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Old Democracies Might Also Falter by prugovecki 02 August 2002 17:42 UTC |
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The NYTimes.com article entitled "U.N. Report Says New Democracies Falter" by Barbara Crosette has just been posted by alvi_saima@yahoo.com. However, the phenomenon is much more serious and widespread than this article suggests. In some previous postings I have written about the contemporary danger that the dystopian social model called FWF, described in my books "Memoirs of the Future" and "Dawn of the News Man", might ultimately prevail in the near future due to attempts on the side of large corporations and governments to restrict the freedom of the Internet, which might contribute to the emergence of a more genuine form of democracy in the advanced countries. This is basically also the theme of my essay "On Some Future Social Effects of the Communications Revolution" posted on Utopias Forum, that can be accessed at http://www.wfs.org/prugovecki2.htm. In the July 28, 2002 H-Teachpol review of Barry R. Rubin's book "A Citizen's Guide to Politics in America: How the System Works and how to Work the System", the reviewer Arthur L. Morin wrote: "Rubin believes that regular people can change how politics works. Technology - the power of the Internet, e-mail, listservs, and the capacity of computers to manipulate databases, for example - increases the individual's capacity to collect and disseminate information, contact public officials and others, and to organize." (http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-utopia&month=0207& week=d&msg=EifaM554QkZ8KHt9xhqz9Q&user=&pw=) Such developments, leading to participatory forms of democracy and to greater political freedoms in USA presuppose, however, the freedom of the Internet as a communications medium. On the other hand, certain corporate moves and legislation are already under consideration which can divert in the opposite direction this trend towards grassroots forms of democracy based on new communications technologies. The following web sites can be consulted about these subjects: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/09/20/2047211 http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0%2C1283%2C46671%2C00.html http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/article2.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html#AuthorsNote Here is a quote from the last of these web sites: "The right to read is a battle being fought today. Although it may take 50 years for our present way of life to fade into obscurity, most of the specific laws and practices described above have already been proposed; many have been enacted into law in the US and elsewhere. In the US, the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act established the legal basis to restrict the reading and lending of computerized books (and other data too). The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyright directive. "There is one exception: the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for personal computers, and not let you have them, has not been proposed. This is an extrapolation from the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, together with a long-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentee operators control over the people actually using the computer system. "But we are coming steadily closer to that point. In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass. "In 2001 the US began attempting to use the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty to impose the same rules on all the countries in the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA is one of the so-called "free trade" treaties, actually designed to give business increased power over democratic governments; imposing laws like the DMCA is typical of this spirit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation asks people to explain to the other governments why they should oppose this plan. "The SPA, which actually stands for Software Publisher's Association, has been replaced in this police-like role by the BSA or Busines Software Alliance. It is not, today, an official police force; unofficially, it acts like one. Using methods reminiscent of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it invites people to inform on their coworkers and friends. A BSA terror campaign in Argentina in 2001 made veiled threats that people sharing software would be raped in prison. "When this story was written, the SPA was threatening small Internet service providers, demanding they permit the SPA to monitor all users. Most ISPs surrender when threatened, because they cannot afford to fight back in court. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1 Oct 96, D3.) At least one ISP, Community ConneXion in Oakland CA, refused the demand and was actually sued. The SPA later dropped the suit, but obtained the DMCA which gave them the power they sought. "The university security policies described above are not imaginary. For example, a computer at one Chicago-area university prints this message when you log in (quotation marks are in the original): 'This system is for the use of authorized users only. Individuals using this computer system without authority or in the excess of their authority are subject to having all their activities on this system monitored and recorded by system personnel. In the course of monitoring individuals improperly using this system or in the course of system maintenance, the activities of authorized user may also be monitored. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring and is advised that if such monitoring reveals possible evidence of illegal activity or violation of University regulations system personnel may provide the evidence of such monitoring to University authorities and/or law enforcement officials.' This is an interesting approach to the Fourth Amendment: pressure most everyone to agree, in advance, to waive their rights under it." NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. Updated: $Date: 2002/07/29 21:47:12 $ $Author: brett $ I hope that all those reading these lines will take the time to look at the four web sites cited above. For if nothing is done, one day WSN and many other discussion groups like it will not be able to post the kind of articles they do at present, and any hope of genuine democracy in North America and elsewhere will become a distant memory. Eduard Prugovecki Professor Emeritus University of Toronto
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