-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi everyone. This is a fairly involved piece, so forgive me if I ramble a bit. I just finished reading Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown, and one of the statements he said in there struck a chord with me and got me to thinking. Paraphrasing, Bruce said soemthing along the lines of 'Cyberspace is a world unto itself, without borders or national identity.' Why is this important? Because at the same time we are witnessing the birth of Cyberspace (an archaic, and almost vulgar term, yet also most appropriate), we are also witnessing a terrifying and growing movement towards the heavy-handed regulation of this new world. In cyberspace, national borders are merely annoyances on the Information Superhighway, much like that one pothole you manage to hit every morning on your way to work or school. Yet, as the information future comes into existance, governments will seek to put up checkpoints and roadblocks to make sure information does not propogate. Thus, I had a thought. What if we took it upon ourselves to write an International Electronic Declaration of Rights? A single body of ideas (not necessarily founded upon the U.S. Bill of Rights) that will seek to define the underlying tone of this non-existant cyberspace. It would have to be no more that a few statements about what ideals and freedoms we feel are not only important, but also granted to us on the basis of being living beings. Hang on, don't run away yet. :-) What to do with it, you ask? How do we get a bunch of geek-written libertarian ideals to mean somehting? Well, assuming we come up with our Electrion Declaration of Rights, the next step would be to get various civil-liberty organizations (such as EFF, ACLU, CPSR, and others outside the US) to sign on as supporters. Then we pitch it to corporations and universities world-wide, and get them to sign on. Soon, public pressure would force governments to look at it as a Rights issue, and perhaps we get it adopted as bodies of law or some such (a UN resolution?). Ok ok, I'm _obviously_ getting quite ahead of myself, and I apologize. But think about it, I do not know of a single resolution or declaration of the rights a citizen of Cyberspace is granted. Yes, each country has their own rules, but cyberspace doesn't understand the concept of borders, and perhaps it never will. Furthermore, there is precedent for International declarations of this sort. The United Nations has a Declaration of Human Rights (ftp.eff.org :/pub/CAF/civil-liberty/human-rights.un) [Note, though, that I avoided the use of the term 'human' above' for reasons that any avid sci-fi reader should recognize :-)]. If we based our declaration on THAT declaration, as opposed to basing it on the U.S. Bill of Rights, it would be less likely to meet objections from people outside of the United States. In any case, among the rights I think that need to be established (and this is by no means a complete list, jsut what I came up with in the last few hours) Freedom to say what you wish without fear of retaliation Freedom to participate in any forum without fear of retaliation Fundamental right to personal privacy both in storage and in communication (therein lies the right to cryptography) Freedom to hold any religious views your wish, including no religion Freedom from having religious views the basis of policy Access will not be denied to a person without due process Policies will not be implemented on the basis of race, colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social status, property, birth, or other status. Oops, sorry, went a little overboard, but you get the point (actually, I like the 'access' one. It's actually pretty important.) In any case, we are on the esge of a new world here, and I fear that reactionary regulation will make it into a dreadful world to live in. Perhaps something like the above, coupled with a grassroots organizational effort that we have shown to be so successful in cyberspace will perhaps slow the regulational onslaught, or perhaps even turn it to freedoms advantage. I'd really like to hear your opinions on this. (BTW: I did not bring this up in EFF forums because I was concerned with 'Americanizing' this idea too much. Instead, it is my belief that if this was a more international effort, with US and other civil-liberty groups signing on AFTER, it may be more successful. Perhaps I'm wrong which case I will repost this into other forums). I appreciate your time. ____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu \ /__ -=-=-=-=- <=> -=-=-=-=- \/ / Finger for Geek Code Info <=> Political Correctness is \/ Finger for PGP 2.3a Public Key <=> P.C. for "Thought Police" - - -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (GEEK CODE 1.0.1) GAT d- -p+(---) c++(++++) l++ u++ e+/* m++(*)@ s-/++ n-(---) h+(*) f+ g+ w++ t++ r++ y+(*) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLZ8siZ3BsrEqkf9NAQGTQQP+IjRM5BAUWY6sVYIAOoiZgHSlOzS327Ap CMnJ2ngMNQdtHN3S7kMkatrb9QA/W4H/tKTsQRTjVz4wR9OKO4R1KwDKMBpOfDGk Y95hUbWlnpcZwuS2g2cvOqY+yfHyazbI34VrnU8jFA0jd4vNLxL5hILyNQR3RaOS FjiGtJy0LPI= =ToZ2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----