Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace
"We, the Net People, in order to form a more perfect Transfer  Protocol..." might be recited in future fifth-grade history classes, says  attorney Lawrence Lessig. He turns the now-traditional view of the Internet as  an uncontrollable, organic entity on its head, and explores the architecture and  social systems that are changing every day and taming the frontier.Code and  Other Laws of Cyberspaceis his well-reasoned, undeniably cogent series of  arguments for guiding the still-evolving regulatory processes, to ensure that we  don't find ourselves stuck with a system that we find objectionable. As the  former Communist-bloc countries found, a constitution is still one of our best  guarantees against the dark side of chaos; and Lessig promotes a kind of  document that accepts the inevitable regulatory authority of both government and  commerce, while constraining them within values that we hold by consensus.Lessig holds that those who shriek the loudest at the thought of interference in  cyberdoings, especially at the hands of the government, are blind to the  ever-increasing regulation of the Net (admittedly, without badges or guns) by  businesses that find little opposition to their schemes from consumers,  competitors, or cops. The Internet will be regulated, he says, and our window of  opportunity to influence the design of those regulations narrows each day. How  will we make the decisions that the Framers of our paper-and-ink Constitution  couldn't foresee, much less resolve? Lessig proclaims that many of us will have  to wake up fast and get to work before we lose the chance to draft a networked  Bill of Rights.--Rob Lightner