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[Commentary] The trouble with freedom is that it is abused. A justice system that guards the innocent will see thieves and worse go free. Uphold human rights and terrorists will sometimes slip the net. Champion press freedom and newspapers may hack the telephone of a murdered teenager.

Lord Justice Leveson has given his verdict on the “culture, practices and ethics” of the British media. Running like a dark thread through the 2,000-page report are words such as reckless, outrageous, harassment, hacking, surveillance, bribery and corruption. The really damning indictment lies in the exposure of a culture of casual contempt for decency, fairness and privacy in newspapers representing a sizeable chunk of what used to be called Fleet Street. Traducing the innocent; routine disregard for truth; and riding roughshod over individual rights – all were deemed acceptable in the cause of a “good story.” So what is to be done? The first thing to say is that self-regulation does not work. The most striking thing about the behavior of the newspapers in Lord Justice Leveson’s line of fire has been a complete lack of contrition. It is almost as if the real crime of the phone hackers was to get caught. The second thing to say is that, as long as some newspapers believe they should be able to behave as they like, there is no system that will strike a perfect balance between press freedom and the rights of the citizen. The weak and vulnerable need guarantees against the habitual abuse of press power. But Lord Justice Leveson should have gone further in offering protections for the media when it is doing its proper job of holding to account those in positions of authority and influence.

A balanced package would put into statute a provision for a robust public interest defense when the press is scrutinizing the behavior of the mighty. Alongside this, the legislation would include a drastic rebalancing of the burden of proof in the draconian libel laws that now offer an impenetrable shield to those with the money to buy access to the courts. Lord Justice Leveson is right: the press cannot any longer expect to mark its own homework; but neither should the rich and powerful.

Virgin Media Business has won the UK’s first contract to provide citywide wireless outside London under the British government’s plans to create a series of “super connected” urban hubs.

Virgin Media will offer free mobile internet access to 1.2 million people in the city centers of Bradford and Leeds using small cell transmitters to enable a large scale public Wi-Fi network. The high speed Wi-Fi service will be open to the public, although operated by the group’s corporate business arm. The deal is the latest in what analysts have called a “land grab” for Wi-Fi sites given the desire by telecoms groups to tap into Wi-Fi networks, as they do not need to use scarce mobile spectrum.

In its continuing effort to convince nervous members like the U.S. that the upcoming telecom treaty conference in Dubai (it starts Dec. 3) will not be a referendum on greater government control of the Internet, the International Telecommunication Union announced it had adopted a resolution to that effect... sort of.

ITU announced that its members had adopted a resolution "inviting" members to "refrain from taking any unilateral and/or discriminatory actions that could impede another Member State from accessing public Internet sites and using resources."

"Just days away from the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), the adoption of this Resolution underlines ITU's commitment to a free and inclusive information society," said Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the ITU. "This should send a strong message to the international community about accusations that ITU's membership wishes to restrict the freedom of speech. Clearly the opposite is true. It is in this spirit -- fostering an Internet whose benefits are open to all -- that I would like to head into WCIT-12."

At least five networks operating outside Syria, but still operating within Syrian-registered IP address spaces, are still working, and are apparently controlled by India’s Tata Communications. These same networks, Renesys says, have some servers running on them that were implicated in an attempt to deliver Trojans and other malware to Syrian activists.

Cloudflare has also been monitoring the situation in Syria and has made a few interesting observations.

First, pretty much all Internet access in the country is funneled through one point: The state-run, state-controlled Syrian Telecommunications Establishment. The companies that provide this capacity running into the country are PCCW and Turk Telekom as the primary providers, with Telecom Italia and Tata providing additional capacity. There are, Cloudflare notes, four physical cables that bring Internet connectivity into Syria. Three of them are undersea cables that land in the coastal city of Tartus. A fourth comes in from Turkey to the north. Cloudflare’s Matt Prince says it’s unlikely that the cables were physically cut.

You might ask – why now? Clearly, the Syrian regime is under more pressure than ever before. Previously, it tended to view the country’s Internet as a tool to not only get its own word out to the wider world, but also to try and spy on and monitor the activities of the rebels and activists. With fighting intensifying in and around the capital and the commercial city of Aleppo, the decision to throw the kill switch might indicate a decision to try to disrupt enemy communications. Or it might mask a seriously aggressive military action that it wants to keep as secret as possible.