Internet Law Roundup

I’ve heard it said that barbed wire was what finally brought the Wild West to heel. No system of laws or military force could ever equal the understated power of a barrier that caused pain to those who touched it. With the dissection of the open prairies, we lost the cattle runs that used to crisscross the land. The wild boom towns like Tombstone and Dodge City quieted down and slowly adopted respectable airs to accommodate the “civilized” folk pouring in from back east. The cowboy, an enduring symbol of American freedom and independence, disappeared forever into the realm of myth and legend.

My generation witnessed the internet in its boom town days. We saw the rise and fall of outlaw programs like Napster and Kazaa. We watched internet gold fever go from bonanza to bust in 2000. The greatest economic monoliths of the day have laid their foundations in the ephemeral soil of cyberspace and we, we lucky few, have been here to see it happen. Unlike the wild west, the influx of new people and new ideas has not shrunk the potential of this digital frontier. Instead, year by year we are seeing the limitless potential of unfettered creativity and shared information. Despite this success, there are legislators and judges the world over seemingly ready to create a whole new kind of barbed wire.

Laws

ACTA – An international treaty that grants broad authority to signatory governments to punish individuals who violate copyright laws. It also carries implications for ISPs who will have to establish monitoring practices to ensure the letter of the law is met. If this act provided a net benefit (no pun intended) to authors, musicians, researchers, and other innovators it would stand as a testament to modern international cooperation. As it’s written, it provides significant protection and litigation tools to serial prosecutors like the Record Industry of America (RIAA) and zero benefit to artists and creators. Furthermore, the most egregious copyright violators in the world (namely Egypt, Brazil, China, and the Ukraine) are not subject to its enforcement.

Status: Signed by 29 countries including the US.  Although there are some efforts underway to curtail frivolous lawsuits at the federal level in the US and the treaty has met significant resistance in Europe, ACTA has laid the foundation for extensive international control, monitoring, and restriction of digital information.

ThePatriot Act – “Freedom isn’t free” became the unofficial Orwellian mantra of post 9/11 legislative philosophy. One terrible day in September 2001 has dominated our nation’s international relations and domestic security priorities for more than a decade. Under the auspices of combating terrorism, the federal government gave itself carte blanche to monitor and evaluate practically all electronic communications. The good news: it works (kind of). The bad news: the very concept of blanket surveillance is anathema to a free society. If you are going to read only one piece of legislation related to internet freedom, make it this one. Pay particular attention to Title V which covers the secret subpoena process employed to force service providers to surrender information about their clients then threatens them with persecution if they reveal that such a request has taken place.

Status: currently in force and extended until 2015 putting it conveniently out of the press until after the midterm elections.

M'erica

PIPA – a virtual clone of the now-defunct 2010 Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeit Act (COICA), this act is similar in many ways to its larger cousin ACTA but is written with the specific interests of the United States in mind. It contains a critical focus on “foreign” websites but its main focus makes it ultimately unenforceable. After all, how many multinational corporations have their base of operations abroad? How many “American” online companies own servers or data centers in foreign countries? These unanswered questions highlight how the creators of barbed wire laws don’t necessarily understand the broader implications of their work, much less the technology they seek to control.

Status: After a brilliant and unified direct action campaign by a number of internet paragons and concerned citizens, this act was banished into legislative limbo.

SOPA – The Stop Online Piracy Act is essentially the House version of PIPA. It promises to “promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation” but the text of the bill offers little toward these ideals other than to equip vested interests with an arsenal of legal justifications for shutting down websites they see as “illegitimate.” Further, this bill blithely heaps responsibility for its enforcement on search engines and advertisers and places them under the scrutiny of the Justice Department and a drastically expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

Status: like its counterpart in the Senate, SOPA was forced into its grave by the collaborative resistance of a concerned public and internet patriots like Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia. Make no mistake, SOPA and PIPA may be buried for the time being, but as long as patent trolls continue to hold sway in D.C. there is a risk that they will reanimate and roam the earth again.

PAA and FISA – I’m not even certain if the links I’ve provided are actual reflections of the bills in question, which should be some indication of their shadowy nature. These intelligence acts are the corner stones of the megalithic government surveillance program under the NSA known as PRISM (Officially “SIGAD US-984XN"). In 2003, citing privacy concerns, Congress discovered the fortitude to defund a similar initiative launched by the government research body known as DARPA called the Information Awareness Office (IAO)

Probably because the IAO office logo looks like the evil spaceship from Stargate

Obviously, that was not enough to contain the program or even slow it down. It is difficult to gauge exactly how large this program has become because. Thanks to Title V of the afore mentioned Patriot Act, the service providers subpoenaed to feed information into this system cannot legally protest or even reveal to their clients that their personal information has been compromised. Thankfully,this has not stopped some of them from trying.

Status: Active and growing, but impossible to truly comprehend due to classification.

Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss

So there you have it, these laws are the most glaring examples of online legal barriers that cause harm to those who touch them. I know my list is incomplete, but if you drop me a message in the comment section I will try to expand it.

We live in an age of asymmetric threats to our national and personal security. In the face of these enormous challenges I understand and even appreciate the impulse to force controls over the situation. Ultimately though, the imposition of rigid and poorly considered laws on free and private communication is far more ethically problematic than the issues those laws attempt to ameliorate.

These pieces of legislation must be studied, evaluated, and, where necessary, resisted and repealed. At a very minimum, every artist, innovator, and advocate for the promise of technological advancement must insist on greater transparency in our legal system. It’s bad enough to festoon the open prairie with barbed wire, but if we can’t even see where it is, all of us are certain to find ourselves tangled and bleeding.