[jruohonen]

> I would say that your error appears to be in giving undue primacy to legal definitions over other kinds as holding some kind of authority.

While I have nothing against ethics as such, it is a reality that digital rights have been advanced only through jurisprudence. I am quite disappointed with technology ethics in particular: despite immense amount of research and advocacy within companies and across society, technology ethics have not achieved anything of practical value.

> It must be a bottom-up process of popular, consensual decision-making, as has been demonstrated in the past through mass political (dare I say populist) movements. There is no ethical way for a small group to impose such things on the populace without their input and control in that process.

That is a long characterization for a single word: democracy.