Bill of Digital Rights

The Preamble to the Bill of Digital Rights

Protecting Civil Liberties in the Digital Age
begun and held at the City of New-Haven, on
Thursday the seventh of January, two thousand and ten.

THE Conventions of a number of Students, having at the inception of the Digital Age, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by Anjali Dalal and Alexandra Orme of the Yale University Law School, in Seminar assembled, both concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by this Seminar, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment 1.1: Search engines shall have the right to maintain searchable copies of copyrighted material, as long their publishing of this material is limited in scope and refers users to the source material, be it digital or analog in form.

Amendment 1.2: Students shall have the right to speak freely on the Internet, provided that said speech does not interfere with the regular proceedings of their school.

Amendment 1.3: To protect minors from offensive material, the government reserves the right to enact online age-identification system.

Amendment 1.4: Online forums shall have the right to post user content without reviewing that content beforehand, provided that they take down offensive or illegal content when notified, in a timely manner.

Amendment 1.5: Individuals shall have a right to traceable anonymity in cyberspace. Anonymity will only be unveiled in the process of civil or criminal proceedings, by a higher standard than the one that currently allows for cyberSLAPPing.

Amendment 1.6: Individuals shall a right to a SPAM-safe internet: all mass e-mail campaigns must come from a reputable source or else be subject to criminal proceedings.

Amendment 1.7: ISPs shall not favor some content over other content. (Side note: Do people think there’s a real need for net neutrality? I wasn’t convinced by Anjali and Alexandra’s presentation of the issue in class, but I’d be interested to talk more about this in class).


Amendment 4.1: Individuals shall have the right to privacy in their own computers and e-mails, except when subject to a warrant specifying specific information to be searched for on the computer, or a subpoena for e-mail header information. The content of e-mails shall remain private.

Amendment 4.2: Individuals shall have the right to view government info available on them online, to fill in gaps in that information, and to correct errors, provided that any modifications are subject to swift government approval.

Amendment 4.3: Individuals shall have the right to be notified when their data is being mined on the Internet.

Amendment 4.4: Individuals shall have the right to privacy in their computers during routine border searches, since no files will be discovered that could not have entered the country by other means (ie by Internet file transfer).

Amendment 4.5: The government reserves the right to utilize any new technologies in the name of border security, provided that such technologies are not physically invasive.

Amendment 5.1: The government reserves the right to subpoena the password for password-protected files, when reasonable suspicion is shown.

Amendment 6.1: Individuals shall have the right to view public trial proceedings via closed-circuit video, provided that they request this access in advance.


Amendment 10.1: The listing of certain rights of individuals in the Digital Age shall not limit others reserved for the people.