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10 Harv. J. L. & Tech. 647 (1996-1997)
Cyberspace Sovereignty--The Internet and the International System

handle is hein.journals/hjlt10 and id is 657 raw text is: Harvard Journal ofLaw & Technology Volume 10, Number 3 Summer 1997 CYBERSPACE SOVEREIGNTY? - THE INTERNET AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM Timothy S. Wu* Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants offlesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of the Mind. On behalf of the future, jask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.' By linking with the Internet, we don't mean absolute freedom of information. I think there is a general understanding about this. Ifyou go through customs, you have to show your passport. It's the same with management of information. There is no contradiction at all between the development of telecommunications infrastructure and the exercise of state sovereignty.' Will cyberspace exercise its own sovereignty? Does it do so already? TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ..................................... 648 II. THE FEASIBILIY OF CYBERSPACE REGULATION ........... 649 A. Content Regulation .............................. 650 1. Regulation via Hardware ...................... 651 2. Regulation via Software ...................... 652 B. Activity Regulation .............................. 655 * J.D., Harvard Law School, Class of 1998. The author would like to acknowledge the help of Lawrence Lessig and Anne-Marie Slaughter in the preparation of this Note. In addition, the author is thankful for helpful discussions with John Perry Barlow, Jonathan Yong-Sung Kang, FemandaLai, QuaidMorris, Richard A. Posner, George Wang, Jonathan Zittrain, and the participants in the Seminar on Law & Cyberspace taught by Professor Lessig at Harvard Law School. 1. John Perry BarlowA Declaration ofthelndependence ofCyberspace (visited Feb. 13, 1997) <http:/wwv.eff.orglpub/Publications/JohnPerryBarlow/barlow_0296. declaration>. 2. Much of the Information Highway Still to Be Paved, THE STRAMIs TIMES, Nov. 25, 1995, at Ll (quoting Wu Jichuan, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, People's Republic of China).

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