THOUGHT: International Electronic Declaration of Rights

["Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu>]

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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
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