Our borderless Internet

[Commentary] University of Kentucky law professor Andrew Keane Woods, in a recent New York Times op-ed, puts forth some unfortunate ideas about the proper response to what is becoming a serious problem in international law enforcement: the difficulty (or sometimes the virtual impossibility) that local law enforcement officials face when trying to obtain information that is relevant to an ongoing investigation but “located” in electronic form in another jurisdiction (e-mail messages, Facebook page contents, etc.).

The idea that those who describe the Internet as borderless are engaging in “pure fantasy” seems to be a way, these days, that commentators signal how hard-headed and realistic they are: “See, I’m not one of those starry-eyed cyber-utopians who still talk about the ‘borderless’ Internet.” It’s particularly infuriating in an article dealing with a problem caused by precisely the borderless nature of the Internet -- the fact that a business in Brazil, or a terrorist cell in Denmark, or a bank robber in Australia, or a social club in Singapore, can all store their communications information anywhere on the borderless Internet and yet still have instantaneous access to it. The very problem on which Woods is focused arises out of the conflict between the borderless Internet and the bordered world of international law. It’s a tough, tough problem to solve -- and it won’t help to deny the very things that are making it a problem.

[David G. Post is a Sr. Fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute. ]