information on it. Asserting false authority over the internet would paint the government as dictatorial and a ‘nanny state’ [3] , demonstrating a lack of respect for its citizens by assuming that they cannot protect themselves or recognise the nature of extremist or potentially harmful sites and take the individual decision to distance themselves from such sites.
[1] Babel, ‘Towards communicating on the Internet in any language’, http://alis.isoc.org/index.en.html
[2] Papacharissi, Zizi, ‘The virtual sphere’, New Media & Society, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp 9-27, February 2002, http://nms.sagepub.com/content/4/1/9.short on 09/09/11
[3] BBC. ‘A Point of View: In defence of the nanny state’. Published 04/02/2011. Accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12360045 on
|
149 |
872edd7325b5ec9e694e4693990fa90b
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor People often react poorly to being censored by their governments.
In countries that do currently practice censorship of Internet information, their citizens often interpret this as suspicious and dictatorial behaviour. For example, in China growing discontent with the government’s constant censorship has led to public outrage [1] , and political satire which heavily criticises the government [2] . Censorship can easily be used malevolently and is not always in public interest; this motion supports the ignorance of the population by hiding information and the reality of the situation. Therefore the cost of suspicion by the population of the state makes censorship of any kind less than worthwhile and it is better to allow individuals to make their own choices.
[1] Bennett, Isabella, ‘Media Censorship in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 7 March 2011, http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515 on 09/09/11
[2] Bennett, Isabella, ‘Media Censorship in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 7 March 2011, http://www.cfr.org/china/media-censorship-china/p11515 on 09/09/11.
|
150 |
43b70cff98ab1bb72d63411d74c1cb2f
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor The government here may legitimately limit ‘free speech’.
We already set boundaries on what constitutes ‘free speech’ within our society. For example, we often endorse a ‘balancing act’ [1] an individual may express their beliefs or opinions, but only up to the point where it does not impede the ‘protection of other human rights’ [2] – other peoples’ right not to be abused. In this case, if an individual expresses abuse towards another – especially racism - they may be deemed to be outside of the boundaries or free speech and can be punished for it. This motion is simply an extension of this principle; the kinds of sites which would be banned are those which perpetuate hatred or attack other groups in society, an so already fall outside of the protection of free speech. The harms that stem from these kinds of sites outweigh any potential harm from limiting speech in a small number of cases.
[1] Hera.org, ‘Freedom of Expression’, Human Rights Education Association, http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=408 on 09/09/11
[2] Hera.org, ‘Freedom of Expression’, Human Rights Education Association, http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=408 on 09/09/11
|
151 |
8657f8f86a3bd7342178eed2024a749e
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor Even sites that appeared innocent have had a devastating effect on society.
Some governments, such as the Vietnamese government [1] , have already seen sufficient cause to ban social networking sites such as Facebook. Recently in the UK, many major cities witnessed devastation and destruction as social networking sites were used to co-ordinate wide-scale riots which rampaged over London, Manchester, Birmingham, Worcestershire, Gloucester, Croydon, Bristol, Liverpool and Nottingham [2] . Rioters contacted each other through Facebook and blackberry instant messenger to ensure that they could cause maximum damage [3] , which resulted in the destruction of property [4] , physical violence towards others [5] , and even the deaths of three young men [6] . These events prove that seemingly innocent Internet sites can be used by anybody, even apparently normal citizens, to a devastating effect which has caused harm to thousands [7] . To protect the population and maintain order, it is essential that the government is able to act to censor sites that can be used as a forum and a tool for this kind of behaviour when such disruption is occurring.
[1] AsiaNews.it, ‘Internet censorship tightening in Vietnam’, 22 June 2010, http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Internet-censorship-tightening-in-Vietnam... 09/09/11
[2] BBC News, ‘England Riots’, 8 February 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14452097 on 09/09/11
[3] BBC News, ‘England riots: Two jailed for using Facebook to incite disorder’, 16 August 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14551582 on 09/09/11
[4] Hawkes, Alex, Garside, Juliette and Kollewe, Julia, ‘UK riots could cost taxpayer £100m’, guardian.co.uk, 9 August 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-cost-taxpayer-100-million on 09/09/11.
[5] Allen, Emily, ‘We will use water cannons on them: At last Cameron orders police to come down hard on the looters (some aged as young as NINE)’, Mail Online, 11 August 2011, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024203/UK-RIOTS-2011-David-Came... on 09/09/11.
[6] Orr, James, ‘Birmingham riots: three men killed ‘protecting homes’’, The Telegraph, 10 August 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8693095/Birmingham-riots-th... on 09/09/11.
[7] Huffington Post, ‘UK Riots: What Long-Term Effects Could They Have?’, 10 August 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/08/10/uk-riots-cleanup-could-co_n_9... on 09/09/11.
|
152 |
cf8f3e67464b8672986a3e15122f5419
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor Governments have a moral duty to protect its citizens from harmful sites.
In recent years, supposedly innocent sites such as social networking sites have been purposely used to harm others. Victims of cyber bullying have even led victims to commit suicide in extreme cases [1] [2] . Given that both physical [3] and psychological [4] damage have occurred through the use of social networking sites, such sites represent a danger to society as a whole. They have become a medium through which others express prejudice, including racism, towards groups and towards individuals [5] . Similarly, if a particularly country has a clear religious or cultural majority, it is fair to censor those sites which seek to undermine these principles and can be damaging to a large portion of the population. If we fail to take the measures required to remove these sites, which would be achieved through censorship, the government essentially fails to act on its principles by allowing such sites to exist. The government has a duty of care to its citizens [6] and must ensure their safety; censoring such sites is the best way to achieve this.
[1] Moore, Victoria, ‘The fake world of Facebook and Bebo: How suicide and cyber bullying lurk behind the facade of “harmless fun”’, MailOnline, 4 August 2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1204062/The-fake-world-Facebook-Bebo-How-suicide-cyber-bullying-lurk-facade-harmless-fun.html on 16/09/11
[2] Good Morning America, ‘Parents: Cyber Bullying Led to Teen’s Suicide’, ABC News, 19 November 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3882520&page=1#.T0N_1fFmIQo on 16/09/11
[3] BBC News, ‘England riots: Two jailed for using Facebook to incite disorder’, 16 August 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14551582 on 16/09/11.
