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Way back in 1991, John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stood before the Second Conference on Computers, Privacy, and Freedom and bravely declared: "The Internet treats censorship as though it were a malfunction and routes around it." Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’d make that assertion quite so emphatically these days. Don’t get me wrong. I used to believe exactly as Gilmore does. I probably still do. I’m just operating on heightened alert. So is Gilmore. It’s still true that cyberspace exists as a data cloud through which any packet may travel by multiple, unfiltered routes to any destination. But, increasingly, those routes are being channeled and filtered, while message origins and destinations are being monitored and placed under legal constraint. The ever-increasing moves to limit Internet content are the antithesis of cyberspace’s naturally libertarian disposition and subvert the best intentions of the early designers. When they designed a system without central switches, they knew full well that, just as character is destiny in human lives, technology architecture has momentous consequences in freedom of speech. As computing pioneer Mitch Kapor put it: "Architecture is politics." Would-be controllers include nation-states, local governments, corporations, religions, cultural groups, information distributors, other traditional media, and, of course, information "owners" (think of the recording companies’ lawsuit against Napster). As always, the rich and mighty wish to retain their position. Insidiously, would-be censors cloak themselves in very good motives. They say they want to protect children from sexual or violent material, to ban child pornography, to suppress epithets by neo-Nazis and other hate groups, or to prevent distribution of encryption software, in the name of national security. Censorship’s apparently laudable ends go on and on. Censors would disarm terrorists by preventing distribution of information about explosives or weapons. They would stem the flow of illegal drugs by banning information regarding their production and positive statements about their effects. They would prevent communication among criminals, particularly hackers, terrorists, and drug distributors. They would protect governments and companies from exposure of state or trade secrets, or even embarrassing information. They would protect personal privacy by regulating the exchange of personal information. They would restrain the distribution of unwanted solicitations, or "spam." More controversially, if they win a growing legal battle, censors would halt even the noncommercial distribution of copyrighted material, or what used to be called fair use. Most of the censors’ goals have broad popular appeal. Who among us would gladly proclaim the rights of kiddy pornographers, terrorists, neo-Nazis, drug lords, spammers, or hackers? Within narrower contexts, suppressing the expressions of gays, women, heretics, traitors, and troublemakers is also politically popular. This suppression flies in the face of the First Amendment, which is not about popular viewpoints or politically correct statements. As philosopher John Stuart Mill expressed the principle: "Liberty resides in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious." But, despite the lip service that is paid to freedom of expression in most parts of the world, people are generally inclined to defend only the expressions of others like themselves. Technology, itself, is muddling the censorship issue. For many, it’s not sufficient that misuse of children is illegal. They contend that graphic expressions of such misuse on the Internet must also be prohibited, including artificial images that involve no actual children. By the same token, describing how to make a bomb is seen to be the same as detonating one; detailing the weaknesses of a computer system is as heinous as breaking into one; and so forth. As the banning movement builds, few policy makers realize their actions amount to imposing their legal will on people outside their jurisdictions. Thus, the wildly unconstitutional Communications Decency Act was enacted by a lopsided margin in Congress in 1996 to the apparent satisfaction of an electorate that, back then, was still largely offline. The act, which, according to the Supreme Court, violated the First Amendment, made it a criminal act to use the Internet to publish "indecent" and "patently offensive" material that might become available to minors. It also served to inflict the mores of the U.S. Congress on organizations and people using the Internet around the world. It’s unlikely that a similar bill could be passed by Congress today without an outcry from a much more wired public. But there are many parts of the world where the online communities constitute as small a percentage of the population as existed in the U.S. when the act passed, and where similar legislation could win approval. In technologically sophisticated areas, censorial legislators are now using speed, stealth, and obfuscation to pass suppressive laws that would probably encounter stiffer opposition were the public aware of their implications. As I write these words, Congress is rushing to pass something called the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. This bill would not only ban any online discussion of methamphetamine manufacture, but also would criminalize positive statements about the use of methamphetamine and many other drugs, including marijuana. Few are aware of this bill. Fewer still are aware of its provisions. Moreover, with a name like that, very few are likely to publicly oppose it. Yet this bill is a direct assault on freedom of speech. Less overtly, a number of new laws serve the interests of institutional copyright holders. In my opinion, they have grave consequences for the free flow of ideas. Very few citizens are aware of the chilling implications of, say, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which essentially eliminates fair use in digital media. The law could potentially restrict universities from inexpensive and easy access to digitized maps, journals, and newspaper archives. Other laws turn copyright violations into criminal acts, greatly lengthen copyright terms, and extend to various institutions the ability to censor by asserting ownership. Thus, Microsoft is forcing Slashdot.com to remove embarrassing revelations about Microsoft software security weaknesses on the grounds that some postings quote internal documents that Microsoft "owns." How convenient to characterize censorship as the mere defense of one’s "property." It’s been said that information is power. More to the point, power becomes despotic in an environment of limited information. For most of history, the primary method of asserting power, aside from force of arms, has been by the control of information. Of the many revolutions to be wrought by the Internet, the most profound lies in its capacity to degauss all of the local reality distortion fields the mighty have spun among their subjects. Ordinarily, I would continue to be sanguine about the global outbreak of regulatory bit-blockage and maintain my faith in the ability of the Internet to route around it—and, more important, in the persistent cluelessness of the oppressive. But the forces of control have become more sophisticated. We can no longer assume we will be spared their tyranny by their incompetence. They are getting smarter.
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