Maybe it's late, maybe I'm just slow, but it feels like your argument is jumping around, so I'll just ask: What are "Internet values"? Are you saying the phrase is meaningless because the Internet can't have values because it's just some hardware and algorithms; or are you saying that "Internet values" can theoretically be anything, but what they happen to be are the current laws regarding Internet use in the United States, which means that "Freedom of Information" is not an "Internet value"; or are you arguing something else?
I'm saying "internet values" is meaningless, fluffy terminology. Some of the people who created the internet might have had certain values, but that doesn't make them "internet values" any more than whatever believes the inventors of the transistor held makes them "transistor values."
That is not to say that we as a society don't have values about the use and function of the internet. But we get to decide what those values are, not the people who happened to create the hardware and the protocols.
I feel like this whole conversation could have been averted if you had just given "Internet Values" a charitable interpretation. Why couldn't "Internet Values" have meant "the values we as a society have about the use and function of the Internet"? I'd argue that if you look at how people actually use the Internet, it's closer to how the founders wanted it to work than how the CFAA stipulates that we should use it.
The ironic thing is that rayiner is displaying exactly the same problematic rhetorical behaviours that we're all so upset with Ortiz for. Wilfully over-narrowing/widening an interpretation in order to win an argument at any cost.
America's slavish veneration of their constitutional text is largely responsible for this poisonous legalistic mode that has infected their discourse at all levels. Discuss.
Precision keeps you from falling into the trap of assuming the universality of your assumptions. Def was doing it with "information freedom" just now, but that's just the flip side of the coin from statements like "of course we need stronger laws against hacking." Your friends all agree with you, so you assume everyone shares your premise, then get surprised when people don't reach the same conclusions.
Are we talking about the values Vint Cerf has re: the Internet, or the values society as a whole has re: the Internet? Those are two different sets or values, and I'd argue that the latter doesn't include "freedom of information" in anything but the most diluted sense.
That's why I'm being pedantic about the distinction. Vint Cerf can't imbue the Internet with his politics. Society at large has adopted a different set of politics regarding the Internet. My mom doesn't care about free information. She just doesn't want anyone to steal her credit card numbers while she's shopping on Gilt.
