*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://e-democracy.org/do *** *** *** *** Up to seven posts a week. To join over 2500 subscribers, *** *** e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, in message: sub do-wire ***
As you know I position DO-WIRE as a list about the use of technology in politics and government. I am essentially a technocommunitarian who sees effective and response government as an 85 percent good thing and I get steamed about the 15 percent of activities that I don't think make sense or are oppressive. On the 15 percent side, for example, I will defend my right to time shift video programming (i.e. Tivo) <http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54358,00.html> <http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/1825> <http://www.digitalconsumer.org/news.html> and consider any votes that would essentially make the VCRs of the future illegal a deal busters for my future vote ... no matter how much I don't like the alternative (remember, in the U.S. system system we often vote against someone and rarely think of ourselves as voting for someone we actually like). If you follow e-lists like Dave Farber's excellent IP list <http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/> and Declan McCullagh's Politech <http://www.politechbot.com/> technolibertarian list you get the sense that the divide between technologists (geeks, and long-time Internet leaders) and Congress, the Justice Department and any regulator or establish entertainment interest is the widest is has ever been. (See articles below.) My own sense is that the vanished illusion of code over law has shocked many libertarian techies to the core. For years they felt confident that good technology/code was destiny and it would change the rules. They were above politics. They would not have to come down to the level of Congress or any representative political institution. The hard truth is that we live in a representative system where techies and non-techy citizens have equal rights in the ballot box and the people we elect to represent us do matter. Congress is not a meritocracy and code has little virtue in a system where votes and campaign contributions are the currencies that sustain it. So what do you do? It is clear to me that it is time to "heard the cats" and sites like Digital Consumer <http://digitalconsumer.org> and Public Knowledge <http://publicknowledge.org> are addng to the efforts of EFF <http://eff.org>, CDT <http://cdt.org>, GLIC <http://gilc.org> and others. Declan is right to a point, up until now, most individually focused "geeks of the world unite" efforts have been not been effective. However, I disagree fundamentally that "head in the sand coding" approaches will rewrite the laws of politics this century or ensure in the short term my right to time shift the television programs that I watch. Measuring success in the political arena for technologists shouldn't be about winning, it may simply be keeping 80 percent of what you cherish now and not losing everything. Anything short of a pragmatic approach that connects digital issues (whatever this really means) to votes, donations, effective lobbying and campaign volunteers is out of touch with the reality of how things work. See the bottom two-thirds of this post for my pragmatic online advocacy advice for techies: http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@tc.umn.edu/msg00466.html As my wife sometimes says, "Bla Bla, Tele-Bla." I think that means I should get on with it and share the posts that inspired my comments. Steven Clift Democracies Online See: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/13/1721206.shtml?tid=167 From: http://news.com.com/2010-1071-949275.html?tag=politech Geeks in government: A good idea? By Declan McCullagh (Formerly Wired Digital, now with CNet) August 12, 2002, 4:00 AM PT WASHINGTON--There's a lot for a politically aware geek to be alarmed about nowadays. Big companies are wielding copyright threats to stifle legitimate security research. Hollywood is itching to hack your PC. Your privacy is vanishing as fast as Al Gore's 2004 presidential hopes. And the merry band of technophobes in Congress is just getting started. Too often, though, programmers, system administrators and other IT pros become understandably outraged by the latest attempts to restrict technology--and react by doing precisely the wrong thing. They set up irate Web sites, launch online petition drives and tell all their friends to write to their congressional representatives. Here's the bitter truth: These efforts are mostly a waste of time. Sure, they may make you feel better, but they're not the way to win. ... From: http://www.publicknowledge.org/news/media-responses.php August 13, 2002 Geeks in Government: A Good Idea? A Response to Declan McCullagh: Political Participation for Geeks is a Must The notion that cybergeeks should stay out of the political process and stick only to writing code is a misguided idea that could have damaging consequences. In the past, tech activists may not always have effectively organized or expressed their opinions, but now that our ability to use technology as we intended is under attack, there is no better time to change this. Writing code and taking political action are not logical opposites when it comes to protecting freedoms. You need one to do the other. For example, take the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The code that would allow someone to play a DVD on my GNU/Linux operating system already exists - but it is illegal under that law. Any code that gets written to do the same job is going to be illegal under the DMCA. Political action to repeal or amend the DMCA is the *only* route for geeks. No amount of good code can overcome harmful laws and bad policy. Public Knowledge Board Member Larry Lessig has made this abundantly clear. Code, law and the future health of programming must be compatible. Geeks are the best people to help lawmakers understand the impact of bad technology laws and policy. Declan is right in one sense - geeks sending a bunch of flaming emails to lawmakers is not going to work: that is one reason why Public Knowledge exists. We are organizing real and effective political participation that lawmakers can understand - sophisticated geek knowledge and understanding is a critical part of this process. Public Knowledge makes it easier to participate politically. The ten minutes it takes to sign up on our mailing list, make a donation, or participate in a campaign isn't going to mean you don't write a piece of amazing freedom-producing software. You can take political action and you can write code. Public Knowledge is taking on the task of turning geek activism into effective policy action. Here is how we propose to do it: *Over the next few months, we are going to launch technology to organize and consolidate grassroots activity on policy issues affecting copyright and technology. The idea here is to build a true grassroots movement on these issues. When real people in large numbers organize to make their voices heard, Congress listens - legislation regulating tobacco and campaign finance reform are just two examples where the American people have won over large corporate interests. *Public Knowledge will continue to work with and organize other important constituencies. We are already working with the libraries, educators, scientific researchers, artists, musicians, writers and representatives from the consumer electronics, retail and tech industries to strengthen our political clout. *Public Knowledge has hired a new Public Policy Director with over fourteen years of substantial legal and Hill experience related to technology. He will continue, and strengthen, Public Knowledge's day-to-day policy advocacy activity in the halls of Congress, in administrative agencies and in the press. sign up for our mailing list to receive notifications of our campaigns: http://www.publicknowledge.com/about-us/subscribe send a donation (tax-deductible) to: Public Knowledge 1875 Connecticut Ave. Suite 650 Washington, D.C. 20009 Declan's reply: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03902.html *** Past Messages, Discussion http://e-democracy.org/do *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. *** *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***
