Argument: Regulating the Internet is a means for governments to spy on their citizens

Governments around the world are tracking their citizens’ activities online. [1] They can use all sorts of techniques, like automated data-mining (i.e. via trawling your Facebook and Twitter accounts) and deep packet inspection of each electronic message sent (i.e. intercepting and reading your email). All these methods are violations of important principles.

The automated data-mining violates the principle that people shouldn’t be investigated by their governments unless there is warrant for it (so there is reasonable suspicion that they have been involved in a crime). Also, data mining creates many false positives, leading to citizens being thoroughly investigated without probable cause. [2] Deep packet inspection violates people’s fundamental right to secrecy of correspondence, which is a violation of privacy.

The problem with these government policies is that they’re hard to control – even in democracies: much of the spying is done by intelligence agencies, which are often able to evade democratic control on account of the need for secrecy rather than transparency. [3]

[1] Reporters Without Borders, Enemies of the internet, 2012 and Kingsley, Britain won’t be the only country snooping on people’s internet use, 2012

[2] US Researchers Decide Spying On Citizens Is Bad, 2008

[3] Electronic Frontier Foundation, ‘NSA Spying’.

Candidate 1: "Internet governance is necessary to combat heinous crimes committed via the internet

The internet is a means of communication – therefore also a means of communication between criminals. And because it is global it creates global crime problems that need coordinated responses. One type of crime that has particularly become a problem on the internet is child sexual abuse material: the internet allows for an easy and anonymous distribution method which can even be secured by modern encryption methods. [1]

Governments can help fight this by requiring ISPs and mobile companies to track people’s internet histories, hand over data when requested, and allow police to get information from them without a search warrant, something which has been proposed by the Canadian government. [2] In Australia, the government even proposed mandatory filtering of all internet traffic by ISPs to automatically filter out all child sexual abuse material. [3]

Admittedly, these measures seem drastic – but in cases like these, or similar cases like terrorism, the harm prevented is more important.

[1] ‘Child Pornography on the Rise, Justice Department Reports’. 2010.

[2] ‘Current laws not focused enough to combat child porn online’. 2012.

[3] Mcmenamin, Bernadette, ‘Filters needed to battle child porn’. 2008."
Candidate 2: "As in the offline world, free speech isn’t unlimited

Even in free societies, free speech isn’t always free. Free speech can be demeaning and hurtful to certain people or can even incite hatred and violence. [1] The first reason is why, under internet libel law, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are asked to remove defamatory material and blogs take to moderating their comments more, [2] and the second is why Germany and France have outlawed Holocaust denial and Nazism.

As in the previous arguments, accountable governments are attempting to strike a balance between free speech and where this can harm others. [3] A carefully struck balance between rights in the offline world shouldn’t have to be abolished, just because we’re now in the online world. [4]

[1] Waldron, ‘The harm of hate Speech’, 2012

[2] Alibhai-Brown, ‘Freedom of speech can’t be unlimited’, 2009.

[3] Minister: The UK “emphatically” supports free speech online but there are limits, 2012

[4] Schellekens, “What holds off-line, also holds on-line?”, 2006"
Candidate 3: "Internet regulation is necessary to ensure a safe internet

Citizens, corporations, and public organizations face several security threats when online: critical infrastructure systems can be hacked, like the energy transport system, [1] citizens can fall victim to identity theft, [2] and phishing, [3] whereby hackers gain access to bank accounts or other sensitive information. Specifically, it seems that the public sector is attacked the most. [4]

In response to cyber-threats like these, many governments have set up Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), Incident Response and Security Teams (IRTs), or Computer Security and Incident Response Teams (CSIRT; the fact that we haven’t settled on a fitting acronym yet shows how much it is still a novel phenomenon): agencies that warn citizens and organizations alike when a new threat emerges and provides a platform for (the exchange of) expertise in methods of preventing cyber-threats and exchanging information on possible perpetrators of such threats. Oftentimes, these (inter)governmental agencies provide a place where private CSIRTs can also cooperate and exchange information. [5]

These agencies provide a similar function online as the regular police provides offline: by sharing information and warnings against threats, they create a safer world.

[1] ‘At Risk: Hacking Critical Infrastructure’. 2012.

[2] ‘Identity theft on the rise’. 2010.

[3] ‘Phishing websites reach all-time high’. 2012.

