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ACROSS THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER
by: Mitchell Kapor and John Perry Barlow
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Washington, D.C.
July 10, 1990
Over the last 50 years, the people of the developed world have begun to
cross into a landscape unlike any which humanity has experienced before.
It is a region without physical shape or form. It exists, like a
standing wave, in the vast web of our electronic communication systems.
It consists of electron states, microwaves, magnetic fields, light
pulses and thought itself.
It is familiar to most people as the "place" in which a long-distance
telephone conversation takes place. But it is also the repository for
all digital or electronically transferred information, and, as such, it
is the venue for most of what is now commerce, industry, and broad-scale
human interaction. William Gibson called this Platonic realm
"Cyberspace," a name which has some currency among its present
inhabitants.
Whatever it is eventually called, it is the homeland of the Information
Age, the place where the future is destined to dwell.
In its present condition, Cyberspace is a frontier region, populated by
the few hardy technologists who can tolerate the austerity of its savage
computer interfaces, incompatible communications protocols, proprietary
barricades, cultural and legal ambiguities, and general lack of useful
maps or metaphors.
Certainly, the old concepts of property, expression, identity, movement,
and context, based as they are on physical manifestation, do not apply
succinctly in a world where there can be none.
Sovereignty over this new world is also not well defined. Large
institutions already lay claim to large fiefdoms, but most of the actual
natives are solitary and independent, sometimes to the point of
sociopathy. It is, therefore, a perfect breeding ground for both
outlaws and vigilantes. Most of society has chosen to ignore the
existence of this arising domain. Every day millions of people use
ATM's and credit cards, place telephone calls, make travel reservations,
and access information of limitless variety. . . all without any
perception of the digital machinations behind these transactions.
Our financial, legal, and even physical lives are increasingly dependent
on realities of which we have only dimmest awareness. We have entrusted
the basic functions of modern existence to institutions we cannot name,
using tools we've never heard of and could not operate if we had.
As communications and data technology continues to change and develop at
a pace many times that of society, the inevitable conflicts have begun
to occur on the border between Cyberspace and the physical world.
These are taking a wide variety of forms, including (but hardly limited
to) the following:
I. Legal and Constitutional Questions
What is free speech and what is merely data? What is a free press
without paper and ink? What is a "place" in a world without tangible
dimensions? How does one protect property which has no physical form
and can be infinitely and easily reproduced? Can the history of one's
personal business affairs properly belong to someone else? Can anyone
morally claim to own knowledge itself?
These are just a few of the questions for which neither law nor custom
can provide concrete answers. In their absence, law enforcement
agencies like the Secret Service and FBI, acting at the disposal of
large information corporations, are seeking to create legal precedents
which would radically limit Constitutional application to digital
media.
The excesses of Operation Sun Devil are only the beginning of what
threatens to become a long, difficult, and philosophically obscure
struggle between institutional control and individual liberty.
II. Future Shock
Information workers, forced to keep pace with rapidly changing
technology, are stuck on "the learning curve of Sisyphus."
Increasingly, they find their hard-acquired skills to be obsolete even
before they've been fully mastered. To a lesser extent, the same applies
to ordinary citizens who correctly feel a lack of control over their own
lives and identities.
One result of this is a neo-Luddite resentment of digital technology
from which little good can come. Another is a decrease in worker
productivity ironically coupled to tools designed to enhance it.
Finally, there is a spreading sense of alienation, dislocation, and
helplessness in the general presence of which no society can expect to
remain healthy.
III. The "Knows" and the "Know-Nots"
Modern economies are increasingly divided between those who are
comfortable and proficient with digital technology and those who neither
understand nor trust it. In essence, this development disenfranchises
the latter group, denying them any possibility of citizenship in
Cyberspace and, thus, participation in the future.
Furthermore, as policy-makers and elected officials remain relatively
ignorant of computers and their uses, they unknowingly abdicate most of
their authority to corporate technocrats whose jobs do not include
general social responsibility. Elected government is thus replaced by
institutions with little real interest beyond their own quarterly
profits.
We are founding the Electronic Frontier Foundation to deal with these
and related challenges. While our agenda is ambitious to the point of
audacity, we don't see much that these issues are being given the broad
social attention they deserve. We were forced to ask, "If not us, then
who?"
In fact, our original objectives were more modest. When we first heard
about Operation Sun Devil and other official adventures into the digital
realm, we thought that remedy could be derived by simply unleashing a
few highly competent Constitutional lawyers upon the Government. In
essence, we were prepared to fight a few civil libertarian brush fires
and go on about our private work.
However, examination of the issues surrounding these government actions
revealed that we were dealing with the symptoms of a much larger malady,
the collision between Society and Cyberspace.
We have concluded that a cure can lie only in bringing civilization to
Cyberspace. Unless a successful effort is made to render that harsh and
mysterious terrain suitable for ordinary inhabitants, friction between
the two worlds will worsen. Constitutional protections, indeed the
perceived legitimacy of representative government itself, might
gradually disappear.
We could not allow this to happen unchallenged, and so arises the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. In addition to our legal interventions
on behalf of those whose rights are threatened, we will:
% Engage in and support efforts to educate both the general public
and policymakers about the opportunities and challenges posed by
developments in computing and telecommunications.
% Encourage communication between the developers of technology,
government, corporate officials, and the general public in which we
might define the appropriate metaphors and legal concepts for life in
Cyberspace.
% And, finally, foster the development of new tools which will endow
non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based
telecommunications.
One of us, Mitch Kapor, had already been a vocal advocate of more
accessible software design and had given considerable thought to some of
the challenges we now intend to meet.
The other, John Perry Barlow, is a relative newcomer to the world of
computing (though not to the world of politics) and is therefore
well-equipped to act as an emissary between the magicians of technology
and the wary populace who must incorporate this magic into their daily
lives.
While we expect the Electronic Frontier Foundation to be a creation of
some longevity, we hope to avoid the sclerosis which organizations
usually develop in their efforts to exist over time. For this reason we
will endeavor to remain light and flexible, marshalling intellectual and
financial resources to meet specific purposes rather than finding
purposes to match our resources. As is appropriate, we will communicate
between ourselves and with our constituents largely over the electronic
Net, trusting self-distribution and self-organization to a much greater
extent than would be possible for a more traditional organization.
We readily admit that we have our work cut out for us. However, we are
greatly encouraged by the overwhelming and positive response which we
have received so far. We hope the Electronic Frontier Foundation can
function as a focal point for the many people of good will who wish to
settle in a future as abundant and free as the present.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
155 Second Street
Cambridge, MA 02141
+1 617 864 1550
eff@eff.org
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