Sender: "B.J. Herbison" <•••@••.•••>
[I'm a little behind on my reading, but a grep of my unread mail
didn't find any discussion of my main point. B.J.]
On Mon, 16 Oct 1995 03:33:27 -0700, "Cyber Rights" <•••@••.•••>
wrote:
> Sender: LECLERC YVES <•••@••.•••>
> > is your understanding of provincial dialect Zulu? And what would the US
> > constitution say about banning languages?
> I'd say beware of this: it may be valid in the US, but won't stand at the
> international level, where restrictions on language use are common, often
> considered necessary and generally accepted. ...
> More generally, basing any civil rights
> proposition about the Internet on the US Constitution is, at best, a
> dubious strategy except where the issue is clearly local.
This is a very good warning. The war to gain and preserve rights
generally needs to be fought country by country, and it is easy to
forget about the full scope of the war when thinking about the battles
in your own country.
There are some international documents that apply equally to the
battle in every country (although that usually means that all
governments ignore the documents). One such is The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which was distributed on this list
in May 1995. It asserts many of the rights guaranteed by the
U.S. Constitution. Here are a couple of articles related to
some recent discussions:
> ARTICLE 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property
> alone as well as in association with others.
>
> (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
>
> ARTICLE 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of
> opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold
> opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
> information and ideas through any media and regardless of
> frontiers.
Note the end -- `any media and regardless of frontiers'. This part
is clearly not reflected in the current laws of nations.
B.J.
--
B.J. Herbison •••@••.••• http://www.herbison.com/herbison/bj.html
Another Asylum 18 Drummer Lane Leominster, MA 01453 +1 508 534-1050