[4] ‘Public sector most targeted by cyber attacks’. 2012.

[5] see for example the About Us page of the US-CERT or the About the NCSC page of the Dutch CERT"
Candidate 4: "With the government as final decision-maker, at least the citizens and consumers have some say

Regulatory capture does sometimes happen and when it does, it’s bad. But the risk of regulatory capture isn’t a sufficient argument to keep the government away from regulating the internet, because governments can also protect citizens and consumers from big companies.

An example is the net neutrality debate. Content providers could have started paying Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to have their websites load faster than any other website (paid prioritization). Entertainment companies that also provide internet are currently being investigated for not allowing their competitors in the entertainment segment access to their network as internet provider. [1] This threatens the freedom of choice of the consumer, which is why governments have stepped in to ensure that companies aren’t allowed favour some websites. [2] If the government wouldn’t have been involved in regulating the internet, it couldn’t have stood up for consumers’ and citizens’ rights like this.

[1] DOJ Realizes That Comcast &amp; Time Warner Are Trying To Prop Up Cable By Holding Back Hulu &amp; Netflix, 2012

[2] Voskamp, ‘GOP Attempt to Overturn FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules Fails in Senate’, 2011"
Candidate 5: "‘Spying on the internet’ is nothing different from a normal police investigation

Obviously, governments also use the internet and social media to investigate suspects. But when they’re doing this, they’re only using information that’s publicly available online. The technical term for this is ‘OSINT’, which stands for ‘Open Source Intelligence’, which means that it’s the kind of information that anyone with access to Google and a lot of spare time could have found. [1]

When police investigations turn up more severe suspicions, then more extreme methods can be used to obtain evidence if needed, sometimes even actively asking hackers for help. [2]

But methods like these are not necessarily bad: their disadvantages in use have to be weighed against their significant benefits. And governments are doing this, as is for example shown in Canada’s ‘Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act’: governments try to extend the principles of due process and probable cause to the internet, but at the same time they need to be able to defend their citizens from harm. [3]

[1] Wikipedia, ‘Open source intelligence’, 2012.

[2] ‘NSA chief seeks help from hackers’, 2012

[3] ‘Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act’, 2012"
Candidate 6: "Internet regulation is necessary to ensure a working economy on the internet

As seen above, the internet has enabled many types of criminal behavior. But it has also enabled normal citizens to share files. Music, movie and game producers have difficulty operating in a market where their products get pirated immediately after release and spread for free instantaneously on a massive scale. The internet enables violation of their right of ownership, gained through providing the hard work of creating a work of art, on a massive scale. Since it’s impractical to sue and fine each and every downloader, a more effective and less invasive policy would be government requiring Internet Service Providers to implement a graduated response policy, which has ISPs automatically monitor all internet traffic and fine their users when they engage in copyright violation. Something along these lines has already been tried in France, called HADOPI, which has succeeded in decreasing the downloading of unauthorized content. [1]

Apart from this, governments also need to think about how to translate everyday offline activities onto the internet. For example, when you file your tax report offline, you would sign it with your handwritten signature. The online variant would be a digital signature. [2] Developing and deploying a digital signature would enable citizens and corporations to do business, file their tax reports and pay their taxes online.

[1] Crumley, ‘Why France’s Socialists Won’t Kill Sarkozy’s Internet Piracy Law’, 2012

[2] Wikipedia, ‘Digital Signatures’, 2012."

‘Spying on the internet’ is nothing different from a normal police investigation

Obviously, governments also use the internet and social media to investigate suspects. But when they’re doing this, they’re only using information that’s publicly available online. The technical term for this is ‘OSINT’, which stands for ‘Open Source Intelligence’, which means that it’s the kind of information that anyone with access to Google and a lot of spare time could have found. [1]

When police investigations turn up more severe suspicions, then more extreme methods can be used to obtain evidence if needed, sometimes even actively asking hackers for help. [2]

But methods like these are not necessarily bad: their disadvantages in use have to be weighed against their significant benefits. And governments are doing this, as is for example shown in Canada’s ‘Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act’: governments try to extend the principles of due process and probable cause to the internet, but at the same time they need to be able to defend their citizens from harm. [3]

[1] Wikipedia, ‘Open source intelligence’, 2012.

[2] ‘NSA chief seeks help from hackers’, 2012

[3] ‘Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act’, 2012
