As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the National Press Club in which she stated, “New technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.”
With those words, the United States began a campaign to establish global Internet freedom based on our First Amendment. The intent was to ensure the greatest possible freedom for people all over the world to take full advantage of the enormous expressive and associational capabilities of the Internet. As laudable as that goal may be, it is also fundamentally unattainable. Given all that is stake for both human rights and the future of electronic communications, a more realistic approach to Internet freedom is needed — one that seeks global rules that can work across legal jurisdictions and borders.
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