Free Wifi: A New-Age Human Right?

Introduction
In a post-modern, hyper-connected and increasingly globalized world, will access to the Internet become a human right? That is to say, will the governments of the world recognize the provision of Internet access to be on par with, for instance, access to education, clean water, electricity, healthcare, housing, food, and shelter? Perhaps the notion of "free wifi for all" has all the trappings of a Utopian work of fiction, but the consideration of this question might prove to be an interesting thought experiment. We shall briefly explore the concept of free Internet access for all in this blog post.

Niue
Located north-east of New Zealand, is the tiny island nation of Niue. Populated by only 1300 people and known for its unique indigenous red banana crop, its government passed legislation in 2003 that provided free Internet services to all citizens. It refers to itself as the first "Wifi nation", where citizens need not sign up with a service provider, all they need to do is logon to the islands wifi network. This allows citizens to be perpetually connected, even when on the seas!

However, this rather rosy picture is somewhat marred, as further research shows that the maintenance cost of keeping the system running is shouldered by the citizens themselves (either in their tax stipulations or by personally paying for upkeep). It is interesting to note that the island nation is currently embroiled in a dispute over the .nu domain, claiming that it belongs to them and not the corporation that has appropriate it.

iTaiwan
Taiwan has done a better job than Niue has, and being richer and more technologically savvy doesn't hurt! The iTaiwan system allows citizens and tourists the ability to surf the net for free, from a variety of wifi hotspots located around the city. To get on the network, users must register using their local cellular phone number, login details are texted to the user, and then access is granted. Launched in 2011, the service offers a 1MB connection  to all users, sans a pricetag!

The Outernet
The Outernet is an ambitious startup aiming to use small short wave satellites, known as 'cubesats', to beam the Internet to people around the world, for free. The system would bypass the censorship imposed by state governments, and provide unfettered access to the Internet without discrimination. If anything, this is the most utopia-worthy startup I've ever heard off, and a quick google search reveals that this system might come into use by mid-2015. Government reaction to this uncensorable internet though, might be decidedly anti-Outernet, however this remains to be seen.

Internet Rights
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a resolution of 30 operative clauses that seek to define the inalienable and inviolable rights afforded to all humans sans discrimination and disparity. Even though nations have refused to ratify this resolution, such as Saudi Arabia (citing reasons of inconsistency with Sharia law), the declaration has gone on to become one of the most memorable and instantly recognizable successes of the UN. What would happen if, for instance, Taiwan sought to amend to document with operative clause #31, making the right of unfettered access to the Internet a basic human right?

When considering this notion, we must weigh the cost incurred by each government in the provision of sufficient physical and digital infrastructure, against the benefit of access granted to each citizen. Debate would be polarized in several dimensions; the question of local or UN jurisdiction in enforcing access to all, the question of UN or regional privacy and decency laws, the issue of incompatibility with regional customary or religious law, and also a somewhat distracting philosophical debate on the nature of access to information as an inviolable and inalienable right.

If, by some miraculous sense of foresight, the UN were to incorporate this as a human right, what would our world look like? Would we see a global shift toward political and societal liberalization, the adoption of western norms in conservative societies perhaps? Or will the digital divide be only more pronounced, as millions of new users are unable to assimilate the technology with haste?
As I mention in the introduction, this is a valuable thought experiment for any student of Internet Governance, yet may be beyond the scope of the discipline alone in answering.  

Privacy Laws on the Internet: Differences Across the Pond

Intro
When it comes to regulating the Internet, it stands to reason that the maxim, "one size does not fit all", ought to apply; the existence of conflict, socio-economic resistance to adoption, and disparity in Internet usage should convey the need for various Internet laws, enforced in distinct and separate jurisdictions. Up to now, working models of Internet governance have embraced the existence of these separate and independent legal systems working simultaneously, yet these systems have remained unchanged since the NSA-spying revelations of 2013.
The fallout of the NSA revelations was clear on the European side, with the German chancellor calling for stricter EU online privacy laws and the EU parliament passing resolutions calling for inquiries into the extent of US digital spying. However, the US response to these near-damning revelations was tepid at best, with the efforts of Congress culminating in a series of purely symbolic and superficial hearings, where NSA officials glossed over certain salient details of the NSA programs, even hinting at the possibility of spying on members of Congress.
Clearly, there is great disparity in terms of how the US and EU prioritize privacy online, and whilst no government will ever be anti-surveillance, the degree to which the public is protected from surveillance is disparate between the two entities.

Disparate Laws
The major difference between EU and US privacy policy revolves around the drafting and implementation of a cohesive and wide-scoped privacy policy.

The EU has two such privacy policies in place, the first is the EU Data Protection Directive (DPD), which defines the guidelines to be followed in the event of digital surveillance being necessary (a great article details the specifications of this policy out), and the second is the E-Privacy Directive (EPD), which compels private companies to seek consent in the use of cookies, customer information, and internet usuage monitoring. The DPD establishes principals and procedures to be followed by the surveillance team when honing in on a subject. It provides a sense of security to the user, as he/she must be informed of the surveillance, and must be assured of some compelling reason as to justify to initiation of the surveillance. The EPD establishes and clarifies the type of information to be surveilled, how the surveillance is carried out, and what happens to the data post-surveillance. Together, these laws place the safety and security of the personal data of the end user against the covert abuse of surveillance technology by government authorities and private corporate interests. Given that the EU is currently working on refining these laws, by imposing fines and fees on errant governmental and corporate institutions, we can only expect more stringent safeguards and constraints on those who survey.

The US does have privacy laws, but they approach the topic from the top down; that is to say that they draft the laws from the perspective of institutions, not end users. As a result, the privacy laws at a Federal level are constrained to only specific sectors of the political community, and at the State level, there is a variance of law from state-to-state. The Fair and Accurate Credit Transfer Act, for example, deals with the protection of citizens from identity theft, either online or in real life. However, this law does not explicitly address online identity theft, and instead delegates the responsibility of dealing with any, and all, identity theft to newly created regulatory and banking institutions. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, is another example of how a Federal law approaches the protection of online rights from a top-down perspective, in this case looking out for the rights of corporate interests over those of the end user.

Conclusion
Given the Europe's historial experience with facist and totalitarian states, it is clear that the championing of privacy laws and civil liberty as an ethos, have proven well in the EU legal tradition; it is easier to provide addenda and amendments to already wide-reaching privacy laws to empower the end user instead of the service provider and government agency. This attitude is lacking in US socio-legal culture, vying instead for the protection and safeguarding of interests from a top-down perspective.