The global Internet's awash with email lists, chats,
and online conferences for discussion of governance and what goes
with it: the politics of issues and of personalities, trad partisan
thrashes, visionary thrusts (e.g. Barlow's Declaration of Independence
for Cyberspace), theoretical rants and practical spins. But is
this all just talk talk talk? Or do we see action emerging from
this hash?
So far no distinct political FORCE or suite of positions
has emerged (unless you take seriously the dreamy anarchy of technolibertarians,
who thrash about many issues but always return to one, taxation-as-theft).
Though dedicated political activists increasingly use the Internet
to build organizations and share information, and a growing number
of orgs and individual users are finding ways to leverage net
access, net.activism has found success on a limited playing field,
where the issues are mainly Constitutional (First and Fourth Amendment
issues, censorship, search and siezure): issues that can be supported
as absolute values requiring no partisan wrangling. The movement,
as it stands today, is a RIGHTS movement, without regard to the
messier political questions of welfare and healthcare, environment,
defense, taxation, etc.
Contemporary politics has a forest-for-trees relationship
with technology; in fact, the politics of a postindustrial society
is itself a technology for organizing and managing those messy
piles of unique, increasingly opinionated individual products
of universal education and the global media wash. Though elsewhere
(third world) dictators, unrefined jerks, still rule with brute
force and terror, they're like relics, fading from the scene as
the postindustrial postmodern wash pumps through media pipes worldwide.
What happens when you funnel information into a culture
where force and coercion were the key determinants of power? Force
is an external, but information, education and democratization
work to internalize control, making the individual responsive
to sophisticated forms of communication (sign the social contract,
then read the daily updates). This is a reality of the cybernetic
world: "they put the control inside!" as a character
in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow says. Cybernetics is the
science of communication and control theory, and there's a clear
theoretical link between 'cyber' and 'polis' that predates the
age of 'a Pentium in every pot, a web in every Pentium.' Broadcast
media (a prototype cyberactive technology) changed the face of
politics in the era following WWII; during the war Hitler, Roosevelt,
and Churchill made especially effective use of radio as propaganda
tool, and the concept of 'news' was redefined by folks like Ed
Murrow and his 'boys.' What does news/propaganda/agitprop do but
pipe suggestive memes into the heads of individuals with the expectation
that the distribution of information will change the power equation
big time. The mob reads the handwriting on the virtual wall, and
opposes the dictator, whose machinations, once exposed, lose their
mojo.
Once you've flattened those hierarchies, though, propaganda mode can backfire as manipulation of information replaces brute force as the source of power. After WWII broadcasting and politics coevolved, producing today's carefully managed media circus that dilutes information with showbiz glitz and leaves a cynical populace and an ever-widening credibility gap. The average high school graduate has more facts and more cognitive skill than the best and brightest of a century ago, and broadcasting's morphed into narrowcasting and, with the Internet, many-to-many communications that defy control by propagandists. Those who get their information from the Internet have a vastly different (though not necessarily more accurate) picture of the world than those who read newspapers or watch television, or even those who listen to NPR everyday while driving to and from work.
Originally a defense network, then used to support
research and development, the Internet was no household word when
the first seeds of net.activism were planted in the late 1980s,
when a few adolescent "hackers" let their digital explorations
carry them to the point of intrusion, just to show that they could
do it. Once they'd hacked into a system, they would grab a 'trophy'
and show it to their friends and rivals, which meant emailing
it across various systems.
Just such an incident led to the creation of the
seminal online activist organization, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF). John Perry Barlow was a lyricist for the Grateful
Dead and regular participant in discussions on the WELL (Whole
Earth 'Lectronic Link), the BBS on which the concept of virtual
community was formed and tested. He had links to the hacker community
which led the FBI to question him about the theft of Apple Computer
proprietary software by the NuPrometheus League. It was clear
to Barlow that the FBI did not understand enough about the technology
of computer networks to distinguish prank intrusion for criminal
espionage, and this concerned him. Flash! Cyberspace is an electronic
frontier, unsettled, poorly understood by those who don't 'live'
there. When the powerful misunderstand, great harm can result.
