Estonia: Where the Internet is a Human Right

securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on technological change in Estonia, where an enlightened post-Soviet era government believes the Internet is essential for life in the 21st century and backs that up with legislation declaring Internet access is a human right. Estonia is a country where hot, running water was a luxury a decade ago. It's now a place where farmers have broadband Internet, 80% of the people use online banking, Internet usage and broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe, and the government conducts most business (meetings, votes, document reviews, etc.) virtually through a system of networked computers. Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."

A further comment

[Raindance]

This story is interesting but I think it's a little vague; it would be much better to ask what *kind* of internet is a basic human right (i.e. democratic, decentralized, or centralized, top-down, corporate, or other models). The Estonians seem to be answering this question correctly but it's hardly something that an article like this should gloss over.

A right?

[Dashmon]

How can something that's only been developed the last few decades become a fundamental human right? Before that, humans were all witheld that right? The creation of the internet was one of the higher goals of mankind?

I sure hope not.

I don't see why this is necessary, either. I understand the Internet is becomming more and more important for a lot of people, and I'm very much in favour granting as many people as possible access to the net, but only because it is a right to have access to those things you need to survive. If those things are moved to the net, you need to make sure everyone can still access them. That doesn't mean the Net is a right, though - just the things you really need to use it for.

Money?

[bajo77]

I'm wondering, where is all the money coming from for everyone to have high-speed internet access. I know the government probably takes more taxes than in the US. But, how can a country that was almost bankrupt not too long ago afford this?

Not so good..

[archonon]

I was at Estonia last year, and I really have to disagree with article because way too rosy picture of country. Computer prices are at sky high. GNP is quite low ($10,900), country has problems with criminality, prostitution, drugs, mafia etc. Tallinn is quite safe and prosperity city, mainly because all of tourists who carry *lots* of money there. But, at countryside. Lot's of Soviet era problems. ...But I can get there cheap booze :D

Re:A further comment

[banzai51]

An even more interesting story would be HOW they turned around from a crumbling, ex-soviet Estonia into the successful, wired Estonia. What are the employement levels, per capita income, etc. What turned it around for them?

Possible answers: Why is internet a human right?

[xenotrout]

It's unfortunate that the article doesn't go into the reason for Estonia declaring internet access a human right. I however, see a possible reasons they might do such a thing.

Free speech:
Free speech and exchange of ideas are theoretically (scientific definition) important to societal, technological, and other human advancement. If you can say whatever you want but can't say it to anyone, then you don't have free speech. Free speech must be available to the public or it is without value. The internet is generally accepted as the newest and most advanced method of enacting free speech. Though it may be a bit drastic to say that internet itself is a human right, it is a very good way of allowing free speech.

This would assume that Estonians have the right to free speech, which I expect but am not certain of.

personal impressions

[nuffle]

I visited Estonia about two months ago (I'm an American) and will be moving to Tallinn, the capital, in about three months. I was fortunate to meet an Estonian studying in western Maryland. She has to head back to Estonia soon to finish her degree, and I will be following her, working remotely for my current US employer.

I was very personally impressed with the internet infrastructure there. It was an encouraging sight to enter a very small town by car and see a sign that said "this area covered by public wireless internet". And if they weren't covered by wireless, one of the first informational signs you'd see as you entered a town was "Internet this way -->" (usually directing you to a library).

Of course, seeing signs is different than working and living there, but from visiting my friend's family members, it does seem that fast internet is ubiquitous and inexpensive.

Re:Obvious?

[Feztaa]

Linux was built from nothing, and has the obvious advantage of seeing what mistakes others have made and not repeating them.

Hey, that would explain why we still use X11! Bzzzzt. Wrong.

Linus didn't really avoid the mistakes that had been previously made, he simply chose the make the mistakes of UNIX, instead of the mistakes of WINDOWS -- probably for the simple reason that it was the devil he knew.

If you want to talk about an OS that learned from history and didn't repeat other people's mistakes, you're talking about BeOS, for the most part. I haven't used it much, but I like to think of it as 'Unix, without the cruft'.

crackers in estonia

[SlapAyoda]

As the "Security guy" for a medium-sized datacenter, I saw that Estonia is perhaps second only to Belaruse in terms of number of attacks on our network. The number of Estonian crackers is extremely high, more so than Korea/Vietnam/anywhere in Asia.

Re:here is what turned it around for them.

[Dausha]

Please don't forget Americans (and other nationalities) of Estonian decent who either returned to the country to help rebuild, or helped others to do so.

I have an uncle who is first-generation US born Czech, and because of his long, successful career in logisitics and economics, spent at least one year of his life working with the Czech government to rebuild its infrastructure.

It is good that the government had so many youthful leaders, but there were those on the outside helping out. You can't create that level of change in half a generation without a good deal of fiscal support and training.

Re:A further comment

[Anonymous Coward]

You have somewhat of a point, but I think the Internet can be classified as a right just as much as the others can be.

If you consider that for all pragmatic purposes to interact with the world freely and to share knowledge a right... then the internet seems to fit the bill.

