With the present rate of technological development, it is easy to imagine at some point in the not-so-distant future a time when we communicate regularly with human beings who live, sell things, and commit crimes from outer space. Should that scenario become a reality, who will have jurisdiction over the universe? Can space without boundaries be divided into jurisdictional entities? Examining this plausible future we begin to understand the complexities involved with our modern reality of trying to censor and police the Internet and cyber space. To most people trying to regulate the Internet is as laughable as trying to regulate space itself. The regulation of the Internet is perplexing because its advent rendered obsolete the very geographical boundaries that traditional law uses as a basis for jurisdiction. The Internet has also crossed boundaries that traditional law enforcement jurisdiction views as off-limits without court orders or urgent probable cause…the inside of an individual’s home. Nonetheless, since its inception the threat of regulation and censorship has hung over the head of the Internet as much as any sword ever hung over Damocles. Like most censorship and regulation efforts, the strongest efforts to impose censorship and regulation on the Internet have come from those who stake out the moral high ground. The online content of the Internet has always been subject to the laws of the land, but any censorship or regulation that goes further than this fails to understand the Bill of Rights and the nature of the technology itself. The Internet is not an underground network of criminality, though it can be used as such. It is an extension of society and humanity that is transacted in a way that is different than anything in the past. Therefore, it would be a violation of the Bill of Rights to censor it or regulate it to any higher degree than the law of the land.
The Amendments to the Constitution, known ...