>From Europe-online, 26 Aug 1998
http://www.isys.hu/online-europe/current/0440.html
> ASPEN, Colorado (Wired) - "Why should public values not have a
> role?," asks Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig about the
> building of the Internet. A keynote speaker at the "Aspen Summit
> 98," sponsored by Newt Gingrich's Progress and Freedom Foundation,
> Lessig acknowledged that "it would be a disaster for [members of]
> the government to become code writers.... But the Constitution
> should have some effect on [the architecture of the Internet]."
>
> Lessig says the Internet rises above purely private enterprise to
> "world- building." He wants values to be protected and suggests not
> to do so will help erode confidence in government. Dissenting is
> John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Larry
> wants to make cyberspace safe for law. I want to keep law out of
> cyberspace."
Declan's reaction on the POLITECH list:
At 09.50 am 8/25/98 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> I'm often skeptical of calls for "public values," since those who
> talk about them may have different values than I do. But that
> aside, Lessig's proposal (as I understand it) would seem to work in
> two ways: individuals who construct the Net's architecture changing
> their minds of their own free will.
>
> Or the government would force Internet architectural changes
> supposedly "to comply with the Constitution" through law and
> regulation -- so long IETF -- a move that would likely in itself
> violate the Constitution. So if a technology becomes popular
> enough, clue-impaired Congressfolks and corporate lobbyists get to
> dictate standards? No thanks.
>
> Besides, last I checked, even the Constitution is just a local
> ordinance online.
>
>-Declan
You *can't* keep law out of cyberspace, and most people don't
want to. The issue is *whose* law -- ideally, that of those governed
by it, on a mostly local basis.
It is not possible to be value-free, nor is it posssible to be law-free
when there is more than one player. (I think Lessig is trying to say
that as long as you have architecture, you have values. And as
long as you have code, you have architecture. So let's see what
values the architectures are implementing, explicilty, and deal with
them.)
The goal is for the laws to be agreed upon by the maximum
proportion of players. That's why local laws are often best, because
people who like one or the other style of law can cluster there. And
people who don't like one cluster can create their own.
But let's not kid ourselves that there aren't some universal public
values. Last I heard, freedom is one such public value; another is
truth; and a third is choice - a.k.a. competition, among companies
*and* among systems of governance/laws.
And, yes, let's recognize that even freedom is not absolute when
one person's freedom clashes with another's. Face it, folks, no
rules can avoid all conflict.... and no-rules creates conflicts where
the bad guys often win.
Esther Dyson
========
