First Amendment v. International Law on Internet Speech Yahoo!`s Challenge to French Court Judgment in the U.S.

Abstract

John Perry Barlow, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), proclaimed in his 1996 "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace": Govermnents of the Industrial World.... On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.... I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Barlow's vision of the Internet as separate from the "real" world appears increasingly off base. Indeed, his then daring declaration of cyberspace independence seems to be somewhat foolhardy now. Some Internet law commentators have called it a "mythology." and the Economist described Barlow's statement on cyberspace freedom as a "glorious illusion."