IP: more on Damn the Constitution: Europe must take back the Web

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt () CS Stanford EDU>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 07:21:57 -0700
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Re: IP: Damn the Constitution: Europe must take back the Web

Dear Dave,

Thompson's argument for not treating cyberspace as a unified construct
is essentially normative: the notion of cyberspace is problematic and it
should therefore be deconstructed.

Unfortunately a normative argument is not a real argument, it merely paints
a seductive picture of how nice the world would be were the proposed norm
respected.  Where is the positive argument needed to make his case stick?

The positive argument is simply that cyberspace has no Constitution.
If it did, it could say "The powers not delegated to the Internet by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the Countries, are reserved to the
Countries respectively, or to the people."  It doesn't, and it can't.
End of argument.  What Thompson wants Thompson has already got.

Why then the rave, except for its own sake?  (A thoughtfully literate rave
is always a pleasure.)

It would seem that Thompson is a states rightist worrying that one day
there really will be an Internet Constitution patronizingly reserving to
the Countries those powers it has not arrogated to itself.

While constitutions are not routinely written overnight, exceptions may
occur when the head honcho is a nonresident with porphyria.  US-based ICANN
is rapidly becoming the Internet's England-based George III.  So some of
the circumstances needed for at least a revolution if not a constitution
seem to be falling into place.

Now Thompson may not be a renegade merchant or a rebellious slave owner, but
he does seem to be a justifiably disaffected Cantabridgian debater seeking
relief from the tyranny of ICANN and cyberspatial independence for Europe.

In the comparable situation two centuries ago the States of America decided
to
hang together, with dramatically successful outcome.  Franklin's
compellingly
normative argument for this was that it sure beat the alternative of hanging
separately, but would things have gone as well for Middle North America
had the states gone their separate ways?  This seems to be what Thompson
wants for cyberspace.

He may well get what he wants.  But his grandchildren growing up in
cyberspace
may see more clearly than gramps the advantages in Union and Constitution.
They may well get what they want too.

We live in interesting times.

Vaughan Pratt



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