From: modemac@netcom.com (Modemac)
[ Article crossposted from alt.religion.scientology ]
[ Article crossposted from misc.activism.progressive ]
[ Author was Jason Wehling ]
[ Posted on 28 Mar 1995 22:40:57 GMT ]
Since the so-called Republican victory in the last U.S. election, the
political Left has been sent reeling. In many places including the major
media, we have been told that this victory spells a new revolution, a
revolution for the Right. Regardless of the truth of this, many have felt
that their activist work has been for not and that it has been largely
ineffectual. Interestingly a Rand corporation researcher, David Ronfeldt,
argues that contrary to the impotence felt by many social activists, they
have become an important and powerful force fueled by the advent of the
information revolution. Through computer and communication networks,
especially via the world-wide Internet, grassroots campaigns have
flourished, and the most importantly, government elites have taken notice.
Ronfeldt specializes in issues of national security, especially in the
areas of Latin American and the impact of new informational technologies.
Ronfeldt and another colleague coined the term "netwar" a couple years
ago in a Rand document entitled "Cyberwar is Coming!". "Netwars" are
actions by autonomous groups -- in the context of this article,
especially advocacy groups and social movements -- that use informational
networks to coordinate action to influence, change or fight government
policy.
Ronfeldt's work became a flurry of discussion on the Internet in
mid-March when Pacific News Service correspondent Joel Simon wrote an
article about Ronfeldt's opinions on the influence of netwars on the
political situation in Mexico. According to Simon, Ronfeldt holds that
the work of social activists on the Internet has had a large influence --
helping to coordinate the large demonstrations in Mexico City in support
of the Zapatistas and the proliferation of EZLN communiques across the
world via computer networks. These actions, Ronfeldt argues, have allowed
a network of groups that oppose the PRI to muster an international
response, often within hours of actions by Zedillo's government. In
effect, this has forced the Mexican government to maintain the facade of
negotiations with the EZLN and has on many occasions, actually stopped
the army from just going in to Chiapas and brutally massacring the
Zapatistas.
Ronfeldt's position has many implications. First, Ronfeldt is not
independent researcher. He is an employee of the notorious Rand
corporation. Rand is, and has been since it's creation in 1948, a private
appendage of the military industrial complex. Paul Dickson, author of the
book "Think Tanks", described Rand as the "first military think tank...
undoubtedly the most powerful research organization associated with the
American military." The famous "Pentagon Papers" that where leaked to the
press in June of 1971 that detailed the horrible U.S. involvement in
Vietnam was produced by Rand.
Ronfeldt himself has authored many research papers for Rand, but his ties
to the military don't end there. Ronfeldt has also written papers
directly for the U.S. military on Military Communication and more
interestingly, for the Central Intelligence Agency on leadership
analysis. No, Ronfeldt's opinions were not written for aiding activists.
It is obvious that the U.S. government and it's military and intelligence
wings are very interested in what the Left is doing on the Internet.
Netwars: the Dissolution of Hierarchy and the Emergence of Networks
Ronfeldt argues that "the information revolution... disrupts and erodes
the hierarchies around which institutions are normally designed. It
diffuses and redistributes power, often to the benefit of what may be
considered weaker, smaller actors". Continuing, "multi-organizational
networks consist of (often small) organizations or parts of institutions
that have linked together to act jointly... making it possible for
diverse, dispersed actors to communicate, consult, coordinate, and
operate together across greater distances, and on the basis of more and
better information than ever."
Ronfeldt emphasizes that "some of the heaviest users of the new
communications networks and technologies are progressive, center-left,
and social activists... [which work on] human rights, peace,
environmental, consumer, labor, immigration, racial and gender-based
issues." In other words, social activists are on the cutting edge of the
new and powerful "network" system of organizing.
All governments, especially the U.S. government, have been extremely
antagonistic to this idea of effective use of information, especially
from the political Left. This position is best stated by Samuel
Huntington, Harvard Political Science professor and author of the U.S.
section of the Trilateral Commission's book-length study, "The Crisis of
Democracy". Basically writing in reaction to the mobilization of people
normally isolated from the political process in the 1960s, Huntington
argued in 1975 that "some of the problems of governance in the United
States today stem from an excess of democracy... Needed, instead, is a
greater degree of moderation of democracy."
Continuing, Huntington blatantly maintained that "the effective operation
of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy
and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups... this
marginality on the part of some groups is inherently undemocratic but it
is also one of the factors which has enabled democracy to function
effectively." In other words, major U.S. policy makers feel democracies
are acceptable if they are limited and not very democratic.
To stop this increase in public participation, this "excess of
democracy", Huntington argued that limits should exist on the media.