[4] Good Morning America, ‘Parents: Cyber Bullying Led to Teen’s Suicide’, ABC News, 19 November 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3882520&page=1#.T0N_1fFmIQo on 16/09/11
[5] Counihan, Bella, ‘White power likes this – racist Facebook groups’, The Age, 3 February 2010, http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/white-power-likes-t... on 16/09/11
[6] Brownejacobson, ‘Councils owe vulnerable citizens duty of care’, 18 June 2008, http://www.brownejacobson.com/press_office/press_releases/councils_owe_v... 09/09/11
|
153 |
5dbd3fbcfe478b4f36a815490fc0f1a2
|
p ip internet digital freedoms access information house would censor As an extensive form of media, the Internet should be subject to regulation just as other forms of media are.
Under the status quo, states already regulate other forms of media that could be used malevolently. Newspapers and books are subject to censorship [1] , and mediums such as television, film and video receive a higher degree of regulation [2] because it is widely recognised that moving pictures and sound can be more emotive and powerful than text and photographs or illustrations. The internet has many means of portraying information and opinion, including film clips and sound, and almost all the information found on television or in newspapers can be found somewhere on the internet [3] , alongside the millions of uploads from internet users themselves [4] .
[1] Foerstel, Herbert N., ‘Banned in the Media’, Publishing Central, http://publishingcentral.com/articles/20030215-85-f98b.html?si=1 on 09/09/11
[2] CityTVweb.com, ‘Television censorship’, 27 August 2007, http://www.citytvweb.com/television-censorship/ on 09/09/11.
[3] Online Newspapers Directory for the World, ‘Thousands of Newspapers Listed by Country & Region’, http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ on 09/09/11
[4] Boris, Cynthia, ’17 Percent of Photobucket Users Upload Video’s Once a Day’, Marketing Pilgrim, 9 September 2011, http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/09/17-percent-of-photobucket-users-upload-video-once-a-day.html on 09/09/11
|
154 |
1736cd9138e330b632064cbec2c26187
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted This will clearly depend on the country engaging sanctions; sanctions from the US or EU will be much more significant than sanctions from the Philippines. Most countries however are a part of larger trade blocks; sanctions from the Philippines may not be much of a threat but sanctions from ASEAN would be much more compelling. Using such regional organisations can help nations get around the problems of agreement associated with broader UN sanctions. There have already been calls for groups such as ASEAN to work together against cyber attacks [1] and these groupings could be expanded to include other nations that agree with the policy on an ad hoc basis in much the same way as Japan is looking to join with ASEAN on such defence. [2]
[1] Minnick, Wendell, ‘Malaysia Calls for ASEAN ‘Master Plan’ to Fight Cyber Attacks’, Defense News, 3 June 2012, http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120603/DEFREG03/306030004/Malaysia-Calls-ASEAN-8216-Master-Plan-8217-Fight-Cyber-Attacks
[2] Westlake, Adam, ‘Japan pushes to form cyber-defense network with other ASEAN countries’, Japan Daily Press, 8 October 2012, http://japandailypress.com/japan-pushes-to-form-cyber-defense-network-with-other-asean-countries-0814818
|
155 |
b6f99f44ca1767dd5cb076ab4aa91a56
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Even taking it at face value that most of these hackers are independent actors not a part of a state policy there would still be solid reasoning behind sanctions. That most cyber-attacks have a financial motive implies that sanctions are the best response; as it is hitting them in an area that the attackers are clearly interested in. As for those who are attacking for ‘patriotic’ reasons if they are truly patriots they will stop when they see their efforts are really harming their country not helping it.
|
156 |
3cdab6c89b4a3f9d8d674f8e39e7058a
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Cooperation is not a helpful alternative as it really means status quo when we can see that the status quo is not going to reduce cyber-attacks or bring recompense. Rather this is precisely what sanctions are needed for; to encourage states that harbour cyber criminals and hackers to use their law enforcement capabilities to crack down on such attacks.
|
157 |
7b25102f1aec891098e9b29064227f05
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted The aim of sanctions does not have to be to directly affect the individuals doing the hacking, though in some cases this may be possible. Rather the aim is to change the attitude towards regulation and enforcement by the central government and possibly by the people as a whole. If the people of a country believe they are suffering as a result of the hackers in their midst they will be much more likely to demand their government make cracking down on such activities a priority.
|
158 |
f25d1ab2f94450e2f25f6df5f63003ab
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions cannot be very finely targeted and will always hit other groups as well as the cyber attackers. The chances of knowing specific individuals who were responsible are next to zero so those individuals cannot be targeted directly. This is the whole problem with cyber-attacks; they are very difficult to pin down. In the best case then sanctions are applied against the right target and happen to hit others as well; for example hackers are not the only new who want advanced computer equipment. At worst the sanctions will completely miss their target; it would be a major embarrassment for a country to impose sanctions for a cyber-attack only for it to later be discovered that the sanctions are against an innocent party through whom the attack had been routed.
|
159 |
f15ef336ef11afa2660c4d31b59e29de
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted An asymmetric response to cyber-attacks in the form of sanctions may prevent escalation, but they could also simply encourage a cyber-attacker to do more knowing that sanctions cannot stop cyber-attacks. Sanctions in the past have rarely changed policy; Sanctions against Cuba did not result in overthrowing Castro, sanctions have not changed North Korea or Iran’s policy towards nuclear weapons, so there is little reason that sanctions would stop cyber-attacks. [1] Instead the country being sanctioned will find a way around and quite possibly escalate themselves much as North Korea has upped the stakes whenever new sanctions are imposed, most recently by cancelling a hotline to the South. [2]
[1] Friedman, Lara, ‘Getting over the sanctions delusion’, Foreign Policy The Middle East Channel, 14 March 2010, http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/15/getting_over_the_sanctions_delusion
[2] Branigan, Tania, ‘Expanded UN sanctions on North Korea prompt rage from Pyongyang’, guardian.co.uk, 8 March 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/08/north-korea-rages-un-sanctions
|
160 |
a7331754800723e686efc05ac2633c7a
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted How can there ever be deterrence when the attacker believes they will not be caught, or that if they are the sanctions swill harm others not themselves? When the problem with preventing cyber-attacks is the difficulty of tracing the source [1] then deterrence becomes more and more difficult to apply. This is not like the Cold War where both superpowers could be certain that if they launched an attack there would be a devastating response. In this instance there is no certainly; the attacker believes they a, won't be caught, b, there will be no response and c, that the response won't affect them, and finally even if they are affected unless they are caught most times they will believe they will get away with it next time round.
