Cyberspace Has No Borders

“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.”

— John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, 1996

“Cyberspace does not lie within your borders.”

Written from Davos during the World Economic Forum. Addressed to the governments of the world. It remains the most powerful statement ever written about the nature of the internet.

Barlow was wrong about some things. But he was right about the essential one: the net is not geography.