- Target:
- The President of the United States, Members of Congress, and Chairman of the FCC
- Region:
- United States of America
Knowledge is power.
Easy, fast-access information is the key to bringing equal power to a populace that all need knowledge on current events, medicine, arithmetic and other things to survive and thrive. Easy access to knowledge has turned our world into more of a global consciousness than it has ever been.
The control of knowledge, or the restriction of knowledge and information has always given power to the wrong people. During the dark ages, when the catholic church wanted people to only believe what they told them to believe, they would destroy books and documents from civilizations all over the world so that nothing could question their doctrine.
Governments - your government, our government, every government, also benefit from the control of information because they can convince people to vote the way they want and to quietly comply to demands that without important knowledge, no one would know enough about their own human rights to question. A lot of times more elite members of society - the rich, the politically connected, those who have the most to gain by selling commercial ideas instead of information or connections to humanity - have used restrictions on knowledge and bombardment of twisted information to get what they want out of the poorer populace. An informed citizen gets their information from multiple sources and scrutinizes it heavily.
As a generation with the internet we have the option to access instant uncensored information, which is something that no generation has previously had, and something that governments don't want anyone to have if it means it can threaten their absolute power to make decisions for a populace, whether that populace is willing or not.
Governments all over the world including China, Russia, and the United States are trying to either censor or control content or access to content on the internet.
Here in the "land of the free" it started with SOPA ( "Stop Online Piracy Act") and PIPA ("PROTECT IP Act").
SOPA and PIPA were bills proposed by Congress in the guise of stopping online piracy by giving the attorney general of the United States authority to command internet service providers to shut down Domain Name Server records that point people to a site, and force Google and other search engines to shut down links to sites that the attorney General expresses official disapproval of. This was proposed so that the United States could prevent people from pirating movies, music, and other goods with copyrights belonging to corporations or businesses, meant to be sold for their profit only. However, the ability to command a website be taken down and access to information be cut off had widespread censorship implications, so activists started petitions, took to the streets, and demanded that Washington drop both bills.
So the government, instead of respecting the demand for access to uncensored and unrestricted information, decided it needed to regroup and try another tactic.
That's where the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, comes in. While claiming to be working towards Net Neutrality, the FCC proposed, then passed rules saying service providing companies can charge content providers for faster access to their sites, potentially creating "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" on the internet, which would ensure that poor people or new businesses will receive less traffic if they aren't able to pay fees for faster access for their potential customers.
Internet users and activists reacted about the same way as they did to SOPA and PIPA.
In response, Democratic lawmakers proposed a bill that would stop the FCC from allowing ISP providers from creating "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" on the internet by charging for speed of access, but the bill neglects to address the issue of anyone claiming authority over the internet, something that belongs to the entire populace that participates in its constant creation, in the first place.
So, we've come up with a proposal of our own, to declare uncensored and unrestricted access to the internet a universal human right, and to declare the internet a collective-belonging, which means that no person or entity, whether government or corporate, has the right to declare authority over it in the first place.
We the people of the globe come together to recognize the internet, uncensored and uncontrolled by government or corporate entities, to be a universal human right.
We recognize the internet to be our best chance for low-cost education and communication globally that can bridge our gaps of understanding and reduce the total number of armed conflicts and their severity.
We recognize the uncensored content on the internet to be a product of our collective consciousness, and the internet itself to be a tool for personal and global change into better, healthier, and more equal ways of life, which is why governments and corporations everywhere collude to destroy its power.
The people request that the United States and any of its allies brave enough and progressive enough to do so declare by law or deed that no one has the power or authority to censor the internet, restrict access to content of the internet, control speed or access to websites, hold corporate monopoly over the internet, collect or spy on private correspondence over the internet without due process, or pass bills or laws granting authority to any person or entity, whether government or corporate, to do any of the above mentioned.
Please ensure that the internet is kept uncensored, unrestricted, and not monetarily tiered. The internet doesn't belong to a government or a corporation and it is not for either to regulate, control, or censor. The internet belongs to every individual who contributes to its content and its use.
Please assure us and ensure that you will do your part to keep the internet equally available to all citizens and uncensored and free from government or corporate control.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Declare access to uncensored and unrestricted internet a human right petition to The President of the United States, Members of Congress, and Chairman of the FCC was written by Elizabeth Devine and is in the category Internet at GoPetition.