[1] Greenemeier, Larry, ‘Seeking Address: Why Cyber Attacks Are So Difficult to Trace Back to Hackers’, Scientific American, 11 June 2011, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tracking-cyber-hackers
|
161 |
afb4f82aaf8940545165194e95561d85
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.
[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html
|
162 |
ae81ed9d11ecc6e7b9bc8ed302d9b51a
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions are indiscriminate
The problem with sanctions is that they are almost always indiscriminate; Iran’s sanctions today are an example where the international community’s concerns are entirely with the government, over nuclear weapons, not the people yet the result has been a doubling in the price of staple foodstuffs and rapidly rising unemployment. [1]
This will equally be the case here. While sanctioners will try to target the sanctions the fact is there is nothing to target with sanctions that would not affect everyday lives. Hackers are ordinary people so clearly sanctions will affect others like themselves. The most obvious reactions involve the internet but blocking access to internet services, or penalising ISP’s, or cutting off technology transfers, harm everyone else as much as hackers. Often this harm is in the form of simply making the internet less safe for people in that country because they will have to turn to pirated versions of software. IDC and Microsoft estimate the chances of being infected with malware when using pirated software at one in three [2] so it is no surprise that the Chinese government in October 2012 launched a campaign to have government and companies purchase legal software. [3]
[1] The Economist, ‘A red line and a reeling rial’, 6 October 2012, http://www.economist.com/node/21564229
[2] IDC, ‘White Paper: The Dangerous World of Counterfeit and Pirated Software’, Microsoft, March 2013, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/download/presskits/antipiracy/docs/IDC030513.pdf p.3
[3] Xinhua, ‘Chinese gov’t says no to pirated software’, People’s Daily Online, 26 April 2013, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/8224829.html
|
163 |
add2f55fb6a906e58b67b1dd90c8fade
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions won't harm the hackers
Sanctions are typically used as a response to the actions of another state, not the actions of a private actor. Much cyber espionage is not carried out by government entities such as the army or intelligence services. It is also not encouraged by government regulation. Rather it is carried out by private actors whether this is criminal organisations or businesses seeking to undermine their rivals and learn their secrets this is usually with a financial motive (75% of data breaches) [1] , or else by individuals motivated by nationalism and patriotism to attack those they see as their nation’s enemies. It is difficult to see how sanctions against the nation as a whole affect these groups and individuals. This is certainly the case in China where many such as the ‘China Eagle Union’ admit to hacking for nationalist reasons rather than being told by the government. [2]
A response such as sanctions are simply likely to breed more resentment that the other power is attempting to bully their nation. The hackers only possible response is then more hacking. For those sponsored by companies if their company is hit by sanctions it simply becomes all the more necessary to find methods of getting ahead to offset any harm by sanctions.
[1] Verizon RISK Team, ‘2013 Data Breach Investigations Report’, Verizon, 23 April 2013, http://www.verizonenterprise.com/DBIR/2013/ p.6
[2] Beech, Hannah, ‘China’s Red Hackers: The Tale of One Patriotic Cyberwarrior’, Time, 21 February 2013, http://world.time.com/2013/02/21/chinas-red-hackers-the-tale-of-one-patriotic-cyberwarrior/
|
164 |
e609c6097f654e39e89f4d3629edc297
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions won't work
The problem with sanctions is that they almost never work so all they do is provide punishment and damage relations without ever resolving the issue. Numerous studies have shown that sanctions don’t actually change the policy of the country that is being sanctioned. [1] Robert Pape suggests that sanctions are only effective in achieving policy change about 5% of the time because states can take substantial economic punishment before they give up on anything that might be considered to be a national interest, and because states are good at shifting the burden of the sanctions onto opposition groups, [2] or else use the sanctions to rally domestic support against the outside actor. [3]
Instead there need to be renewed cooperation on cyber security. Fundamentally as with things like drug smuggling, and people trafficking this is an international problem that needs to be tackled by law enforcement authorities. To that end there needs to be more cooperation not more recriminations. [4]
[1] Lindsay, James M., ‘Trade Sanctions As Policy Instruments: A Re-Examination’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol.30, Issue 2, June 1986, pp.153-170, http://www.stanford.edu/class/ips216/Readings/lindsay_86.pdf , p.1 provides a list of some of them
[2] Pape, Robert A., ‘Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work’, International Security, Vol. 22, Issue 2, Autumn 1997, pp.90-137, http://www.stanford.edu/class/ips216/Readings/pape_97%20(jstor).pdf p.106
[3] Snyder, Jack, Myths of Empire, Cornell University Press, 1991
[4] Dingli, Shen, ‘What Kerry Should Tell China’, Foreign Policy, 11 April 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/04/11/what_kerry_should_tell_china
|
165 |
fb833d7369a00211aeda65dbd6f78d3e
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions can be targeted
The big advantage of sanctions is that they can be as finely targeted as needed. If the sanctioning country only knows which country the cyber attack originated from then they can be broad brush sanctions, but if there is knowledge of which group initiated the attack then the sanctions can be more specific. For example in the case of unit 61398 Of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army that Mandiant showed has been attacking US companies [1] the United States could target sanctions at the People's Liberation Army by tightening weapons bans. Alternatively if the hackers are private then banning the import of certain computer equipment into that country would be appropriate. If individuals are known then the sanctions can be even more targeted, for example by freezing any bank accounts held outside their own country as the US did against North Korea when it sanctioned Banco Delta Asia through which North Korea laundered money from criminal activities. [2]
[1] Mandiant, ‘Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units’, mandiant.com, February 2013, http://intelreport.mandiant.com/Mandiant_APT1_Report.pdf
[2] Noland, Marcus, ‘Why Sanctions Can Hurt North Korea’, Council on Foreign Relations, 4 August 2010, http://www.cfr.org/north-korea/why-sanctions-can-hurt-north-korea/p22762
|
166 |
7bb85771b667bf7c01bb5edabfaf21e5
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted There needs to be action to deter more cyber attacks
At the moment the response to cyber-attacks has essentially been nothing. It is however clear that some response is needed as without a reaction there is no deterrence; the attacks will keep coming until something is done. The number of cyber-attacks and the sensitivity of the information stolen have been increasing over recent years and as more and more work is done online and more and more systems are connected to the Internet so cyber-attacks become more attractive. There needs to be a deterrent and the best deterrent is to make sure that such attacks are costly.
