A Charter of Information Rights

"...Along with citizen activism, we need legal guarantees and protections for a new set of human rights, which are essential in an IT-dominated society. Only when citizens have obtained these rights will they be able to regain control over public information resources." — D. Gutstein

The Five Information Rights

1. Right to privacy
   

   As individuals we reserve the right to privacy, to retain the right to keep private our personal information so that such rights may not be abused by the State or by corporate interests.
   
   

2. Right of access to information
   

   We reserve the right of access to information, both private (of a personal nature) and public. This being a democratic freedom, such access to public information should not be limited by protective software in such a way as to infringe on right of access to information. As for private information, this right does not include infringing on the privacy of other people but refers to the right for each individual to access his or her personal information. Furthermore, if a source of information does not specifically violate the rights of children as provided by the UN declarations, then each individual reserves the right to strike that source from the ban list, and the right to be allowed to control the editing of any such list.
   
   

3. Right of access to information services and advice
   

   We reserve the right of access to information services and advice in such a way as to not be impeded by restrictions related to business-to-end-user transactions. Private transactions between information providers and individuals should not result in any restrictions on right of access to information services and advice through filtering of information.
   
   

4. Right to benefit from intellectual and artistic works
   

   We reserve the right to benefit from intellectual and artistic works. This implies that any means of database collection services implemented by commercial interests should not restrict this right in any manner, and royalties collected by owners of such databases should be shared with original authors of intellectual and artistic works who legally own rights to those works. Furthermore an author's legal rights should always predominate over corporate legal rights. This right should void corporate copyrights over their database, and encourage negotations between authors and commercial interests for fair market value of intellectual and artistic works authored by individuals.
   
   

5. Right to communicate
   

   The right to communicate should not be infringed upon by any law, both common and criminal. This means that corporations cannot ban individuals from criticizing business practices through establishment of mailing lists and web sites used expressly for this purpose. As well, neither corporate nor public information providers may use protective software to infringe upon this right. If a source of information does not specifically violate the rights of children as provided by UN declarations, then each individual reserves the right to strike that source from the ban list, and the right to be allowed to control the editing of any such list.

---

Source: D. Gutstein, e.con: How the Internet Undermines Democracy;
Chapter 9: Reclaiming Public Information, pp. 283-290