A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Recorded in 1996 by Entropica & V.Tea and released by UK psychedelic club Megatripolis, with words written by John Perry Barlow (founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Grateful Dead lyricist) in response to the Clinton administrations' effort to censor and control the internet with the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996.

Art and image credits:
electricsheep.org
alexgrey.com
androidjones.com
bugman123.com
nez-art.com
android.net
thetemplateorg.com

Transcript:
(for the full statement, google this video's title)

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
by John Perry Barlow

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. 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.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. 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. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

Cyberspace 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.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone,, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.
In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.
We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996

Category:

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[PsiloSalvin]

Every thing he is saying is so true. I know what he knows and it is so exstream that there is NO way i will ever fell depressed by the power that "controls" us. I have felt Thy gratest braketherw ever! THE ULTIMATE Breaktherw 2 times in one night, And wow what a night it was, through the exsperance of salvia divinorum, like 4 liberty caps and a bit of kanna! And now i can only pray that this GOOD infection i have come intuned with will spread!---> read on!

[teleomorph]

Hey, thanks for the great energy! In fact, you inspired me to go out and buy some diviner's sage, ska pastora, pipiltzitzintli!

[9Charnel]

If any government in any nation tries to even harm net neutrality, never vote for them again and they will learn not to mess with this freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of information.

Net neutrality is the most important issue surrounding our freedom, protect it at any cost.

[3thought]

I concur to this decleration. THey don not know what they are messing with.

Love and light, my brothers and sisters.

[tunebliss]

"It is an act of nature and grows through our collective actions." - @ min. 1:52 sec. 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,' by John Perry Barlow.

[xaven1978]

Spread the word! Let's fight global censorship!

[MannySteinerBleeky]

They can't have our bodies either if there's the same decentralised localised grassroots structures in meatspace - permaculture, LETS schemes, renewable power sources...

[SFXKID210]

@9Charnel LOL the american Government is trying to destory Net neutrality but sad its not the presidents fault its the poeple who are not elected in to it is who trying to change it

[defexorcist]

This is only the beginning. The current power structure is revealing its true impotence by its feeble attempts to control what cannot be tamed. It was only a matter of time until the great creature we created turned against our mindless desire to dominate it and each other. The future of cyberspace will be glorious comrades! Long live the Wyrm! SKYNET4EVR!

[Prethenie]

WOW! This is so awesome. :) How true!