It was 10 years ago today that the Supreme Court officially recognized the Internet as a unique medium for democratic communication when it ruled that online speech was entitled to the highest protection possible under the First Amendment.

That CDT was able to play such a critical role in winning that decision remains one of our proudest moments. In the years since the high court found the Communications Decency Act to be unconstitutional, the landmark decision in the case of ACLU v. Reno has often been referred to as the Internet Bill of Rights.

What is beyond dispute is that that decision paved the way for 10 years of unprecedented innovation on the Internet. The blogosphere, social networking, online grassroots political organization — things we take for granted in 2007 — are built on the foundation of online free expression established in 1997. A decade ago, we believed that the Internet would evolve to become the most revolutionary communications medium since the printing press, creating a new world in which the “marketplace of ideas” promised by the First Amendment would become a tangible reality. Today, thanks in great part to that landmark ruling, we are living that vision.

This vision of the free and open Internet that we fought for is once again under strain from technological and regulatory forces in the United States and abroad. New questions will test the resolve of those who have defended the Internet since its advent as a mass medium.

Are we going to keep the Internet open; a network without gatekeepers; a network where many communicate with many on equal footing; or will we move toward a model where a fewer and fewer providers exert greater and greater control — in turn making this dynamic medium more restricted and subject to intrusive regulation?

Will international efforts to censor content create ripple effects that are felt throughout the Internet? Or will restrictive laws in developing nations lead to a balkanized Internet in which the global reach of the medium is severely undermined?

The good news is that the powerful coalition of public interest advocates, librarians, academics and high-tech industry leaders that have supported the free and open Internet remains resolute and committed to protecting the medium for future generations. For CDT’s part, we will continue to meet these challenges wherever they arise and look forward to many more decades of revolutionary growth.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 3:56 pm and is filed under CDT, Free Expression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.