Isn't it time to start thinking about internet as a utility, as something that is so integrated and important in life as electricity or access to water? And if we think about internet as an utility, not "just" as entertainment, doesn't that require some legal changes as well, for example in UN's Declaration of Human Rights?

Take a closer look at Article 19 in the 61 years old declaration that states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Internet has become an crucial medium for freedom of speech supporters all over the world, which as also been magnified by heavy use by the protest movement in Iran. But Iranian authorities are among the toughest regimes in the world in censoring and excluding Iranians from the internet, documented by Open Net Initiative's recent Iran report about internet censorship and filtering, Wall Street Journal's article about Iranian surveillance supported by equipment from Nokia and Simens, and The Atlantic's article
about Internet Surveillance and Iran: A Primer.

France's highest court, the Constitutional Court, has already declared that access to the internet is a
"fundamental human right". That happened in June, after the court struck down what would have been one of the world's toughest laws against illegal downloading, also called "three strikes" or Loi Hadopi. In addition, Estonia and Greece have also stated that internet access is a human right.

Iran has developed one of the most advanced surveillance and filtering systems in the world, in the same league as China, which has advanced internet filters and demands that every PC in the country should have an inbuilt internet filter by July 1. Through Iranians writing on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, we know that Iranian government has shut down internet access all together for periods, or more commonly, selected sites.

What if internet access was declared a human right? The French Constitutional Court said (in relation to the three-strikes case): "The internet is a fundamental human right that cannot be taken away by anything other than a court of law, only when guilt has been established there."

Cory Doctorow has already predicted that the a UN convention will enshrine network access as a human right.

This should be a topic at UN's next General Assembly this fall.