Re: THOUGHT: International Electronic Declaration of Rights

[Jeremiah A Blatz <darklord+@CMU.EDU>]

THis appears to have grown rather long and dry. If you have had no
interest in this thread to date, hit 'n' now.

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 3-Apr-94 Re: THOUGHT: International
.. by Timothy C. May@netcom.co 
> For-profit companies, like Netcom, mostly don't _care_ what
> subscribers say. Prodigy does, and Prodigy is losing.

Actually, I think Netcom is the exception. A good example is AOL, which
is not losing, and is big into censorship. The small services don't
care, the big ones have a reputation to worry about, so they censor.

Timothy C. May@netcom.co 
> To those who do not wish to read political
> commentary, be it about Clipper or a "Cypherpunks Bill of Rights"
> (ugh!), then just hit "delete" and move on.

I have no objection to the current discussion, I object to "You and
liberal friends are *ssholes whose wishy-washy big government plans will
destroy freedom" and "You and your conservative friends are *ssholes
whose facist big government plans will destroy freedom" type flame wars.
The current discussion may involve some bickering, but it's at least
productive.

Back to the issue:
I think rights in cyberspace can be readily modeled on "meat" laws. For
example, take the freedom of speech. I can say what I like as long as I
don't libel someone. However, I don't have the right to say it anywhere
I choose. I can't for example, go into your house and give a
dissertation on fish euthenasia without your permission. Similarly, I
wouldn't expect the right to speak my mind on any topic on an IRC
channel that had no relation to the topic.
This is a tricky issue, though. One should definatly be able to speak
one's mind in a public place, but what defines a public place in
cyberspace? Really, no place (at the moment) is truly public. Every
computer is owned by somebody. I think this is an area where the
real-world paradigm is effective. In the real world, we have private
spaces, and government-owned public ones (parks). I think a set
government-run nodes would be a good idea. The law would require them to
be freely accessable by everyone. Of course, how they could be used
would be limited (you can't live on a park, you couldn't use an e-park
for long-term data storage). The current basic internet (netnews, irc,
anon ftp, most www) is run, more or less, how I would imagine this
e-park.

Re: right of access. I prefer some regulation, such as mandating that
everyone would have access to a reasonably prices public carrier. This
would have basic services, and would not be allowed to boot someone if
they followed the rules and payed the bills. The market would probably
create this without regulation, but some basic regulation does provide a
safeguard against the unlikely. Full service private carriers would, of
course, be created by the market.
I also agree that there should be some sort of due process for denying
someone access ONCE THEY HAVE IT. Those whose access has been withdrawn
should be presented with a reason and given an oppourtunity to appeal
the desicision, to a 3rd party (court) in the case of public carriers.

I am assuming that this future cyberspace would be organized in the
anarchistic way the internet is; many nodes, of varying freedom,
interconnected so that there are few, if any borders between them. THis,
I think, is the most important thing for preserving/attaining rights in
cyberspace. THe best way I can think to do this is to keep the influence
of government or any single large organization to a minimum.

$.02 deposited,
Jer

darklord@cmu.edu | "it's not a matter of rights  / it's just a matter of war
finger me for my |  don't have a reason to fight / they never had one before"
   Geek Code and |                                    -Ministry, "Hero"
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