Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1/swsii.zip/swsii/201/EFFNM.ZIP/EFFNM.TXT

Text File | 1993-09-08 | 9KB | 208 lines

 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
 One Cambridge Center, Suite 300
 Cambridge, MA 02142

 [phone]