Why you should forget your lucky stars and thank Iceland.

tl;dr: On June 16th, 2010 Iceland’s parliament made history by unanimously passing the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. This government initiative, spearheaded by Wikileak’s editors Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt, will [hopefully] change the way we view freedom of information on the net.

Iceland: Population 320,000.

In September of 2008, the country experienced, per capita, the largest economic meltdown of any western society to date. Before this point, the country was rolling in it; some citizens were making up to 1 million dollars a month. During this surge in Iceland’s economy, the country made some shaky business decisions. Iceland ended up borrowing over 6 times what the country produced in a year, and ended up investing most of it in a little something from the United States called Mortgage-backed securities. (And we all know how that ended up). The downfall of the mortgage market cause Iceland’s economy to fall as well…and hard. Almost overnight, Iceland lost everything, and the Icelandic people began to demand answers.

On July 30th, 2009, Wikileaks released a 209-page document revealing shaky loans and shady insider trading of Iceland’s largest bank, Kaupthing. Kaupthing obviously didn’t like this kind of exposure, so soon after it’s release, the bank tried to hide it’s dirty laundry by filing for an injunction against Iceland’s national broadcaster, RÚV. The injunction was granted just prior to RÚV going on-air to cover the matter of the newly exposed documents on Wikileaks. Needless to say, the Icelandic people were not happy when Kaupthing, a publicly-owned entity, was trying to hide relevant information from its very owners: the public.

Frustrated and tired of their government making decisions for them, the people of Iceland decided to make a change in the transparency of information, and to prevent the recurrence of RÚV’s experience with Kaupthing. So, the founders of Wikileaks got together and wrote up a proposal. By using some of the strongest and most progressive legal language from countries such as Belgium, France and The United States, Assange and Schmitt created guidelines for which information and its messengers can be preserved and protected. And out of this desire, the Icelandic Modern Media Imitative was born. Respectfully known as IMMI (pronounced “emmy”), this initiative was passed unanimously in the Icelandic Parliament. The IMMI is the most progressive set of media laws in the world and will hopefully inspire other countries to take the same steps in protecting information and upholding transparency.