As these attacks are usually cross border (and in this debate we are only concerned with cross border attacks) then the only way to create a cost is through sanctions. These sanctions can either hit the assailant directly or else hit his government so encouraging them to crack down on hacking emanating from their country. It should be remembered that China argues that it does not launch cyber-attacks [1] meaning that any such attacks from China must duly be private. If this is the case then sanctions are the best way of prompting internal law enforcement. Sanctions therefore encourage all nations where there are cyber criminals to make sure they take such cyber-crime seriously. If they do not get their own cyber criminals under control then they may be affected by sanctions.
[1] China Daily, ‘China denies launching cyberattacks on US’, China.org.cn, 20 February 2013, http://www.china.org.cn/world/2013-02/20/content_28003282.htm
|
167 |
e1961b357dfdbac2234988b2bb4a2311
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions are a proportionate response
Cyber-attacks pose a distinct problem for international diplomacy in that they are difficult to prevent and difficult to respond to. Any kind of military response as the United States has threatened would be completely disproportionate against all but the very biggest of cyber-attacks (those that actually result in deaths), [1] diplomacy on the other hand is as good as no response, if the response is simply a tongue lashing then the benefits of cyber espionage will be far higher than the cost.
The only proportionate, and therefore just, response to a cyber-attack is sanctions. The sanctions can be used to impose a similar economic cost on the offending state as that caused by the cyber-attack. This would be just like the World Trade Organisation's dispute settlement rules. They allow for the imposition of trade sanctions to a similar value to the losses being experienced as a result of protectionist action, with the sanctions sometimes on differing sectors to those where there are unfair trade practices. [2] Alternatively sanctions could mean a proportionate Internet response; users from the offending nation could be prohibited from using Internet services, for example an attack by hackers on the US could result in people from that country being blocked from Google and other US internet services.
[1] Friedman, Benjamin H., Preble, Christopher A., ‘A Military Response to Cyberattacks Is Preposterous’, CATO Institute, 2 June 2011, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/military-response-cyberattacks-is-preposterous
[2] World Trade Organisation, ‘Understanding the WTO: Settling Disputes’, 2013, http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/disp1_e.htm
|
168 |
92179370b52369193e56d69ecbee87e5
|
warpeace digital freedoms intellectual property house would use targeted Sanctions will prevent escalation in cyber conflict
Cyber conflict favours the offence; when the defender is successful they gain nothing and impose no harm on the attacker who is free to try again elsewhere. The attackers are free to attack until they get past the defences somewhere. [1] That the attacks don’t risk lives helps to encourage an offensive mindset as makes it seem like there is no downside to attempting to dominate your opponent. [2] This means the only cyber response is to attack the attacker so that the same advantages apply.
The result is that cyber-attacks have a very real danger of long term tension or escalation. If one side is losing a conflict where both sides are attempting to steal the other's intellectual property (or the other has little to steal) the response may be something like the stuxnet attack that involves physical damage, this then would probably be considered an illegal use of force creating a thin line between a cyber-war and a real war. [3] When the cyber war involves physical damage as the US has warned there then may be a military response. Sanctions are a way to apply pressure without this risk of escalation into a military conflict.
[1] Lin, Herbert, ‘Escalation Dynamics and Conflict Termination in Cyberspace’, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Fall 2012, http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2012/fall/lin.pdf p.51
[2] Rothkopf, David, ‘The Cool War’, Foreign Policy, 20 February 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/20/the_cool_war_china_cyberwar
[3] Zetter, Kim, ‘Legal Experts: Stuxnet Attack on Iran Was Illegal ‘Act of Force’, Wired, 25 March 2013, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/stuxnet-act-of-force/
|
169 |
603cc1a3ed7c24a35d4b7489c6196dfb
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not The choice to release work into the viral market is a business decision creators should have the power to choose, not a mandated requirement for funding. Some may decide that they will profit and gain more recognition through releasing their work into the creative commons, others may not. It should be remembered that Ordinance Survey was originally mapping for military purposes rather than for the general public so it might very well have decided that there is no reason to have its data open to the public and it would pose no benefit to enable to public to use that data for modification.
|
170 |
d54a8453884d140759ad97a784801b33
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not Is it really in the public interest that there should be a norm that government information should be shared? There are clearly some areas where we do not want our government to share information; most clearly in the realm of security, [1] but also where the government and through them taxpayers can make a profit out of the product that the government has created. If the government creates a new radar system for the navy does it not make sense that they should be able to sell it at a profit for use by other country’s shipping? Also, the abundance of piracy online is not a reason to submit to the pirates and give them free access to information they should not receive.