"There is also the need to assure government the right to withhold
information at the source... Journalists should develop their own
standards of professionalism and create mechanisms, such as press
councils, for enforcing these standards on themselves. The alternative
could well be regulation by government." Obviously the government is
interested in the control of information. If private institutions like
the major media need regulation, be it self-regulation or directed by the
government, the idea of free, uncontrolled flow of information on the
Internet must mean that a new "crisis of democracy" has re-emerged in the
eyes of the government elites.
To fight this, Ronfeldt maintains that the lesson is clear: "institutions
can be defeated by networks, and it may take networks to counter
networks." He argues that if the U.S. government and/or military is to
fight this ideological war properly with the intend of winning -- and he
does specifically mention ideology -- it must completely reorganize
itself, scrapping hierarchical organization for a more autonomous and
decentralized system: a network. In this way, he states, "we expect
that... netwar may be uniquely suited to fighting non-state actors".
Ronfeldt's research and opinion should be flattering for the political
Left. He is basically arguing that the efforts of activists on computers
not only has been very effective or at least has the potential, but more
importantly, argues that the only way to counter this work is to follow
the lead of social activists. Ronfeldt emphasized in a personal
correspondence that the "information revolution is also strengthening
civil-society actors in many positive ways, and moreover that netwar is
not necessarily a 'bad' thing that necessarily is a 'threat' to U.S. or
other interests. It depends." At the same time, the Left should
understand the important implications of Ronfeldt's work: government
elites are not only watching these actions (big surprise), but are also
attempting to work against them.
The Attack Has Already Begun
The U.S. government's antagonism to political activism is not new. During
the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began
what is now known as COINTELPRO, or Counter Intelligence Programs. These
programs sought to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise
neutralize" various political groups, such as the Black Panthers, AIM,
ecological, anti-war, and women's rights groups. Many feel that these FBI
activists have not stopped, pointing to the disruption and harassment of
CISPES and Earth First! in the mid- to late-1980s.
Because of the very nature of the Internet and these growing
communication networks, the issues are inherently international and
transcend traditional national boundaries. For these reasons it is
important to watch for attacks on these networks wherever they occur. And
occur they have. Since the beginning of this year, a number of computer
networks, so far confined to Europe, have been attacked or completely
shut down.
In Italy on February 28, members of the Carabinieri Anti-Crime Special
Operations Group raided the homes of a number of activists -- many active
in the anarchist movement. They confiscated journals, magazines,
pamphlets, diaries, and video tapes. They also took their personal
computers, one of which hosted "BITS Against the Empire", a node of
Cybernet and Fidonet networks. The warrant ridiculously charged them for
"association with intent to subvert the democratic order", carrying a
penalty of 7 to 15 years imprisonment for a conviction.
In the United Kingdom, a number of computer networks have recently been
attacked. The Terminal Boredom bulletin board system (BBS) in Scotland
was shutdown by police after the arrest of a hacker who was affiliated
with the BBS. Spunk Press, the largest anarchist archive of published
material cataloged on computer networks, also of the UK, has faced a
media barrage which has falsely accused them of working with known
terrorists like the Red Army Faction of Germany, of providing recipes for
making bombs and of coordinating the "disruption of schools, looting of
shops and attacks on multinational firms." Articles by the computer trade
magazine, Computing, and even the Sunday London Times, entitled
"Anarchism Runs Riot on the Superhighway" and "Anarchists Use Computer
Highway For Subversion" respectively, nearly lead the organizer of Spunk
Press to loose his job after the firm he works for received bad
publicity. He has asked that his name not be mentioned. According to the
book "Turning up the Heat: MI5 after that cold war" by Lara O'Hara, one
of the journalists who wrote the Sunday Times article has contacts with
MI5, the British equivalent of the FBI.
It is not coincidence that this attack has started first against
anarchists and libertarian-socialists. They are currently one of the most
organized political grouping on the Internet. Even Simon Hill, editor of
Computing magazine, admits that "we have been amazed at the level of
organization of these... groups who have appeared on the Internet in a
short amount of time". According to Ronfeldt's thesis, this makes perfect
sense. Who best can exploit a system that "erodes hierarchy" and requires
the coordination of decentralized, autonomous groups in cooperative
actions than anarchists and libertarian-socialists?
These attacks may not be confined to anarchists for long. Here in the
U.S., a number of bills are before Congress that would affect a large
number of political views. One is S390 (and HR896), which aims to change
the FBI charter so that it can investigate political groups. It has
bipartisan support from Senator Biden (D-DE) to Senator Specter (R-PA).
This bill would effectively legalize COINTELPRO operations against
political freedom.
But even more sinister as far a computer networks are concerned, is S314.
This bill, introduced by Senators Exon (D-NE) and Gorton (R-WA), would
prohibit not only individual speech that is "obscene, lewd, lascivious,
filthy, or indecent", but would prohibit any provider of
telecommunications service (such as an Internet provider) from carrying
such traffic, under threat of stiff penalties: $100,000 or two years in
prison. According to the Center for Democracy and Technology, "the bill
would compel service providers to chose between severely restricting the
activities of their subscribers or completely shutting down their Email,
Internet access and conferencing services under the threat of criminal
liability." In other words, one option before the government is to just
close down the Internet.
