A Stitch in Haste

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom believes that there is a "right" to free wi-fi Internet access:

"This is inevitable -- Wi-Fi. It is long overdue," Newsom told a news conference at San Francisco's City Hall. "It is to me a fundamental right to have access universally to information," he said.
...
Wireless access can be seen a basic right that should be available not just to business professionals but also lower-income citizens. "This is a civil rights issue as much as anything else," Newsom said.

Of course, wireless access to the Internet also requires access to a laptop. For Newsom to claim that there is a "right" to wi-fi requires, as a matter of elementary logic, that the poor must also have a right to free laptops. Think he can persuade Google to provide those too?

And why exactly is there a "right" to wireless Internet access but not, say, a "right" to free cable television, or free DVD rentals, or free cell phone service, or free porn magazines? What exactly distinguishes wi-fi from any other luxury of modern middle-class life?

Newsom attempts a half-hearted answer by invoking the same nonsense the stadium apologists across the country use to rationalize their boondoggles: making the city "competitive." I dare Newsom to cite one major business or convention that will go on record as saying that free wi-fi is the definitive criterion in their decision whether to locate in San Francisco or elsewhere (as opposed to, say, tax rates).

When hack politicians like Newsom start throwing around the term "rights" -- and especially the term "civil rights" -- for something so clearly not a right as accessing the Internet in a Starbucks or a businessman's hotel lobby, it does nothing but debase the currency of true rights.

And in case you've missed my dozen or so other posts on the topic: wireless Internet access is simply not a public good, and municipalities therefore have no business providing it, especially not at taxpayer expense.

Other thoughts at Catallarchy, Out of Control.