Cyberspace Declaration of Independence

Reposted from John Perry Barlow's site ...

Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 17:16:35 +0100

To: barlow@eff.org

From: John Perry Barlow

Subject: A Cyberspace Independence Declaration

Yesterday, that great invertebrate in the White House signed into the law the Telecom "Reform" Act of 1996, while Tipper Gore took digital photographs of the proceedings to be included in a book called "24 Hours in Cyberspace."

I had also been asked to participate in the creation of this book by writing something

appropriate to the moment. Given the atrocity that this legislation would seek to

inflict on the Net, I decided it was as good a time as any to dump some tea in the

virtual harbor.

After all, the Telecom "Reform" Act, passed in the Senate with only 5 dissenting votes,

makes it unlawful, and punishable by a $250,000 to say "shit" online. Or, for that

matter, to say any of the other 7 dirty words prohibited in broadcast media. Or to

discuss abortion openly. Or to talk about any bodily function in any but the most

clinical terms.

It attempts to place more restrictive constraints on the conversation in Cyberspace

than presently exist in the Senate cafeteria, where I have dined and heard colorful

indecencies spoken by United States senators on every occasion I did.

This bill was enacted upon us by people who haven't the slightest idea who we are or

where our conversation is being conducted. It is, as my good friend and Wired Editor

Louis Rossetto put it, as though "the illiterate could tell you what to read."

Well, fuck them.

Or, more to the point, let us now take our leave of them. They have declared war on

Cyberspace. Let us show them how cunning, baffling, and powerful we can be in our

own defense.

I have written something (with characteristic grandiosity) that I hope will become one

of many means to this end. If you find it useful, I hope you will pass it on as widely

as possible. You can leave my name off it if you like, because I don't care about the

credit. I really don't.

But I do hope this cry will echo across Cyberspace, changing and growing and

self-replicating, until it becomes a great shout equal to the idiocy they have just

inflicted upon us.

I give you...

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

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.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no

greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global

social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to

impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of

enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither

solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do  you know

our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build 

it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature

and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth

of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that

already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse

to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts,

where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming

our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world,

not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing

wave in the web of our communications.  Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere,

but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race,

economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how

singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to

us. They are based on matter, There is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion.

We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance

will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions.

The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule.

We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis.  But we cannot accept

the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which

repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison,

DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always

be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental

responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments

and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole,

the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which

wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to

ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace.

These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will

soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws,

in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would

declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world,

whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost.

The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous

lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed

powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to

consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one

can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the

world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland

February 8, 1996

Fugate's 16th Law

Warmth is the enemy of comedy.

Meditations on the death penalty

Blood cries out for blood. If your friend, husband, wife, lover, father, mother or child has been killed, it’s up to you to kill the killer. The Furies will drive you mad until you do. But then, of course, the killer’s friends and relatives have to kill you. On and on it goes. Then, one day, Athena told everybody to stop. Vengeance isn’t a personal matter anymore. From now on, the Law will punish the guilty. If the guilty are found guilty in a court of law, of course.

Capital punishment doesn’t exist to deter crime.

Capital punishment exists to end the cycle of revenge killing.

It’s just that simple.

In the year 2045

OK, here's my answer to Newt Gingrich's alternate history novel, 1945. Here's an altered future. If not a neutered future. Pun intended.

The United States of America is now the Divided States of America. There's a rump government in the old industrial Northeast, but nobody pays it much attention.

Most of the South (except for Texas and all of Florida, south of Disneyworld, which is now owned by the WaltDisneyCorp) has been reconstituted as the Christian States of America. More orderly than other places; think Singapore with neon crosses. They stone witches, adulterers and drug addicts to death, and it's not a good place to be a black person, Jewish, or one of them secular humanists. But the mag-lev trains run on time.

