Bill of Rights for the Digital Age

diewlasing writes "Since we are living in a world where the need is growing for privacy measures and rights to use emerging technology, it seems to me that state governments should adopt a bill of rights regarding internet privacy, use of technology and speech on the internet. For example: make it illegal to allow ISPs to release personal information to anyone who wants it. Now, obviously, that's not the only issue. If you were asked by your state government to come up with a bill of rights for internet privacy, technology use, and free speech regarding the internet and emerging technologies, what would you include? Many things are covered (here in the US) under the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, but it seems to me that, these days, people with enough money can disregard this. Perhaps the states might find it a good idea to enshrine rights into law."

Comments

Let's do it right.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Producing kiddie porn is illegal because the act of pedophilia is statutory rape. That is enough -- distributing kiddie porn which has already been produced should be legal, so long as you were not involved, in any way, with producing it.

Now, libel and slander -- what we really need here is a system whereby it is easier to determine the veracity of a statement, rather than a system where it is possible to sue someone after the damage is done.

So, that said, I propose this:

1. Freedom of speech, period. Through channels which you are legally allowed to control, you can say anything you want, as yourself or anonymously. This includes spam.
2. Neutrality of the network. When providing Internet service to anyone, it is the customer's choice what is blocked, filtered, degraded, or given any special treatment with respect to other traffic.
3. Transparency of filtering. That is: If you run a spam filter, you must provide source code upon request. This right may be waived by the user, but it must be made clear and explicit.
4. Readability of contracts. The gist of any contract or agreement (for service or software -- EULAs, Terms of Service, etc) must be presented to both parties in a short, human-readable summary. (Less than a page, less than N words -- not sure how many words, but it should be a hard limit.) You may have as much legalese as you like, as long as said legalese is linked to from the human-readable summary, and said summary adequately describes it to a non-lawyer.
5. Stability of contracts. Contracts may never be changed without notice. In the case where a party cannot be given proper notice, the contract may be terminated, but contracts may only be altered by both parties. This right may not be waived.
6. Gating of contracts. Each kind of service naturally has certain built-in assumptions -- for example, it is assumed that I am allowed to read a website, send links to friends, print it out, and distribute it, so long as it is represented as close as possible to its original form. It is also assumed that scripts are allowed to visit this website, unless explicitly forbidden in a robots.txt. Any variation from common conventions like these must be gated by an agreement compliant with #4. Any gating for robots must be specified in a standard format -- if unsure, ban them in robots.txt until potential users have a chance to read the agreement.
7. Commitment to standards. If you are going to pretend to follow a standard, you follow it. If you're going to have a website, it should be accessable via any reasonably standard web browser, unless gated by a warning similar to #6. (This means no 100% Flash sites.) For something to be considered an open standard, it must have at least one public domain reference implementation. It is far worse to half-implement a standard than not at all -- no claiming XHTML if your document is not well-formed, for example.
8. The owner of a system controls that system. If any legal action must be taken against a given system, it should go to the actual owner. It may be deflected by a proxy, if possible (get the motion dismissed), but it may not be settled by a proxy. (For example: If I own a webserver, and a subscription to some ISP, no one may take down my content except me.)
9. The owner of content controls that content. In the case where this conflicts with #8, content may be taken down by the owner of the system -- but a notice must be left that content was removed, and, if reasonable, who removed it. (If you leave a username of "v14gr4 at spamme.com", that username may be deleted or altered, obviously.) Also, if possible, the owner must be contacted about the removal, and, if it is the result of a takedown demand, the owner must be given an opportunity to respond to that demand. (In other words, the owner of a system should not take sides in a dispute between a content creator and a takedown notice.) In cases where this conflicts with #6, #6 wins -- that is, if you released something as a public document,