Barlow talked this through with Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus
Development Corporation, and activist/entrepreneur John Gilmore,
and EFF was born from those talks. Initially misunderstood as
a "hacker defense fund," EFF grew through three major
iterations. First, as grassroots activist org, with Kapor and
then Cliff Figallo at the helm. (No time to explore the implications
here, but consider that Figallo, a communitarian from Stephen
Gaskin's farm, had been director of the WELL, a true fountainhead
of the virtual community concept, a conferencing system formed
originally by Steward Brand and the Whole Earth bunch, virtual
home of Bay Area deadheads, with whom Barlow, a lyricist for the
Grateful Dead, had clear affinity.) Grassroots EFF morphed as
a Washington, DC wing was added, with former ACLU activist Jerry
Berman at the helm; for a time EFF tried to accommodate two approaches
to activism, the grassroots model, from their Cambridge office,
and the Washington lobby model, from their D.C. office, with some
hope that the two could derive strength from each other. However
at a facilitated retreat in 1992, just before a meeting in Atlanta
with potential EFF chapters, the group decided to focus on lobbying,
legal work, and building industry coalitions. The organization
would drop the grassroots aspect of the organization and close
the Cambridge office.
The DC/Beltway version of EFF lasted until, in 1994,
financial and personnel problems, along with flak from the activist
community over support for compromise Digital Telephony legislation,
led to a split. Jerry Berman formed his own Center for Democracy
and Technology; EFF moved to the Bay Area and continues to work
effectively as an activist organization, considering a possible
return to grassroots development, but focusing primarily on development
of a Silicon Valley pro-user response on issues of privacy, access,
free expression, etc. This is market-oriented political activism:
convincing the Silicon Valley companies that their markets depend
on a free and open cyberspace.
From EFF's influence several influential cyberactivist
groups have emerged. "Electronic Frontiers" groups span
the globe: EFF-Austin, EF-Australia, EF-Canada, EF-Florida, EF-Georgia,
EF-Houston, EF-Ireland, EF-Italy, EF-Japan, EF-KIO (Kentucky,
Indiana, Idaho), EF-New Hampshire, EF-Norway, and EF-Spain, in
addition to CDT and its spinoff, CIEC (the Citizens' Internet
Empowerment Coalition), VTW (Voters Telecommunication Watch),
and New York's SEA (Society for Electronic Access), which was
originally named NTE for "Not the EFF."
Online activists focus on issues like censorship,
privacy, encryption, intellectual property, and universal net
access, i.e. issues associated with transmission and protection
of, and access to, information. Organizations and coalitions emerge
ad hoc from hot issues of the moment, though momentum's not always
sustained as issues lose their sense of urgency, e.g. activist
energies diminished after Steve Jackson won a decision against
the government, and after the Communications Decency Act was overturned
by a lower court in Philadelphia. However activists still don't
focus on the partisan model to build support. Rather than constructing
elaborate philosophies and platforms, cyberactivists build networks,
replacing belief systems with cycles of information and opinion.
Given the brief of the history of net.activism, it's
hard to draw conclusions about potential long-term efficacy and
feasibility of a broader appeal. Consider the barriers to entry,
not only for the activists themselves, but for their constituents.
Moving to the Internet with a sense of purpose requires a commitment
of money (for the technology) and time (for the learning curve
and ongoing maintenance of the information flow). "Netizens"
are inherently members of an elite group, well educated, with
discretionary money and discretionary time. Some have decent incomes,
others are students with decent potential incomes
but
it's not a large group, compared to traditional political parties.
Traditional politicians don't get the smell of cash from the Internet
just yet, and many of the issues of relevance to net activists
are considered fringe issues. Cyberactivists have yet to establish
focused and well-financed (i.e. "real") political clout,
and have been unable to influence legislative initiatives in major
ways.**
**But what we call 'technopolitics' or "net
activism" is not about politics as usual and not a short-term
blip on the radar of political evolution. A focus on core civil
liberties issues narrows the scope of netizen activity so that
consensus is possible among those with diverse political positions.
