Scaling the Virtual Tower of Babel

(as published by The Sedona Conference)

We appear to be in the midst of a sweeping of foundations that had been in place if not for a millennium then for several centuries. . . The increased access to media affects deterritorialization because one is no longer limited to the perspectives offered by one’s own home culture.”²

It is irrelevant where the electronic information is located or who, as among those entities . . . asserts ownership of the information.  It is both here and there.” ³

“The stakes will be rising.  We need to stimulate much better compliance (with the E.U. Privacy Directives). . . Privacy is becoming a more and more relevant issue [in the] digital environment.”⁴

These are not, despite all appearances to the contrary, updated excerpts from a conversation between Alice, the White Rabbit and the Red Queen. They are, respectively, statements by a law professor, a Canadian appellate judge and European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinix on the baffling intersections of traditional notions of law, privacy, culture and political boundaries in the age of digital information.

To read further, download the article.