Paper short abstract:

The data haven concept is troubled by extraterritorial power....

Paper long abstract:

In Iceland, information activists, inspired by visits with John Perry Barlow and Julian Assange, have come together under the organization, the International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), to put forth a body of legislation that would make Iceland the most secure location in the world for the preservation of data—a data haven.

These laws include source protection from Sweden, communication protection from Belgium, freedom of information law from Norway and Estonia, libel protection from New York state, and others best practices.

One important case exemplifies the difficulties of generating a data haven. The Silk Road server--containing a trove of incriminating information about the selling of drugs, arms, and other contraband--was housed in an Iceland data centre. In the course of a 2014 FBI investigation the Silk Road server was confiscated from the Icelandic data centre. The relative ease with which the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) acquired this server shows the faultlines in the data haven proposal.

Drawing on fieldwork in Iceland in 2015, this talk will focus on issues of data retention, data protection, and intermediary limited liability and the Silk Road server seizures. Theories of data territoriality and internet balkanization will be mobilized in a critique of the data haven concept. In summation I will propose what is needed for the emergence of a non-evil revolutionary information infrastructure.