The Southwest, at its best, resembles Northern Ireland during the Troubles; at its worst, its a dead ringer for Bosnia in the mid 1990s. There's a strong Hispanic separatist movement and an almost equally strong nativist movement,resulting in mild to severe marches, riots, kneecappings and bombings, when the two hatefronts clash. Aqui...aya...y yanquis mortidad or For California will fight: for California will be right. You pays your money, you takes your shot.

As to America's heartland, the Midwest is a hodgepodge of overlapping, militia-controlled entities, Aryan Nation this, Middle America that. There's a decidedly Germanic cast about it all: speeches, boots, bombs, and military haircuts. In most of these regions, it is illegal to show The Blues Brothers.

From Midwest to Farwest, the sagebrush-rebellion-wise-use people have had their way, which means there's no West left at all, only stripmines and stripmalls. In Nevada, the last Native American reservation still survives. They are fighting for their land, even today. A noble people.

Most of the rich people live in the Pacific Northwest, from northern California up through Washington, Oregon, and on to Alberta. They consider themselves more a part of the Pacific Rim than they do the rest of America -- which they regard with liberal disgust, as they have the money and security forces to afford such sentiments.They feel very guilty. Really. They feel sorry for the Native Americans and they're angry at what's happening in the Christian States and the Midwest, the atrocities, all those horrible things. Someone should really do something. They give money to charities and hold benefit rock concerts and wear t-shirts with slogans, while making sure that their borders are secure.

Speaking of money, Alaska and Hawaii have been sold to Japan to cover interest charges on that ol' debbil the national debt (which was also the reason the national parks were sold off). Much-needed hard currency is also supplied by shipping American prisoners off to forced labor camps in the PRC. Helps out with that balance of trade thing.

Social security, medicare, welfare, and most of the other trappings of the evil welfare state have collapsed leaving...nothing, zippo, nada, not even workhouses or poor houses. Government is off our backs forever. Road, rail and mail have been privatized, which means you get what you pay for, or you don't get.

The popular vehicles of choice (for those who can afford them) either fly or go on almost any kind of terrain. Most of the so-called confederacies, alliances, and coalitions don't mean very much. The former United States of America (like the rest of the world) is divided into DWorlds and Lebanons--the DWorlds meaning Disneyworlds: artificial walled-in communities, sort of like Seaside, except for the guys in guard towers with automatic weapons. White flight to the suburbs has been reversed; the central cities are all now nicely gentrified, surrounded by rings of people living in cardboard boxes selling garbage, themselves, or pieces of themselves.

In 2045, the former United States of America resembles Brazil -- both the country, and the movie. The cities are surrounded by areolae of suffering campesinos; in the soft, chewy center are a very few people having a very good time. But people have adapted. The ability at which they accept these things and go on is amazing. Just the way it is...

Libertarians will be pleased to note that the radical principle of self-ownership now extends to dueling, suicide parlors, organ harvesting and indentured servitude. Prostitution, drug use and abortion are illegal in most areas though. A philosophical inconsistency, but nobody points it out too much (except for liberal sob sisters in the PacificRim, where these things are legal). It's a bad age for dialectic.

In addition to convict labor, our leading exports are organs, entertainment, military hardware, and thugs. We hire ourselves out as rent-a-cops to the rest of the planet -- tough cops, who aren't afraid to use the beat stick. And our guns, bombs, planes and missiles are just plain better. It's a source of pride that there are still some things Americans do better than anybody else. A commitment to excellence!

Newt Gingrich, amazingly enough, is still alive, floating foetus-like in a spherical bubble, filled with amniotic fluid, his brain and nervous system hardwired to an AI interface. Old Newt was always into that kind of thing. The net, the future. Just loved that gee-whiz-sense-of-wonder thing.

The wires leading out from Newt's head go into a computer, and out again to an audioanimatronic simulacrum of Howdy Doody, a pure freckle-faced synthesis of Newt's forward-into-the-past urge to leap into Tomorrowland and a Happy Days 1950s at one and the same time.

Way it works: you speak to the puppet and you speak to Newt; it sees you, thru luxvid eyes, talks back. Eerie. Kind of like Magic, though the puppet has never really hurt anybody. Kids think he's cute, write him postcards...

