Law in the Internet Society

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NiveditaMukhijaFirstEssay 3 - 01 Dec 2019 - Main.EbenMoglen
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Internet Shutdowns: How Governments Pull the Plug on Human Rights

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 India, the world’s largest democracy, has had 159 internet shutdowns since 2016, and stands at the top of the growing stack of countries that are frequently cutting off civilian access to communication services to silence protests. Given this continuing trend, it is thus high time we view such blackouts for what they are: human rights violations on a mass scale, and one of the biggest threats to democracy today.
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I don't disagree with anything you have said here. The rhetoric is strong, but also familiar. The most important part of the next draft will revolve around your idea, rather than other peoples' contributions. Put your voice first, saying what you have new to say from the outset, so that the rest of the context can take up less of the space than it takes here.

I'm not sure I know what your thoughts are, because the current draft is too modest about them. But it does seem to me that you can more clearly address the central problem the current draft identifies. There's nothing unlawful about the extensive use of shutdowns in India, because the law is exhaustively supportive of executive authority. Offering human rights objections to a course of action specifically made lawful domestically works only to the extent that there are significant supranational enforcement possibilities. This is not quite true in Europe, as the Polish and Hungarian situations with respect to rule of law enforcement in the EU show. Nowhere else is it even close to true. What role can non-Indian fora play in enjoining or interfering with activity which is made lawful by Indian legislation?

This is the primary puzzle, as you show. But your rhetoric doesn't address it. The next draft should.

 
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:

Revision 3r3 - 01 Dec 2019 - 16:28:54 - EbenMoglen
Revision 2r2 - 13 Oct 2019 - 20:31:54 - NiveditaMukhija
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