[ NNSquad ] Rights of network providers

["David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>]

I am not a lawyer.  But I strongly question that there is a strong basis 
in case law or in codified law that grants "rights" beyond ordinary 
property rights that are taught in the courses on Property in law school 
to a specified class called "Network Providers".

Mr. Glass appears to be reasoning by analogy:

1. That network providers have "human rights".   While some personal 
rights may inhere in corporations as persons, they do not inhere, say, 
in LLCs and other business structures.

2. The most important synthetic "rights" in the legal system are patent, 
copyright, trademark and trade secret (though those are state-by-state, 
not federal).

In fact, there is no citable law, nor much case law, that could be read 
as stipulating or creating "rights".

A property right is a right that the state agrees to enforce on behalf 
of someone who the state acknowledges to own property.   For example, a 
person may hold a deed in which some rights inhere, but those rights are 
not extensible to novel things.  For example, merely by holding land 
does not grant rights to exhibit pornography on the land, even if it is 
"private".

Since Mr. Glass appears to present himself as a polymath with great 
expertise in every field, perhaps I am wrong about some of the above.  I 
doubt it, and I will yield to distinguished professors of law.  However, 
an autodidact who thinks he knows the law is not trustworthy.

I do know that the government occasionally creates new rights.   One 
great example requested by the RIAA is the "right of a copyright owner" 
to inspect all computers (whether or not his own) and install software 
in those computers, without any consequent liability for negligence or 
error.   Though I own many copyrights, including the right to this 
letter, which is fixed as I type it in a tangible form, I don't actually 
want such a right.

But as one of my favorite judges Kosinski of the 9th circuit, says: 
"property rights holders tend to act greedy".   In other words, people 
who have legitimate rights seem to want to invent new ones (that they 
fantasize) because they think they "need" them to protect their rights 
even further.   It is up to the public and the courts to check such ideas.

Is there really a "right" that is special to a "network provider"?   
Only in the wishful thinking of the network providers, I think.