A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

{{Quotation|Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.|John Perry Barlow|"A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"}}

The declaration sets out, in sixteen short paragraphs, a rebuttal to government of the Internet by any outside force, specifically the United States. It states that the United States did not have the consent of the governed to apply laws to the Internet, and that the Internet was outside any country's borders. Instead, the Internet was developing its own social contracts to determine how to handle its problems, based on the Golden Rule. It does this in language evocative of the United States Declaration of Independence and obliquely cites it in its final paragraphs. Although the paper mentions the Telecommunications Act, it also accuses China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, and Italy of stifling the Internet.{{Cite web |last=Barlow |first=John Perry |author-link=John Perry Barlow |date=1996-02-08 |title=A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace |url=https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence |access-date=2017-02-23}}

At the time the paper was written, Barlow had already written extensively on the Internet and its social and legal phenomena,{{Cite web |last=Ley |first=Michael |title=DBLP: John Perry Barlow |url=http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Barlow:John_Perry.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070225005436/http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Barlow%3AJohn_Perry.html |archive-date=25 February 2007 |access-date=2007-02-09}} as well as being a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.{{Cite web |title=EFF: Board of Directors |url=https://www.eff.org/about/board/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070206043032/http://www.eff.org/about/board/ |archive-date=6 February 2007 |access-date=2007-02-09}} The work he was known best for previously, "The Economy of Ideas", published March 1994 in Wired magazine, also made allusions to Thomas Jefferson and some of the ideas he wrote about in his declaration.

Because of its subject matter, Barlow's work quickly became famous and widely distributed on the Internet. Within three months, an estimated 5,000 websites had copies of the declaration.{{Cite journal |last=Yang |first=Catherine |date=1996-05-06 |title=Law Creeps Onto the Lawless Net |url=http://www.businessweek.com/1996/19/b347472.htm |url-status=dead |journal=BusinessWeek |issue=3474 |pages=58–64 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970628160515/http://www.businessweek.com/1996/19/b347472.htm |archive-date=June 28, 1997 |access-date=2007-02-08}} At nine months, that number was estimated to be 40,000.{{Cite journal |last=Frezza |first=Bill |date=1996-11-01 |title=Can Public Network Computing Save Democracy |journal=Network Computing |pages=35}} To approach Barlow's vision of a self-governing Internet, the Cyberspace Law Institute set up a virtual magistrate, now hosted by the Chicago-Kent College of Law. Magistrates would be appointed by the institute and other legal groups to solve online disputes. The declaration has been criticized for internal inconsistencies.{{Cite journal |last=Evans |first=Woody |author-link=Woody Evans |date=2016 |title=Cyberspace is the Child of the Industrial Age - Defining it as Independent is Nonsense |url=http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/evans0220 |url-status=dead |journal=Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161105174638/http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/evans0220 |archive-date=2016-11-05 |access-date=2016-02-24}} The declaration's assertion that 'cyberspace' is a place removed from the physical world has also been challenged by people who point to the fact that the Internet is always linked to its underlying geography.{{Cite journal |last=Graham |first=Mark |date=2013-03-01 |title=Geography/internet: ethereal alternate dimensions of cyberspace or grounded augmented realities? |journal=The Geographical Journal |language=en |volume=179 |issue=2 |pages=177–182 |bibcode=2013GeogJ.179..177G |doi=10.1111/geoj.12009 |issn=0016-7398}}

Outside the Internet, the response was less positive. Larry Irving, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce, said that a lack of safeguards would "slow down the growth of what is likely to be a major boon for consumers and business". In the online magazine HotWired, one columnist referred to his document as simply "hogwash".{{Cite journal |last=Cembalest |first=Robin |date=1996-09-20 |title=The Featherman File |journal=Forward |volume=C |pages=2}}

By 2002, the number of sites copying the declaration was estimated to have dropped to 20,000.{{Cite web |last=Barlow |first=John Perry |author-link=John Perry Barlow |date=2002-01-22 |title=John Perry Barlow Declaration for Defendants in MGM et al. v. Grokster et al. |url=https://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/?f=20020122_barlow_decl.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070210173723/http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/?f=20020122_barlow_decl.html |archive-date=10 February 2007 |access-date=2007-02-09 |df=dmy-all}} In 2004, Barlow reflected on his 1990s work, specifically regarding his optimism. His response was that "we all get older and smarter".{{Cite journal |last=Doherty |first=Brian |date=August–September 2004 |title=John Perry Barlow 2.0: The Thomas Jefferson of cyberspace reinvents his body — and his politics |url=http://www.reason.com/news/show/29236.html |journal=Reason |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090903075735/http://www.reason.com/news/show/29236.html |archive-date=September 3, 2009}} But a 2016 article in Wired insisted, "Barlow himself wants to be clear: He stands by his words just as much today." It quotes Barlow as saying, "The main thing I was declaring was that cyberspace is naturally immune to sovereignty and always would be. I believed that was true then, and I believe it’s true now."{{Cite magazine |last=Greenberg |first=Andy |date=February 2016 |title=It's Been 20 Years Since This Man Declared Cyberspace Independence |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/02/its-been-20-years-since-this-man-declared-cyberspace-independence/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160211000415/https://www.wired.com/2016/02/its-been-20-years-since-this-man-declared-cyberspace-independence/ |archive-date=February 11, 2016 |magazine=Wired}}

• Hacker Manifesto
• Commercialization of the Internet
• Surveillance capitalism

{{Reflist}}

{{wikiversity|A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace}}

• [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace]

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