[1] See ‘ This House believes transparency is necessary for security ’
|
171 |
6b9595cbbe1f721694a6bd9371e486ca
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not There is a difference between the general public and the government. It is the government that bought the rights to the work not the people even if the people are the ones that originally provided the money to develop the work by paying their taxes. It can be considered to be analogous to a business. Consumers pay for the products they buy and the profits from this enable the business to make the next generation of products. But that the consumers provided the profit that enabled that development does not enable the consumers to either get an upgrade or for the product to be released with a creative commons license
|
172 |
1063206cbb14200b5b8cb80beccf9c28
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not Government is quite simply not ‘like everyone else’. If government acted like a profit maximising business it would clearly have the ability to turn itself into a monopoly on almost everything. This is why the role of government is not to make a profit but to ensure the welfare and freedoms of its citizens.
|
173 |
1f285914411a2b4ae5d5b85e8082bb22
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not The government should not be interested in the profit motive but what is best for its citizens which will usually mean creative commons licenses rather than the state making a profit. This is even more likely when developments are a joint project with a for profit operation; taxpayers will rightly ask why they should be paying the research costs only for a private business to reap the profit from that investment. The government already provides a leg up to businesses in the form of providing infrastructure, a stable business environment, education etc., it should not be paying for their R&D too.
|
174 |
e68b2160b20745b0d1b5463d333bdb74
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not While there will be a few cases where it is undesirable that things that the government pays the funding for to be licensed through creative commons this should not stop creative commons from being the default choice. Creative commons is a good choice for the vast majority of what government does as weapons systems and other security related items are only a small part of government investment. Think of all the IT systems for government departments, it clearly makes sense that they should be creative commons so that they can be improved and adapted when it turns out they don’t work in quite the way they were designed. For example the UK government wasted £2,7billion on an IT project for the NHS, [1] in such a situation it would have made a lot of sense to have what was done open to others to pick up on and build upon if there was any of the software that could be of any use.
[1] Wright, Oliver, ‘NHS pulls the plug on its £11bn IT system’, The Independent, 3 August 2011, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-pulls-the-plug-on-its-11bn-it-system-2330906.html
|
175 |
3baa4a5430b4a3c7902102f5f21670b2
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not The default of copyright restricts the spreading of information
Current copyright law assigns too many rights, automatically, to the creator. Law gives the generator a work full copyright protection that is extremely restrictive of that works reuse, except when strictly agreed in contracts and agreements. Making the Creative Commons license the standard for publicly-funded works generates a powerful normalizing force toward a general alteration of people’s defaults on what copyright and creator protections should actually be like. The creative commons license guarantees attribution to the creator and they retain the power to set up other for-profit deals with distributors, something that is particularly useful for building programs that need to be maintained. [1] At base the default setting of somehow having absolute control means creators of work often do not even consider the reuse by others in the commons. The result is creation and then stagnation, as others do not expend the time and energy to seek special permissions from the creator.
By normalizing the creative commons through the state funding system, more people will be willing to accept the creative commons as their private default. This means greater access to more works, for the enrichment of all. The result is that a norm is created whereby the assumption is that information should be open and shared rather than controlled and owned for profit by an individual or corporation. All governments recognise a right to freedom of information as part of freedom of expression making it the government’s responsibility to provide access to public information [2] and many are enabling this through creating freedom of information acts. [3] This is simply another part of that right.
[1] ‘About The Licenses’, Creative Commons, 2010, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
[2] ‘Access to public information is government’s responsibility, concludes seminar in Montevideo’, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 8 October 2010, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=30887&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
[3] See ‘ This House believes that there should be a presumption in favour of publication for information held by public bodies ’
|
176 |
aa1f222a6a52a38c4bb435f4cae6f5d1
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not If the public funds a product it belongs to them
Everyone benefits and is enriched by open access to resources that the government can provide. A work is the province of its creator in most respects, since it is from the mind and hand of its creator that it is born. But when the state opts to fund a project, it too becomes a part-owner of the ideas and creation that springs forth. The state should thus seek to make public the work it spends taxpayer money to create. This is in exactly the same way that when an employee of a company creates something presuming there is the correct contract the rights to that work go to the company not the employee. [1]
The best means for doing this is through mandating that work created with state funding be released under creative commons licenses, which allow the work to be redistributed, re-explored, and to be used as springboards for new, derivative works. This is hampered by either the creator, or the government, retaining stricter forms of copyright, which effectively entitles the holder of the copyright to full control of the work that would not exist had it not been for the largesse of society. If state funded work is to have meaning it must be in the public sphere and reusable by the public in whatever form they wish. Simply put taxpayer bought so they own it.
[1] Harper, Georgia K., ‘Who owns what?’, Copyright Crash Course, 2007, http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/whoowns.html
|
177 |
5635854c5a5a5f098f1cce0ff601c7a7
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not Creative commons is not a good option for many government works
It is simply wrong to paint all government funding with one brush decreeing that it should only be spent if the results are going to be made available through creative commons. Governments fund a vast diversity of projects that could be subject to licensing and the pragmatic approach would be for the government to use whatever license is most suitable to the work at hand. For funding for art, or for public facing software creative commons licences may well be the best option. For software with strong commercial possibilities there may be good financial reasons to keep the work in copyright, there have been many successful commercial products that have started life being developed with government money, the internet being the most famous (though of course this is something for which the government never made much money and anyway the patent would run out before it became big). [1] With many military or intelligence related software, or studies, there may want to be a tough layer of secrecy preventing even selling the work in question, we clearly would not want to have creative commons licensing for the software for anything to do with nuclear weapons. [2]
[1] Manjoo, Farhad, ‘Obama Was Right: The Government Invented the Internet’, Slate, 24 July 2012, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/who_invented_the_internet_the_outrageous_conservative_claim_that_every_tech_innovation_came_from_private_enterprise_.html
[2] It should however be noted that many governments do sell hardware and software that might be considered militarily sensitive. See ‘ This House would ban the sale of surveillance technology to non-democratic countries ’
|
178 |
d13a36c3449843b2c0a08d3669a72821
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not Government, like everyone else, should be able to profit from its work, that profit benefits its citizens rather than harming them
We generally accept the principle that people who create something deserve to benefit from that act of creation as they should own that work. [1] This is a principle that can be applied as easily to government, whether through works they are funding or works they are directly engaged in, as to anyone else. The owners of the work deserve to have the choice to benefit from their own endeavours through having copyright over that work. Sometimes this will mean the copyright will remain with the person who was paid to do the work but most of the time this will mean government ownership. Public funding does not change this fundamental ownership and the quixotic bargain state funding in exchange for mandatory creative commons licensing is a perversion of that ownership.
