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The manifesto's intellectually duplicitous cant is most evident in its complaints about data privacy. It lambastes the idea that "[p]rivate sector data collection practices must be scrutinized and tightly regulated in the name of 'protecting consumers,' at the same time as government's warrantless surveillance and collection of private citizens' Internet data has dramatically increased."
But those are two separate issues. Not only does this passage imply that private-sector invasions of privacy are okay while governmental intrusions are bad, it also makes "government" out to be a monolithic, tightly controlled entity that pursues its own interests for its own benefit. But there are lots of people throughout "government" who oppose either governmental or private data-collection practices, and often both. And most of the interest groups that protest corporate privacy intrusions are at least equally opposed to unconstitutional government surveillance.
The manifesto, like too many modern libertarian ideas, is founded on a delusion: that all players in a market are inherently equal, and if the government just stays out of the way, fairness will naturally ensue. This is demonstrably false, especially when it comes to the Internet, which by its nature is a "commons." For it to remain a commons, there must be some basic rules in place so that innovation and free and fair competition can take place. Government, imperfect though it is, is the closest thing we have to a disinterested arbiter. The "invisible hand" can't by itself ensure that control of the Internet won't fall into the hands of a self-interested oligopoly.
The document refers to the Internet as "the single greatest catalyst in history for individual liberty and free markets." That may well be true. But as must always be pointed out in these discussions: The Internet was invented by the government of the United States.
Dan Mitchell has written for Fortune, the New York Times, Slate, Wired, National Public Radio, the Chicago Tribune, and many others.