Consider gathering people together to discuss an issue at the library. The majority of the people even interested won't even show up for various reasons. Then discuss that over the internet on a halfway decent web board, such as slashdot(oh, well.. a long time ago it was decent ;)

Re:A further comment

[Dunkalis]

Its pretty interesting to see all these post-Soviet era countries prospering the way they are, while the established "Western World" is facing economic hardships, socialist government agendas, political bickering, etc. Maybe Thomas Jefferson was right, that the Republican form of government only works with smaller nations. These countries have embraced democracy and freedom, and are growing at a tremendous pace. You are probably right about Estonia becoming an economic powerhouse, but I can also see something else: Eastern Europe becoming the economic and technology center of Europe, surpassing the EU in economic and political strength. Too bad many of these countries probably seek admission to the EU, which would chain them to the rest of Europe, which will probably form the constitution to give them more power over the rest of the countries.

Sigh...Such a sad world we live in.

Re:Freedom of speech is more important!

[bj8rn]

They did use scare tactics. A friend of mine was one of those who organized this demonstration. Kapo (the secret police) called him in for an audience and told him in a very polite manner that he can do whatever he wants, but they won't be there to help him if anything bad should happen. They still held the demonstration, though unoficially and in a smaller scale.

How did Estonia get there

[targo]

As someone who comes from Estonia, let me offer a few reasons on how this change happened:
1) Geographic and cultural closeness to Finland. Finland is one of the most wired countries in the world, and the multitudes of cell-phone carrying Finns crossing the border to buy cheap booze left a strong impression, creating more demand for telecommunications infrastructure. Never underestimate the power of neighborly envy :)
2) Liberal and fast growing banking system. Banking was probably the fastest growing sector in Estonian economy in the nineties, being built from ground up and supported by the fiscal policy of the government. Estonian banks invested heavily in technology and as a result I could do more in an Estonian online bank (like sending money to anyone in the country in a matter of seconds, free of charge) in 1995 than I can do today in a US online bank.
3) Prioritizing computer and Internet education in schools. This was a fortunate brainchild of some younger politicians, and as a result computers are a natural thing in younger people's lives now. See this link [umd.edu] or the Tiger Leap site [tiigrihype.ee] for more information.

Lovely Estonia. Sort of...

[Pedrito]

I used to write software for wireless (cellular, GSM, CDMA, PCS, etc) network engineers. We sold our software to a company in Estonia that was building out a GSM system.

A little over 7 years ago, I had to go over there for 10 days to do a little customer support for our software. My trip was only supposed to take 3 days, but Fed Ex didn't exactly have next day service there, at least not then.

I was amazed by how far Estonia had come, technologically, in such a short time, and they have continued, obviously, since. They already had pretty excellent wireless phone service and pretty comprehensive coverage.

What I learned while I was there was that the Estonian language is very similar to Finnish, and because of this and other reasons, the Estonians had a very close relationship with Finland. It was through this relationship that they were actually able to grow faster than Lithuania or Latvia (its neighboring Baltic states).

In fact, Estonia is a mere hop from Finland. As I recall, the flight (in a Soviet-era pond hopper, which scared the s@#t out of me) took about 20 minutes from Helsinki. There's also a ferry that moves between the two, and from what I was told, a lot of people went back and forth for business.

My only other recollections of Estonia is that it was freezing cold (I was there in October, and it's roughly as far north as Alaska, in case you're an American and want a reference) and the women were gorgeous. But unfortunately, at least as far as the people I dealt with, I found them to be about as cold as the country.

Re:A further comment

[Czernobog]

They do not seek admission. Most of them are already in. Like Estonia.
Next targets ideally are the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
Then I'd like to see Bush "liberating" and the U.S. space/air dominance by knocking even allied satellites down for the status quo to remain just that.

The U.S. will crumble, as all empires have in the past. And the race for the succession has started and is wide open.

The internet is not a right

[geekoid]

Any more then reading a newspaper is a right.

The abiity to speak freely is a right. The internet, newpapers, magazines, etc... are just metods in which to exersize the right to speak freely.

Now, gevenment program to ensure the the people have the ability to speak freely through various methods is another matter.

Taxes - it is a tax haven.

[Anonymous Coward]

The tax system in Estonia is extremely good and simple. They effectively scrapped all taxes and introduced flat income tax of 26%, VAT, land tax, and a few other taxes.

Recently they abolished corporate income tax. That means that a company does not pay taxes on its income, only the share holders pay tax on the dividends. This makes Estonia an ideal country to do business with.

Also, unlike any other country I know of that have zero corporate income tax, Estonia has entered into a lot of very favourable tax agreements with other countries. In the post-soviet era, they negotiated some really nice agreements - partly because other northern european countries wanted to stimulate trade with/investement in these new countries.

How are they defining "rights"?

[Wateshay]

First off, I'd like to say that I think what Estonia is doing is for the most part a good thing. However, I think they're treading on somewhat dangerous ground with their use of the term "human right" (although the article was a little vague, so I may be wrong about how they're viewing it). Rights are things that no one should be denied. Free speech is a right. Freedom of religion is a right. Freedom to not be searched by the police without a warrant is a right. Freedom to not be denied access to the internet by the government is a right. Where the use of the term "right" gets a bit dangerous, though, is when you say that someone has a right that requires action on the part of someone else to fulfill. People don't have a right to free internet access provided by the government, because limited resources may make that impossible, or at least put that at odds with other so-called rights. It's the same way that people have a free speech right, but no right to free airtime on NBC.