Editor's Note: This interview originally appeared in the now-defunct Internet Underground (3 February 1997). It is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

A prominent champion of civil liberties in cyberspace, John Perry Barlow is best known to thousands of netizens as co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF, which was founded in July of 1990, garnered particular attention after legally challenging the Communications Decency Act, a law passed by Congress in February of 1996 which outlawed the dissemination of "indecent material" over the Net. The non-profit organization aims to protect Internet users' privacy, freedom of speech and access to public information, and to ensure that the "new media" of the digital age aren't excessively restricted by existing copyright and intellectual property laws.

In response to the CDA, Barlow, who's had stints as a songwriter with the Grateful Dead and as a Republican county chairman, wrote a widely circulated essay titled "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace." He continues to write and lecture on the virtualization of society, as well as serving as vice chairman of the EFF.

With the Supreme Court set to hear a legal challenge to the CDA, Net users and free-speech activists have been speculating on just how narrow the bridge to the 21st century might turn out to be--and how the free flow of information can best be preserved. Internet Underground recently talked with Barlow about the future of individual liberties.

Todd Brendan Fahey: To the best of your knowledge, what is the current legal status concerning freedom of speech on the Net?

John Perry Barlow: Well, that's a terribly long question, or potentially. Let me put it this way: With regard to the most immediate threat to freedom of statement, which is the Communications Decency Act, we're in pretty good shape, because even though it was passed by a large majority of Congress and signed by the president, they were all acting out of such a political expediency that I think they violated their oaths of office. Nevertheless, as soon as it got before court, which was less vulnerable to political whim, they cast it down with extreme prejudice--it was as angry a ruling as I've ever heard. They called the bill "an insult." And it now goes before the Supreme Court. Now, I'm reasonably confident that it will not prevail in the Supreme Court; the problem is, you don't know that, because they don't know anything about the online world. They're probably going to assume this is like broadcast. They're not going to have an opportunity like the judges in Philadelphia to find out that it's not like broadcast.

Todd Brendan Fahey: Well, what kinds of lobbying efforts, then, can the Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF] . . .

John Perry Barlow: Well, you can't exactly lobby the Supreme Court.

Todd Brendan Fahey: I don't know if you can or can't; I've never worked that high up in the food chain before.

John Perry Barlow: There's not much you can do but pray, because there's only really one higher authority, and God doesn't always take your case either. But I'm reasonably confident. I think what just happened in Geneva, with the International Copyright Treaty being signed, is in the long run going to constitute a much greater threat, because that's going to be used primarily to control expressions that various institutions are uncomfortable with, under the guise of intellectual property law--in the same way the Church of Scientology used trade secret law to shut down conversations on the Net regarding the Church of Scientology, claiming that by quoting passages of Scientological scripture in some of these critical newsgroups, they were passing out trade secrets and violating copyright laws. So, that kind of tactic is going to get used a lot. It's a rare statement on the Net that you can't find some kind of copyright infringement contained in there somehow--especially when you've completely eliminated [the] Fair Use [statute], which is what this treaty does.

Todd Brendan Fahey: It seems to me that this tendency that the US is falling into, in terms of international entanglements, as George Washington would have put it, is increasingly not in our best interests. at what point do we draw the line and say, it is not in the best interest of a sovereign United States to be involved in these things, like GATT, like the World Trade Organization, the UN.

John Perry Barlow: Well, I personally don't believe in the nation-state; so, frankly, I'm not a very strong supporter of the sovereignty of the United States or any other nation- state. I am not certain that I think there is another authority that should be developing at a higher level. I think that we're moving into a world where authority emerges from the collective, rather than being deposited on the whole.

Todd Brendan Fahey: This could wind up in a direction that I don't think would be fruitful for Internet Underground.

John Perry Barlow: Well, Internet Underground, as a cultural institution, is certainly part of the culture that is staking a bet on the ability of huge-scale anarchy to go on functioning. And that's really where we're at here--we're hoping it's going to work based on the model of the Internet. And I certainly don't think it's a good idea to bow to conventional Industrial Age authority for any of the many new problems and opportunities that are arising on the Internet.

Todd Brendan Fahey: To which authority then does one bow? I mean . . .

John Perry Barlow: We gotta get over bowing to authority.

Todd Brendan Fahey: Well, I was gonna get to that . . .

John Perry Barlow: The ultimate authority is one's own conscience. And one's conscience is formed in part by the society he lives in and his willingness to be in that society and participate in its culture. And I think if you take a look at the history of authority, you'll find that the authority we've [America] been using the past 300 or 400 years is an anomaly in the history of humanity. Now, I will admit that the rule of law had some virtues; I'm not convinced that it's impossible for those virtues to be manifest by other means. I'm skeptical about anarchy. I believe you have to have some kind of hybrid of the old system and the one that's developing to maintain order. But, by the same token, I'm not for fixing anything until it's demonstrably broken. Much of what's going on, regarding trying to establish authority on the Internet, is going on purportedly to solve problems that I don't see any evidence of.