The Texas Emerging Technology Fund is an example of the use of state funding in the private sector to produce socially useful technologies without thieving the ownership of new technologies from their creators. [2] Moreover states clearly benefit from being able to use any profit from their funding. It would clearly be in taxpayers interest if the state is able to make a profit out of the investments that taxpayers funding creates as this would mean taxes could be lower.
[1] Greenberg, M. ‘Reason or Madness: A Defense of Copyright’s Growing Pains’. John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 2007. http://www.jmripl.com/Publications/Vol7/Issue1/Greenberg.pdf
[2] Office of the Governor. ‘Texas Emerging Technology Fund’. 2012, http://governor.state.tx.us/ecodev/etf/
|
179 |
afba47b00cff7b0c6ed5ca6b5dc193f5
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not Creative commons prevents the incentive of profit
The incentive of profit, rather than a creative productive drive, spurs the creation of new work. Without the guarantee of ownership over one’s work, the incentive to invest time and effort in its creation is significantly diminished. When the state is the only body willing to pay for the work and offers support only on these strict terms, there will be less interest in being involved with that work. Within a robust copyright system, individuals feel free to invest time in their pursuits because they have full knowledge that the fruits of their efforts will be theirs to reap. [1] If their work were to immediately leave their control, they would be less inclined to do so.
The current copyright system that is built on profit encourages innovation and finding the best use for technology. Even when government has been the source of innovation those innovations have only become widespread when someone is able to make a profit from it; the internet became big when profit making companies began opening it up. If the government wants partnerships with businesses, or universities that are not directly linked to government then it has to accept that those partners can make a profit. Furthermore, the inability of others to simply duplicate existing works as their own means they too will be galvanized to break ground on new ideas, rather than simply re-tread over current ideas and to cannibalize the fecund ground of creative commons works.
[1] Greenberg, M. ‘Reason or Madness: A Defense of Copyright’s Growing Pains’. John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 2007. http://www.jmripl.com/Publications/Vol7/Issue1/Greenberg.pdf
|
180 |
be781d6fad57e9e4baab0bc0d0238c22
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all The vast majority of people who go to University are not doing so simply because they are interested in a subject and want to find out more. Instead they are after the qualification and improved job prospects university provides. Even those few who are in large part studying out of curiosity and interest will likely be doing so at university because they like the student life and want the experience.
However having courses and materials out in the open can even help universities with recruitment. Providing open access boosts a university’s reputation abroad which helps it in the international student market. Open access to academic work also helps give potential students a much better idea with what they will be studying which is very useful for students who are unsure where to choose. The benefits are obvious as shown by 35% of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s students choose the university after looking at its OpenCourseWare. [1]
[1] Daniel, Sir John, and Killion, David, “Are open educational resources the key to global economic growth?”, Guardian Professional, 4 July 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/04/open-educational-resources-and-economic-growth
|
181 |
52bee454f3b72172298d221ad6905427
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Academic work is not about profit. For most researchers the aim is to satisfy curiosity or to increase the sum of knowledge. Others are motivated by a desire to do good, or possibly for recognition. None of these things require there to be profit for the university.
Moreover we should remember that the profit is not going to the individual who did the research, there is therefore no moral justification that the person has put effort in and so deserves to profit from it. The university does not even take the risk, which is born by the taxpayer who pays the majority of the research budget. Much of the profit from publishing this knowledge does not even go to the university. Instead academic publishers make huge profits through rentier capitalism. They have profit margins of 36% despite not doing the research, or taking any risk that goes into funding the research. [1]
[1] Monbiot, George, “Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist”, The Guardian, 29 August 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
|
182 |
f09fafee9ff1ff245dc1d79d6d1c083e
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all This is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of those who fund the research in the first place; the taxpayer. The taxpayer (or in some cases private funder) pays for the research to be done and so is paying for the paper to be written. It then does not make sense that the taxpayer should pay again in order to access the research that they paid to have done in the first place. Yes there are small costs associated with checking and editing the articles but these could easily be added into research budgets especially as it would mean cutting out an extra cost that occurs due to the profit margins of the academic publishers. As Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, says “Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research”. [1]
[1] Kroes, Neelie, “Scientific data: open access to research results will boost Europe's innovation capacity”, Europa.eu, 17 July 2012. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-790_en.htm?locale=en
|
183 |
493fba695eacceb2567565aee51d8cda
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all If business wants certain research to use for profit then it is free to do so. However it should entirely fund that research rather than relying on academic institutions to do the research and the government to come up with part of the funding. This would then allow the government to focus its funding on basic research, the kind of research that pushes forward the boundaries of knowledge which may have many applications but is not specifically designed with these in mind. This kind of curiosity driven research can be very important for example research into retroviruses gave the grounding that meant that antiretrovirals to control AIDS were available within a decade of the disease appearing. [1]
[1] Chakradhar, Shraddha, “The Case for Curiosity”, Harvard Medical School, 10 August 2012, http://hms.harvard.edu/news/case-curiosity-8-10-12
|
184 |
32a528019381b7394f60293b6cba3efd
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Public funding does not mean that everything should be free and open to use by the public. We do not expect to be allowed to use buildings that are built as government offices as if they were our own. The government builds large amounts of infrastructure such as airports and railways but we don’t expect to be able to use them for free.
|
185 |
5e712f61850383eaacb8f05add810273
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Most students most of the time stick to the core areas of their course and thus are not likely to encounter difficulties with finding the relevant information. For those who do require resources that the university library does not have access to they can use interlibrary loan for a small fee to cover the cost of sending the book or article between universities. [1] The universities in most countries can therefore effectively split the cost of access by specialising in certain subjects which limits the number of journals they need to buy while making the resources available to their students if they really need them.
