Breaking Free: Independence in Cyberspace

One's casual venturing of the Internet is not necessarily a political stance against the status quo since the decision of where one ends up and what they choose to do there is entirely reliant upon the user. However, as the Internet becomes its own domain where different, often more lenient rules, or "laws" for a better comparison, are being formulated continually, it would suffice the user to be able to become a citizen of this nation of the computer without any outside influences, (i.e. the government). For many, the restrictions that the government has enforced upon viewership of and participation in certain locations on the Web should not be validated. Users feel that this is an intrusion upon a society that does not belong to the American government and therefore yearn for the opportunity of non-surveillance.

Take for example in A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age, cyberspace is an "ecosystem" where everything is connected through wires and cables, reaching far beyond just the Internet. Technology itself, (electromagnetic waves, fiber-optics, etc.), is the space and its hold is international. Information is then distributed and redistributed in these formats, (via the telephone, television, computer, etc.) and because the system is so vast, proponents of government-free Internet believe that even attempting to control the Web is a plan set out to fail. The opposition claim that the vastness of technology is precisely the reason why it should be government controlled due to the rise of a hacking/terrorism correlation, it would be for the user society's own protection. Nevertheless, the two sides can agree to disagree.

The primary question for the debate is really what could be considered ultimate freedom online and who would determine it. Following that logic, who or what could determine a set standard for decency? Is one's ability to trespass the modern conventions of what is morally right or wrong determined as an ultimately freeing experience and if so, would that be intruding upon another user's rights to not see, hear, or think about certain things? Is the translation of freedom the same as in a non-user, (i.e. 'real world'), American society? In the original concept of democracy, one has the freedom to be who and/or what one is, whereas in a digital society one has the freedom to become whoever and/or whatever one wants.

In Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, the author agrees that the Internet is vast and therefore a space of the mind. Upon this realization, he believes that it can not be policed for the Internet is "an act of nature that grows itself through our collective actions". Like our founding fathers, Barlow believes that it is the right of this new society to take care of itself and to set its own regulations. "Cyberspace," he says, "consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live." Despite all this arguing, however, about what society should hold merit in another, all parties are essentially talking about the same thing: the want to do what one wants and the prevention of letting others do what they want, a largely American statement all by itself.