My Bill of Rights

I don’t necessarily think we need a separate online bill or rights, since our country does not exist in two separate spheres – a physical one and an online one – each of which requiring its own law code. However, some law code for the digital world is necessary to address the issues which our current laws do not adequately address for the digital world. Without getting into a longer conversation about what form that body of laws should take, here is my shot at a digital bill of rights. It does not touch upon every issue that will come up with the internet or even every issue we discussed in class, but, like the Bill of Rights, is just meant to provide general principles of the liberties afforded to those whose lives are in any way touched by a computer. Furthermore, this does not address issues which map easily from the analog world to the digital world, but only new issues which the rise of the internet necessitates that new laws address.

The government, whether directly or through agent institutions, may not make regulate or inhibit any citizen’s online speech from reaching a certain audience, because due to the flexible and open nature of the internet, this would limit all online speech.
Though companies are free to filter and ban spam messages, the government has no authority to limit such communication on the basis of it being spam.
The right of an individual who did something online under the assumption of anonymity to remain anonymous shall not be violated unless a court order is granted to reveal the individual’s identity for reasons of national security or a criminal investigation.
The government may not restrict what is accessible via the internet, nor can it require internet providers to have full net neutrality. However, it may require internet providers to make clear to their customers the details of how their service is not net neutral.
Online communications cannot be monitored except when specific data is approved for monitoring by a court similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for the purposes of national security or by a judge for the purposes of a criminal investigation.
The government may not purchase information about online activity from private companies, unless the specific information it is acquiring has been approved by a court similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for the purposes of national security or by a judge for the purposes of a criminal investigation.
A person can be compelled to give investigators the password to protected files if there is a search warrant for the files under password protection.
The government cannot mandate an encryption system which would give it backdoor access to unlock all encryptions.
Seeing as the internet has no physical place, and some internet cases will have multiple legitimate jurisdictional locations, the jurisdiction for cases involving the internet and multiple physical jurisdictions shall be determined by an Internet Jurisdiction court.