FCC Net Neutrality: “Lawful” Has Really Become Newspeak For “Evil”

Apparently, the FCC’s version of net neutrality really does contain a gaping hole for anything copyright-monopoly-related. The little qualifier “lawful” in the sentence that “all lawful traffic must be treated equally” turned out to mean that ISPs may now be required to police the net for copyright monopoly infringements, acting as police, prosecutor, judge, and executioner – often in complex cases, denying citizens any and all due process. This is starting to become a pattern.

It’s become more and more apparent, that the word “lawful” in any policy matters has become synonymous with “evil”. Any and every time something is described as “lawful”, it could just as well have been described as “despicable”, “unjust”, “corrupt”, or “violating human rights”.

The reason is simple: if you presented something good and desirable, you would never point out that it were lawful in the first place, regardless of whether it were or not. “Lawful” has become a justification for anything and everything in society that is being shoved down the throat of the net generation against their will.

You can observe the exact same thing with “Lawful interception” groups in telecoms standards committees, where “interception” means “wiretapping” – i.e. interception of communications. They design the standards for wiretapping. It’s easy to argue that such wiretapping is only used to track criminals – but in many parts of the world, those criminals are simply people who have a different opinion than the current administration. And here in the West, pre-emptive surveillance – i.e. bulk warrantless wiretapping – have become the norm. “Lawful”. That’s the only word you see to justify it. Because there really is no other word that would justify it. And that, in turn, highlights the words of Thomas Jefferson:

“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” — Thomas Jefferson

Whenever you see the word “lawful”, alarm bells should go off. That’s being used to justify something evil.

(This doesn’t mean that the FCC’s net neutrality is all bad, or even mostly bad. The jury will remain out on that one for some time, and there’s reason to remain overall hopeful: The U.S. has been lagging behind the world due to lack of net neutrality, and it needed to be enforced against a cartel-like oligopoly. This column merely observes how language – the word “lawful” – is being used to obscure really bad things you’d want to know about in advance.)

In the light of lawful interception, privacy remains your own responsibilty, as always.