[1] Anon., “Inter-library loans” Birkbeck University of London. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/about/how/ill/illguide Within the UK Cambridge charges £3 to £6, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/about/how/ill/illguide in Europe the University of Vienna charges €2 http://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/english/interlibrary_loans.html while the United States is higher with Yale charging between $20-30 http://www.library.yale.edu/ill/
|
186 |
ecbaac5b29e7a9189b7c32a87ae49be7
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Open access makes little difference to research. If an academic needs to use an article they don’t have access to they can pay for it and gain access quickly and efficiently.
The benefits to the economy may also be overstated; we don’t know how much benefit it will create. But we do know it would be badly damaging to the academic publishing industry. We also know there are risks with putting everything out in the open as economies that are currently research leaders will be handing out their advances for free. There is an immense amount of stealing of intellectual property, up to $400 billion a year, so research is obviously considered to be economically worth something. [1] With open access the proposal is instead to make everything available for free for others to take as and when they wish.
[1] Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “Backgrounder on the Rogers-Ruppersberger Cybersecurity Bill”, U.S. House of Representatives, http://intelligence.house.gov/backgrounder-rogers-ruppersberger-cybersecurity-bill
|
187 |
4e7a566f40f698d67b4fbc2030a0e074
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Making these academic materials available to the general public does not mean they are useful to anyone. Many of the materials universities produce are not useful unless the reader has attended the relevant lectures. Rather than simply putting those lectures that are recorded and course handbooks online what is needed to open up education is systematically designed online courses that are available to all. Unfortunately what this provides will be a profusion of often overlapping and contradictory materials with little guidance for how to navigate through them for those who are not involved in the course in question.
|
188 |
2677118826a60d3d771794875a80e168
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Making everything free to access will damage universities ability to tap private funding
For most universities even if the government is generous with funding it will still need for some projects require private funding. When providing money for research projects the government often requires cost sharing so the university needs to find other sources of funding. [1] Third parties however are unlikely to be willing to help provide funding for research if they know that all the results of that research will be made open to anyone and everyone. These businesses are funding specific research to solve a particular problem with the intention of profiting from the result. Even if universities themselves don’t want to profit from their research they cannot ignore the private funding as it is rapidly growing, up 250% in the U.S. from 1985-2005, while the government support is shrinking. [2]
[1] Anon. (November 2010), “Research & Sponsored Projects”, University of Michigan. http://orsp.umich.edu/funding/costsharing/cost_sharing_questions.html
[2] Schindler, Adam, “Follow the Money Corporate funding of university research”, Berkley Science Review, Issue 13. http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles/issue13/funding.pdf
|
189 |
8bff7f2a3ca3b4359ec282f1f750d68b
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Who will write and edit the work?
You can’t take the end result out of the system and assume all the rest of it will continue as usual. Journal articles don’t write themselves; there will still be costs for editors, typesetters, reviewing etc., as well as the time and cost of the writer. The average cost of publishing an article is about £4000. [1]
There have been two suggested forms of open access ‘Gold’ in which authors pay publishers article publication charges and ‘Green’ under which the author self-archives their papers in open access repositories. The gold option that the UK intends to implement could mean universities having to find an extra £60million a year. [2] In either case the cost is being put on the author.
This is exactly the same when asking academics to put their lectures, lecture notes, bibliographies etc online. They are being asked to put in more hours grappling with technology without being paid for it.
[1] Moghaddam, Golnessa Galyani, “Why Are Scholarly Journals Costly even with Electronic Publishing?” http://eprints.rclis.org/14213/1/Why_are_scholarly_journals_costly_even_with_electronic_publishing_2009_ILDS_37__3_.pdf p.9
[2] Ayris, Paul, “Why panning for gold may be detrimental to open access research”, Guardian Professional, 23 July 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/23/finch-report-open-access-research
|
190 |
0fda9723f430cb7070996e69057e71fb
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Universities deserve to profit from their work
Universities are providing a service just like almost any other business. They provide a service in terms of educating students who are enrolled with them and secondly they conduct research on a wide range of subjects. In both of these cases the university deserves to make a profit out of their work.
When acting as an educator universities are in an educational free market, this is the case even when the cost is provided by the state. All universities are aiming to attract as many students as possible and earn as much as possible from fees. If the university is successful it will be able to charge more as it will attract students from further afield.
While Universities may make a profit on research or even teaching this profit is for the benefit of society as a whole as the profits are usually simply reinvested in the University’s education and infrastructure. [1]
[1] Anon. “What does the money get spent on?” The University of Sheffield, 2013. http://www.shef.ac.uk/finance/staff-information/howfinanceworks/higher_education/money_spent_on
|
191 |
7dc97546372a1779c211de1379dae39f
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Most universities are publically funded so should have to be open with their materials.
The United States University system is famously expensive and as a result it is probably the system in a developed country that has least public funding yet $346.8billion was spent, mostly by the states, on higher education in 2008-9. [1] In Europe almost 85% of universities funding came from government sources. [2] Considering the huge amounts of money spent on universities by taxpayers they should be able to demand access to the academic work those institutions produce.
Even in countries where there are tuition fees that make up some of the funding for the university it is right that the public should have access to these materials as the tuition fees are being paid for the personal teaching time provided by the lecturers not for the academics’ publications. Moreover those who have paid for a university course would benefit by the materials still being available to access after they have finished university
[1] Caplan, Bruan, “Correction: Total Government Spending on Higher Education”, Library of Economics and Liberty, 16 November 2012, http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/11/correction_tota.html
[2] Vught, F., et al., “Funding Higher Education: A View Across Europe”, Ben Jongbloed Center for Higher Education Policy Studies University of Twente, 2010. http://www.utwente.nl/mb/cheps/publications/Publications%202010/MODERN_Funding_Report.pdf
|
192 |
1963eb08e8c9fa09f4b159239b0baed0
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Openness benefits research and the economy
Open access can be immensely beneficial for research. It increases the speed of access to publications and opens research up to a wider audience. [1] Some of the most important research has been made much more accessible due to open access. The Human Genome Project would have been an immense success either way but it is doubtful that its economic impact of $796billion would have been realised without open access.
