Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
WiFi and Other Inalienable Human Rights
WiFi and Other Inalienable Human Rights
Jan 15, 2026 3:09 AM

When you think about basic human rights, what is the first thing es to mind? The right to life? The right to liberty? The right to WiFi?

If that last one wasn’t on your list it may be a sign that you’re old. As Maryland governor Martin O’Malley recently told CNN, young people today believe that “WiFi is a human right.” O’Malley apparently agrees, adding that, “There is an opportunity there for us as a nation to embrace that new perspective.”

While I’ll concede that WiFi may be a basic human need (it’s certainly on the list of my own hierarchy of needs), it’s hard to see why it would be a human right. A human right is generally considered a right that is inalienable and fundamental and to which a person is inherently entitled simply because they are a human being. Are we really entitled to WiFi simply because we’re human?

While it’s easy to mock O’Malley’s claim, it does raise the question of just what exactly does qualify as a human right.

In a world where few people can agree on anything, it’s not surprising that there is no clear consensus on what constitutes a human right. About the closest the world has e to unanimity on the issue is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

Below I’ve individually broken out each of the rights listed by the UN as fundamental to all humanity. Before looking at the list, though, take a guess at how many of rights you expect to see on the list.

According to the UDHR, all humans have the right,

To life.To liberty.To security of person.To be free from slavery.To be free from involuntary servitude.To be free from torture.To be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.To recognition everywhere as a person before the law.To equal protection of the law.To an effective remedy by petent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.To not be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile.To a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.To be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which one has had all the guarantees necessary for one’s defense.To be free from arbitrary interference with one’s privacy, family, home, or correspondence.To be free from attacks upon one’s honor and reputation.To the protection of the law against such interference or attacks upon’s one’s privacy, honor, or reputation.To freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.To leave any country, including one’s own.To return to one’s country.To seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.To a nationality.To change one’s nationality.To marryTo found a family.To free and full consent in choosing one’s spouse.To own property alone as well as in association with others.To be free from being arbitrarily deprived of one’s property.To freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.To change one’s religion or belief.To manifest, either alone or munity with others and in public or private, one’s religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.To freedom of opinion and expression.To seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media.To freedom of peaceful assembly and association.To be free pulsion to belong to an association.To take part in the government of one’s country.To equal access of public services in one’s country.To a secure society.To work.To free choice of employment.To just and favorable conditions of work.To protection against unemployment.To equal pay for equal work.To just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and one’s family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.To form and to join trade unions for the protection of one’s interests.To rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.To a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.To security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond one’s control.To free elementary education.To equal access of higher education based on merit.To choose the kind of education that shall be given to one’s children.To participate in the cultural life of munity.To enjoy the arts.To share in scientific advancement and its benefits.To the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary, or artistic production of which he is the author.To a social and international order in which human rights and freedoms can be fully realized.

Are there any rights you think shouldn’t have been included? And what inalienable rights — other than WiFi — do you think are missing from the list?

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Stewarding Retirement: Why a Christian’s Work Never Ends
As Christians in the modern economy, we face a constant temptation to limit our work and stewardship to the temporal and the material, focusing only on “putting in our 40,” working for the next paycheck, and tucking away enough cash for a cozy retirement. Such priorities have led many to absorbthe most consumeristicfeatures of the so-called “American Dream,” approaching work only as a means for retirement, and retirement only as a “dead space” for recreation and leisure. Yet as retiree...
Government Fees That Perpetuate Poverty
The Atlantic magazine published an article on July 5, 2016 highlighting the growing problems in Louisiana with legal financial obligations (LFOs) and their effect on poor defendants and the recently incarcerated. Former prisoners usually have a hard time finding a stable e post incarceration and LFOs often require former prisoners to pay thousands of dollars upon release. The average amount in the state of Washington is $1,347, with interest rates that make the debt increase over time. One woman the...
God and Man in the Age of Trump
If a classic, as Mark Twain claimed, is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read, then William F. Buckley, Jr.’s God and Man at Yale is the epitome of a conservative classic. Few who have read it (and they are indeed few) would dispute its importance to the founding of modern conservatism. As the historian George Nash said, God and Man was “probably the most controversial book in the history of conservatism since 1945 and...
The School Suspension Quagmire
The harsh discipline policies at schools across the nation are now under close scrutiny. Last week, Secretary of Education John King criticized the ‘zero-tolerance’ discipline policies of many charter schools across the country. King claimed that plicated issues surrounding school discipline were being oversimplified into a binary process at many charter schools that led to a higher number of suspensions. This is a problem that exists across public, private, and charter schools around the country: students are suspended and expelled...
Don Quixote, Pioneer of Religious Freedom
The Spanish novelist Cervantes wrote his famous tale about a knight-errant almost 200 years before the the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted. But as Eric C. Graf, Professor of Literature at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, explains, Don Quixote paved the way for freedom of religious conscience by championing the freedom to think or believe what you want in your head. ...
How to Pray for the Police
They swore to protect and serve. Now they lie dead and wounded. Last night five law enforcement officers in Dallas were killed and six more were wounded. They need our prayers, as do all the men and women who dedicate their lives to keeping us safe on our streets and in our homes. Here are eight ways we can pray for the police in America . . . Continue reading. ...
How Kentucky Schools Are Rejecting the ‘College Readiness’ Cookie Cutter
Fueled by a mix of misguided cultural pressures and misaligned government incentives, college tuition has been rising for decades, outpacing general inflation by a wide margin. Yet despite the underlying problems, our politicians seem increasingly inclined to cement the status quo. Whether it beincreasedsubsidies for student loans or promises of“free college” for all, such solutions simply double down on our failedcookie-cutter approach to education and vocation, narrowing rather than expanding the range of opportunities and possibilities. Fortunately, despite such aninept...
Unemployment as Economic-Spiritual Indicator — June 2016 Report
Series Note: Jobs are one of the most important aspects of a morally functioning economy. They help us serve the needs of our neighbors and lead to human flourishing both for the individual and munities. Conversely, not having a job can adversely affect spiritual and psychological well-being of individuals and families. Because unemployment is a spiritual problem, Christians in America need to understand and be aware of the monthly data on employment. Each month highlight the latest numbers we need...
Weak rule of law in administrative state threatens freedom
People often criticize the vast size and scope of the bureaucracy in the United States, but there is another critical issue involving the administrative state that is seldom discussed: the breakdown of the rule of law. The procedural rights that are necessary for a strong rule of law and are so often taken for granted are not guaranteed in the administrative state today. Strong rule of law is one of the necessary elements for a free and virtuous society, and...
Why Churches Should Be Tax Exempt
Churches and other religious institutions in American are almost always exempt from federal, state, and local taxes. The justification for this policy is usually that such institutions provide vital charitable benefits to society. While that is undoubtably true the benefits argument is not the strongest reason to support tax exemption. A better reason is that we need to maintain a distinction between the state and the church. As Richard W. Garnett and Paul J. Schierl explain, the separation of church...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved