John Perry Barlow: “The Death Throes of the Desert God”

John Perry Barlow’s career has spanned arts and activism as a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a digital freedoms proponent. Barlow joined the Grateful Dead as a lyricist in 1971 and was responsible for such hits as “The Music Never Stopped,” “Hell in a Bucket,” and “Throwing Stones.” In 1990, Barlow co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation with Mitch Kapor and John Gilmore. The EFF is committed to “defend[ing] civil liberties in the digital world and has successfully fought for free expression, user privacy, and innovation through historic court cases. Barlow captured the zeitgeist of this movement in his 1996 manifesto “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” In response to increasing censorship and growing concern for information leakers, Barlow has also helped found the Freedom of the Press Foundation with the likes of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, John Cusack, and Daniel Ellsberg. The organization is dedicated to defending public interest journalism and to this end has supported a variety of encryption tools for news outlets.