The rest of the economy benefits too. It has been estimated that switching to open access would generate £100million of economic activity in the United Kingdom as a result of reduced research costs for business and shorter development as a result of being able to access a much broader range of research. [2]
[1] Anon., “Open access research advantages”, University of Leicester, http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/find/lra/openaccess/advantages
[2] Carr, Dave, and Kiley, Robert, “Open access to science helps us all”, New Statesman, 13 April 2012. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/economics/2012/04/open-access-science-helps-us-all
|
193 |
d3d5078ab584269e6432eb880de0647b
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Opens up education
Higher education, as with other levels of education, should be open to all. Universities are universally respected as the highest form of educational institution available and it is a matter of principle that everyone should have access to this higher level of education. Unfortunately not everyone in the world has this access usually because they cannot afford it, but it may also be because they are not academically inclined. This does not however mean that it is right to simply cut them off from higher educational opportunities. Should those who do not attend university not have access to the same resources as those who do?
This can have an even greater impact globally than within an individual country. 90% of the world’s population currently have no access to higher education. Providing access to all academic work gives them the opportunities that those in developed countries already have. [1]
[1] Daniel, Sir John, and Killion, David, “Are open educational resources the key to global economic growth?”, Guardian Professional, 4 July 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/04/open-educational-resources-and-economic-growth
|
194 |
930b9c516a26d30234efe27a63b644a2
|
ity digital freedoms access knowledge universities should make all Students would be able to benefit from being able to use resources at other universities
Having paid for access to universities and the materials they provide for research students have a right to expect that they will have all the necessary materials available. Unfortunately this is not always the case. University libraries are unable to afford all the university journals they wish to have access to or need for their courses. Therefore any student who wants to go into areas not anticipated by the course they are enrolled with will find that they do not have access to the materials they require. They then face the cost of getting individual access to an online journal article which can be up to $42, despite there being almost zero marginal cost to the publisher. [1] This even affects the biggest and best resourced university libraries. Robert Darnton the director of Harvard University’s library which pays $3.5million per year for journal articles says “The system is absurd” and “academically restrictive” instead “the answer will be open-access journal publishing”. [2]
[1] Sciverse, “Pay-per-view”, Elsevier, http://www.info.sciverse.com/sciencedirect/buying/individual_article_purchase_options/ppv
[2] Sample, Ian, “Harvard University says it can’t afford journal publishers’ prices”, The Guardian, 24 April 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices
|
195 |
1f3472bc00c9f2c2a2e525cbda47fd6c
|
p ip digital freedoms access knowledge house would not fund any work not Creative commons allows existing work to be used as a building block by others
The nature of the internet and mass media is such that many creators can benefit from the freedom and flexibility that creative commons licenses furnish to them. Creative commons provides vast benefits in allowing a creation to have life after its funding has run out or beyond its original specifications. Creative commons means that the original work can be considered to be a building block that can simply be used as a foundation for more applications and modifications.
For example in many countries government has for decades produced official maps for the country but these can only be irregularly updated – often with a new release of a paper map. However the internet means that maps could easily be regularly updated online by enthusiastic users and volunteers as things change on the ground if those maps were available under creative commons. This is why applications like openstreetmap or google maps (which is not creative commons but can be easily built upon by creative commons projects) are now much more successful than traditional mapping and has often forced government map providers to follow suit such as the UK’s Ordnance Survey making many of its maps free and downloadable. [1] It is important to recollect that those operating under a creative commons license still maintain control of the marketable aspects of their work and can enter into deals for the commercial distribution of their works. [2]
[1] Arthur, Charles, ‘Ordnance Survey launches free downloadable maps’, The Guardian, 1 April 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/01/ordnance-survey-maps-download-free
[2] ‘About The Licenses’, Creative Commons, 2010, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
|
196 |
e60572d89ec21993c51ad564a41ece30
|
digital freedoms access information house believes state should provide If the state overstepped in its regulation, no doubt private competitors would be able to fill the void. But such an eventuality is rather unlikely given the robustness of civil institutions in free societies and the willingness of people to come out in arms against attacks on their freedoms. The state is not a bogey-man. Rather, it is the best outlet by which to deliver inexpensive, efficient broadband service.
|
197 |
d9cd0ad9fdcaeba51a046ae8023e8f52
|
digital freedoms access information house believes state should provide State firms do not necessarily crowd out private firms. Rather, they can furnish services in areas that private firms consider unprofitable, and can coordinate infrastructural process on a wider area, allowing for gains in economies of scale. Eircom provides an example of this too as its reduction in investment in broadband post privatisation meant that the government had to begin reinvesting in broadband itself. [1] Private firms will still have incentives to develop new technologies because there will still be profits to be made. But absent private firms, innovation will still exist. State investment in innovation and new technology can be very effective, as was the case with the Space Race.
[1] Palcic, D., and Reeves, E., “Privatisation and productivity performance in Ireland”, http://www.forfas.ie/media/productivity_chapter11.pdf P.200
|
198 |
1f0c8fde8c516e95bdca800633697a52
|
digital freedoms access information house believes state should provide The private sector will never be able to meet the demands governments would make in order to build a working broadband network and the subsequent smart grid because their profit motives cannot internalize the social benefits of the new grids and technology. Unfortunately the private sector will only build the infrastructure in profitable densely populated areas neglecting rural areas. The state must therefore fill the gap, either by subsidizing private firms to provide service to unprofitable areas, or to service them itself. Furthermore, it can provide the service more freely and more fairly in order to guarantee that citizens get the services they deserve and need to succeed in the 21st century.
|
199 |
4516fc8eab79ccfaf1322679ee506fe0
|
digital freedoms access information house believes state should provide The state is rarely an efficient service provider. Conventionally, it provides a shoddy service when it faces no competition, and when it charges low prices it is usually at the expense of the infrastructure and quality of service. When free of market forces, the state is even more likely to rest on its position of monopoly and provide insufficient service. But even with a state service, prices cannot be guaranteed to be kept low, but rather states can well overcharge and exploit their privileged position.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.