So, 2045 and all that -- my how time flies! It's the 50th anniversary of the publication of Newt's book, and the reporters are all flocking around his freckle-faced Doppelganger. One ballsy reporter looks Newtie Doody straight in the eye and asks, "What the hell you were you thinking?" The puppet turns its head. Dead serious (as far as Newt's imagineered user interface can register emotion), the puppet speaks.

"It was necessary to destroy the country to save it," he says.

102 years old, and Newt still comes up with the perfect sound-bite.

Dangerous Liaisions ... Lesiaisions ... Lesions ... Ah, to hell with it.

I’m not suave. This is not to say I’m some Gary Cooper/John Wayne type who tells the blunt truth. Now listen to me ya no good sonofabitch. Nah. I prefer my drama on stage and restrict sparring to karate class. I hate conflict. I’m not trying to piss people off. But people have elaborate codes and it’s easy to get them wrong. 

This ain’t supposed to be the American way.

The cliché notion of an American used to be, well, the plain-spoken Gary Cooper/John Wayne type. In contrast to the typical European who spoke in elaborate circumlocutions. 

John Wayne: That’s a lousy idea.

European: It would be not unwise for you to reconsider this proposal.

You want a concrete example of European artificiality, watch Liaisons Dangereuses. This French movie, available on VHS at Video Renaissance. Watch it, then get back to me. If you hate subtitles, watch Dangerous Liaisons. Either way. Go. 

OK. I’m assuming you watched it. We’re on the honor system here …

I trust you.

Now you know what I’m talking about. 

To me, the world of Liaisons Dangereuses is a freaking nightmare. Or the world of Dangerous Liasons, for that matter. Christ, John Malkovich gives me nightmares. Where was I? Oh yeah. Elaborate social codes. Wheels within wheels. Every meaning has a double meaning and a double meaning behind it. I can’t stand subtext. I have a hard problem with text. When woman make hand gestures, I never know what they’re talking about. Uh, you want me to throw the dog over the roof? Stuff cheese down my pants? What? Shoot me.

But that’s France, you say. It can’t happen here, you say.

Wrong.

For experimental validation, go to an arty party in a certain arts community. Speak your mind. See what happens.

Oh, God. That’s CENSORED. CENSORED is the president of a certain CENSORED and his daughter is the CENSORED who’s angry at CENSORED because he got the grant for the CENSORED and she didn’t. Whatever you do, don’t mention Rosenquist or Rauschenberg and Roquefort cheese.

See, I can't even speak my mind on my own blog. The CENSORED might lose advertisers.

Watch what you say. Think twice. Consider your words wisely.

Americans weren’t supposed to worry about that.

Gary Cooper. John Wayne.

No way.

Americans spoke the plain truth. We didn’t walk around on cracked eggs.

Now we do.

For small fish like me, who cares? But the big fish are walking around on cracked eggs as well, if you stretch the metaphor.

We can’t be real anymore. Politicians especially.

It’s instant death. Consider ancient history …

In 1967, presidential hopeful George Romney talked about his 1965 tour of Vietman. Said the generals gave him the greatest brainwashing of all time,” or something like that. Rhetoric. Metaphor. Any idiot would know he wasn’t being literal. “Brainwashing” -- referring to the stage-managed control of his perceptions. The press seized on the word “brainwashing.” End of presidential hopes.

Back in 1972, Edmund Muskie was running for president. A reporter ambushed him with slurs about his wife. Muskie cried. His campaign crashed and burned.

In 1979, Jimmy Carter swam away from a killer rabbit. Wise move. The freaking thing could’ve had rabies. But goodbye White House. This probably hurt him more than the hostage crisis.

In 1980, America put an actor in the White House. Ronald Reagan wasn't John Wayne or Gary Cooper. But he knew how to act like it. 

It's been fakery, appearance, show, flash and filigree ever since. Please wake me when it's over.

I'll be in my room.