This post is a summary of the same book from last summary. The book with the title above published in 2013 at https://cryptome.org/2013/03/hacking-digital-dissidence.pdf
At the end of an important expert meeting on human rights and the internet held in Stockholm in 2010, chairmen remarked six fundamental issues that can be assumed as a logical starting point to analyze the complex relationship between the digital world and the human rights landscape. These six points are: 1) Importance of the internet in the modern age: the internet must be regard as the greatest enabler for freedom of expression and other human rights since Gutemberg's press. 2) Challenges and risks: internet poses, at the same time, challenges to the protection of human rights, perhaps most notably the right to privacy, as well as the values of democracy. 3) Freedom, security, accessibility: ensuring a free, secure and accessible internet has therefore emerged not only as a fundamental right challenge, but as the key to global economic development, prosperity and development of internet itself. 4) Freedom of expression as a pivotal right in the digital age: common ground must be the reaffirmation of the right to freedom of expression and the need to protec this right from restrictions. 5) New forms of human rights issues: it is important that existing human rights standards are upheld and strengthened on its own terms. Therefore, it is not sufficient to rely on existing norms, but there is need for clarification of the scope of human rights law in the internet context. 6) States responsibilities: states have committed to, and are responsible for, the protection of human rights and therefore have the responsibility to address these issues. Right to privacy on the internet regards national legislation on privacy (states must establish, implement and enforce comprehensive legal frameworks to protect the privacy and personal data of citizens) privacy policies and settings, standards of confidentiality and integrity of IT systems. In 2007 a joint statement from Italy and Brazil announced the launch of a new and truly laudable project, championed by the Italian academic Stefano Rodota, aimed at creating an Internet Bill of Rights, a sort of "constitution" for the internet, containing a list of unalienable rights in the digital era, and above all, seeking to identify the best methods to further develop and enforce these rights. The North American scholar Jeff Jarvis proposed last year a document called "Bill of Rights in Cyberspace". This attempts to identify and establish some fundamental freedoms of internet that must be protected against abridgment by governments, companies, institutions, criminals, subverters or mobs. A 2011 study concerning how internet can help to advance human rights and capacities through providing new opportunities for citizens to share information and ideas and to participate in public life, outlined a sort of "human rights approach" to the internet that is very interesting. Premises of this study are that mobile phones facilitate instant and ubiguitous communications, thereby increasing the power of citizen journalism, crowdsourcing, and other forms of expression, and help to bridge the digital divide for people who do not have access to computers and fixed-line connections. There are, indeed, challenges that need to be addressed in order to harness the full potential of the internet for universal human rights and citizen empowerment. There are a number of rights that are affected by the access to the network and the use of communication media. Freedom of expression is the most obvious of these, including the right to seek, recieve and impart information and ideas, but also rights to education, to associate freely with others, to participate in government. Last but not least, media and tech should be accessible to all, and function in ways that empower citizens to aprticipate in public debate and decision making, and control their own lives. The evolution and spread of the internet presents exciting new opportunities for the effective implementation of human rights. In Latin America, with the exception of Cuba, there have been no reports of systematic technical filtering. There is, however, a body of laws, especially with regard to the activities of journalists, that is restrictive. Despite Cuba's recent declaration of internet as a fundamental right, connections require government authorization and are closely supervised by the Ministry of Computer Technology and Communication. Despite the fact that the highest number of internet users are located in China, this is also the country with the world's most sophisticated censorship systems, which place it on the list of the top ten Internet Enemies published by Reporters Without Borders. For the legal scholar, drawing firm conclusions with regard to the relationships between internet and the state of human rights, their protection in the digital environment, the national and international legal frameworks that regulate both human rights and the digital world, the techs used by dissidents, independent media and political opposition to circumvent limitations, is not easy, especially in an environment so prone to rapid change and swift development. Technology that is increasingly suited to protest, oppose, and resist, providing a new era for the ideas of those early hackers, is leaving an indelible mark on our modern age, and this legal framework is increasingly interwined with political movements and social upheavals which are transforming the worldwide political and social arenas. As the early hackers foresaw, computers and technology have indeed changed the world, and rendered every single one of us more powerful and more able to participate in every aspect and at every level of government. Moving ahead from the present and seeking to envisage the future is, for the legal observe, a truly fascinating challenge: never before, having a keen understanding of the past, and sharp ability to foresee the future, has been so important.
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