On the net.politics scene we see broad-based coalitions formed
ad hoc with minimal partisan wrangling and little reference to
any particular agenda other than constitutional integrity.**
When Senator Jim Exon and friends proposed a bill
to squelch 'indecent' speech on the Internet, opposition to the
bill was initially unfocused, but had the advantage of established
paths through electronic networks to spread the word, the warning,
of Exon's proposal. Activists thought the bill was dead 'til it
was glommed onto the Omnibus Telecommunications Act as a rider,
a political trick that called for quick response. Shabbir Safdar
and Steven Cherry of Voters Telecommunication Watch organized
an online campaign with just the focus and energy that urgent
issues demand. CDT and EFF joined in, too. They didn't succeed
in blocking passage of the CDA, but the thousands of phone calls
and letters to legislators that resulted from VTW's bulletins
led to some revisions, and psyched the ACLU and other opponents
of the bill, leading to a court challenge fought successfully
by a coalition of activists and civil liberties organizations.
The bill was overturned, but that decision's been appealed to
the U.S. Supreme Court. However, as Mike Godwin noted, the findings
of fact in the lower court decision, informed as it was by highly
effective opposition arguments (assembled with substantial online
support), make it difficult for the Supreme Court to reverse.
When VTW emailed bulletins to its email list, those
bulletins were retransmitted to others who again retransmitted
them, so that the CDA updates were reaching many thousands of
"netizens." A political force was building, ad hoc,
and the campaign was so successful that opposition to the CDA
seemed near universal among Internet users. If there were online
critics of VTW's campaign, they found fault only with the lack
of focus on other potential problems within the Omnibus Telecommunications
Act. However many opponents of the CDA found the OTA otherwise
acceptable if not desirable; VTW showed smarts in keeping the
message focused on the issue about which broad agreement was possible.
This ad hoc opposition to the CDA demonstrated the
potential of online organizations to build powerful organizations
around particular issues. This kind of networking's not new, but
computer mediated communications enhance the speed and effectiveness
of networking by factors of magnitude. There's a sense that decisions
could be made within global online communities so fast that legislatures
and executives will always lag, and will eventually be considered
archaic. It's the virtual equivalent of taking the power to the
streets, creating either more effective democracy (if you listen
to the angel on your right shoulder) or inchoate mob rule (if
you listen to the devil on your left shoulder).
Partisan politics reflects the government's hierarchical
structure: parties, like nations and states, have leaders, committees,
hierarchical bureaucratic structures, and set articles or principles
to which members of the party (or subscribers to the doctrine)
must adhere. Computer mediated chaos politics is way different:
there are no established parties, no hierarchical structures,
no established principles; groups form around particular issues,
but group members may agree with each other only about this one
issue.
This isn't new. Traditional politics emerges from
the same tendency to form constituencies around issues; partisan
politics hardwires these constituencies and holds them together
from election to election, hoping to have the winning numbers.
Participation in partisan politics is still limited; no party
has the numbers to win an election. Political parties build and
sustain power by playing to the 'great silent majorities' of the
world, appealing and winning votes on focused, carefully researched
issues, with more or less charismatic personalities fronting the
elections.
With computer mediated, relatively instantaneous
communications, you can toss this institutional approach. Netizens
respond in blocs to particular issues but are increasingly reluctant
to join parties or vote party lines. Technolibertarians particularly
share this mindset. Libertarian thinking is widespread in virtual
communities on the Internet, its proponents voluble in their opposition
to the complexity, intrusiveness, and evident inefficiency of
big government. Libertarians are at the edge of a movement to
dismantle government bureaucracies and decentralize governance
wherever possible. This resonates with the tendency to move away
from established, monolithic political parties. Even the big-L
Libertarian party has difficulty recruiting small-l libertarians.
Netizens, libertarians, and cyberactivists orgs are
not going to replace party politics in the near future, but given
the mood of cynicism and the growing opposition to large instituational
approaches to damn near anything, and you wonder whether this
is the handwriting on the wall.