[community] "A Call to Defense and Celebration of the Online Commonwealth"

[J.C. DE MARTIN]

http://petition.cdt.org/

The Center for Democracy & Technology invites you to join us in 
celebrating One Web Day by reading and signing the document: A Call to 
Defense and Celebration of the Online Commonwealth.

This document, developed in collaboration with our new CDT Fellows, 
articulates core values that have enabled the Internet to prosper and 
highlights our shared duty to keep it open, innovative and free.

We invite you to read the document and attach your name in a show of 
support. We encourage everyone who shares the views outlined here to 
share this site with your friends.

On September 22 --- One Web Day --- we will report how many supporting 
signatures have been collected.

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A Call to Defense and Celebration of the Online Commonwealth

Common Values and Shared Duties on the Internet

http://petition.cdt.org/?page_id=5

Over the past two decades, the Internet has transformed economic, 
political and cultural landscapes across the entire globe. Out of the 
simple exchange of data packets, we have collectively built a vast and 
complex information ecosystem, linked together into many thousands of 
overlapping social networks, which have enriched and ennobled our lives. 
Though we speak different languages and have different values, together 
we have built a place -- myriad places --- where we can all meet and 
communicate with one another.

We do not often enough stand back and marvel at the new global online 
society that we are building, nor do we frequently enough reflect upon 
our place, as individuals, in this new social order. It is time to do 
so. The Internet has become so pervasive in all of our lives that we 
have begun to take it for granted, like the air we breathe or the water 
we drink. But we cannot afford to do that anymore. The Online 
Commonwealth -- open, innovative, and free -- is under attack from many 
quarters: Destructive and often virulent code threatens our shared 
infrastructure, while some cyber-security measures proposed in response 
may invade our privacy and accord unprecedented control to regulators; 
online predators and adult content raise concerns for parents seeking to 
protect their children, but restrictions proposed in reaction to these 
problems may chill lawful adult speech; rigid local regulations deter 
innovation, creating conflicting and confusing jurisdictional claims 
regarding applicable rules while failing to promote online order; 
increasingly sophisticated tools for filtering and monitoring online 
activities are implemented by public authorities and private actors; 
overly restrictive intellectual property laws may dampen our collective 
creativity; closed, gated systems increasingly place innovation behind 
locked barriers.

There are plenty of anecdotes about harmful online activities, usually 
accompanied by calls for new restrictions and new legislation. Press 
reports about online activities are replete with descriptions of the 
unlawful, the unreasonable, and the unpleasant. Fewer stories catalogue, 
and less attention is paid to, the manner in which the Net acts as 
catalyst for economic growth, education, and human rights, how it 
educates the young, connects the elderly to friends and family, fosters 
new economic ventures and global trade, knits together the world's 
scientific community, and entertains and enlightens us all. It is time 
for those of us who care about the continued development of the Online 
Commonwealth to articulate the shared values that have enabled it to 
flourish, to celebrate its continued vitality, and to come, where 
necessary, to its defense, while also working to ameliorate harms 
arising from it.

We believe in the free and open flow of ideas and information embodied 
in the bits we send across the Internet. The Internet is a society of 
mind. Individuals -- not intermediaries, whether governmental or 
private, acting without their authorization -- have the right to decide 
with whom they wish to communicate. We oppose mechanisms -- whether 
embodied in law, technology, or both -- that unreasonably or without 
authorization interfere with the voluntary allocation of our own 
attention. We support mechanisms that enable individuals to decide what 
online groups to join and with whom they want to interact. We believe 
that the Online Commonwealth grows more valuable every day because it is 
open to all. No one should need permission to use the global language, 
to add ideas and information to our shared stores of knowledge, or to 
try out a new protocol or application, and we oppose mechanisms which 
place unreasonable constraints or controls on our freedom to continue to 
do so.

We believe in the promise of the Internet: that ideas and information 
can be shared by all and with all. We worry that overly aggressive 
assertions of intellectual property rights or other forms of content 
control can create an "anti-commons," preventing us from exercising our 
rights to learn from and to speak freely to one another.

We believe that the software code through which we communicate online 
can radically extend our powers, free us from routine matters, and help 
us direct our attention to the most useful information and our most 
valuable relationships. But we recognize that code can also invade our 
privacy and destroy the very devices and networks through which we 
interact. Those who propagate destructive or invasive software code are 
the enemies of the Online Commonwealth, and we should use all 
appropriate tools at our disposal, including law, to deter and punish 
them. We share a duty to learn how to defend our own systems from 
attack, and to take available steps to avoid becoming victims or 
propagators of harm.

We believe that the people of the Internet are, collectively, the killer 
app. We confront our screens as individuals -- but we can act through 
those screens with others, and it is by engaging our minds with those of 
others that we create new, diverse, interdependent roles, thereby 
expanding, continuously, the potential exchanges between related or 
complimentary roles that create wealth and wisdom. Our new Online 
Commonwealth is not founded on physical resources, geographic territory, 
financial capital, or even human labor. It emerges from attention and 
effort expended in increasingly diverse roles that channel our efforts 
into pursuit of goals defined by the many different groups with which we 
collaborate every day. These groups make the world wealthier and wiser 
every day precisely because they have many different, diverse, and 
decentralized goals. But all groups should share one core value -- 
respect for and deference to other groups that refrain from imposing 
harm on others. The Internet enables people with very different values 
to coexist peacefully, online, precisely insofar as all groups respect 
this principle, and we oppose any claim by any group -- public or 
private -- that seeks to impose its own will on those whose welfare it 
doesn't seek to serve and who have not consented to its claim to govern.

The Online Commonwealth is continuously under threat -- both from those 
who would stifle its creativity and those who abuse its liberties. Who 
will defend it? We all must do so. By collaborating to cut off havens 
for harm. By participating in online reputation and rating systems by 
means of which we guide each other's use of the Internet. By resisting 
regulation that uses the potential for such harm to justify equally 
harmful constraints. By creating new online institutions that help us 
take collective action to pursue our shared visions of the good. And by 
celebrating the many ways in which the Internet has unleased the 
creative powers of millions of people.

We are releasing this call on One Web Day, September 22, to reaffirm our 
shared commitment to the values that have enabled the Internet to 
prosper. We are all citizens of countries and states, members of 
families, employees of companies, participants in churches and clubs. 
But we are also, importantly, members of the shared, global Online 
Commonwealth, and we re-affirm our shared commitment to defend and 
celebrate this marvelous collective creation.

[NOTE: In order to add your name to the list, an email address must be 
provided. An automated email will be sent to you for verification 
purposes only. Email addresses are not made public, neither will be they 
be shared with any other third party. However, if you wish to sign the 
document without revealing your email address, simply use anon a blank.com 
and your name will go into a queue until approved by a moderator.]

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