The government is not the only institution to notice the power of the
Internet in the hands of activists. The Washington Post ("Mexican Rebels
Using a High-Tech Weapon; Internet Helps Rally Support", by Tod
Robberson), Newsweek ("When Words are the Best Weapon: How the Rebels Use
the Internet and Satellite TV", by Russell Watson) and even CNN (Sunday,
February 26) have done stories about the importance of the Internet and
network communication organization with respect to the Zapatistas.
It is important to point out that the mainstream media isn't interested
in the information that circulates across the Internet. No, they are
interested in sensationalizing the activity, even demonizing it. They
correctly see that the "rebels" possess an incredibly powerful tool, but
the media doesn't report on what they either are missing or omitting.
Netwars Are Effective
A good example of this powerful tool is the incredible speed and range at
which information travels the Internet about events concerning Mexico and
the Zapatistas. When Alexander Cockburn wrote an article exposing a Chase
Manhattan Bank memo about Chiapas and the Zapatistas in Counterpunch,
only a small number of people read it because it is only a newsletter
with a limited readership. The memo, written by Riordan Roett, was very
important because it argued that "the [Mexican] government will need to
eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the
national territory and of security policy". In other words, if the
Mexican government wants investment from Chase, it will have to crush the
Zapatistas. This information was relatively ineffective when just
confined to print. But when it was uploaded to the Internet (via a large
number of List-servers and the USENET), it suddenly reached a very large
number of people. These people in turn coordinated a protest against the
U.S and Mexican governments and especially Chase Manhattan. Chase was
eventually forced to attempt to distance itself from the Roett memo that
it commissioned.
Anarchists and the Zapatistas is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Currently there are a myriad of social activist campaigns on the
Internet. From local issues like the anti-Proposition 187 movement in
California to a progressive college network campaign against the
Republican "Contract [on] America," the network system of activism is not
only working -- and working well as Ronfeldt admits -- but is growing. It
is growing rapidly in numbers of people involved and growing in political
and social effectiveness. There are many parallels between the current
situation in Chiapas and the drawn out civil war in Guatemala, yet the
Guatemalan military has been able to nearly kill without impunity while
the Mexican military received a coordinated, international attack
literally hours after they mobilize their troops. The reason is netwars
are effective as Ronfeldt concedes, and when they are used they have been
very influential.
What Are Their Options?
According to Ronfeldt's thesis, extreme measures such a S314 will not be
the answer to the problems of governance elites, especially people like
Huntington, foresee. Certainly the government sees this free information
network as an annoying problem and will likely work to change the current
trends. Actually destroying the Internet is not likely for a number of
reasons. The opposition to such an undertaking would be too great.
A glimpse at the problem emerged when the government attempted last year
to introduce the now infamous "Clipper Chip." This chip was to become the
standard encryption for the U.S. The interesting part of the plan was
that, while individuals, groups and corporations could send information
across networks without fear of unwanted eyes peering into their
documents, the government "Clipper Chip" would have a "backdoor" for
intelligence agencies like the FBI. In other words, it was safe to all
except the government, which would be able to read any message it wanted
to. The Clinton administration had little support, aside from the FBI,
CIA, National Security Agency (NSA) and AT&T, who was contracted to
manufacture the chip. The opposition included a wide variety of the
political spectrum from the far-Left to the far-Right. Apparently the
Clinton administration didn't like the odds and proposed that the Clipper
Chip would be a standard within the government only.
According to Ronfeldt's thesis, the idea of dismantling the Internet is
not even an option. The Internet and "netwars" are here to stay,
maintains Ronfeldt. The trick is to be better at it than groups the U.S.
government opposes. As has been stated above, that means creating
government networks that can be more effective than those networks that
have been created and maintained by social activists. Of course, this has
inherent problems of its own. How will U.S. military leaders react when
they hear that the military must "erode" it's system of hierarchy to
evolve into a decentralized and autonomous network of smaller parts?
Certainly there is a paradox in Ronfeldt's arguments.
Much more likely, at least for the time being is Huntington's notion of
regulation of information. Currently, the question of how laws should be
applied to the Internet and other computer networks is vague and
undefined. It could fall into one of three related areas. First is print
media, which is largely protected by the First amendment. Second is
common carriers, such as the telephone and the U.S postal system -- they
are governed by principles of "universal service" and "fair access."
Lastly is broadcasting, which is highly regulated, primarily by the FCC.
One scenario is that the Internet would be subjected to FCC regulation.
This might solve the problem voiced by Huntington -- where the government
could create barriers and/or limit the free flow of information to better
suit it's wishes. Obviously for social activists, a much better scenario
is that the Internet, as well as all other computer networks, would be
placed in the category of "common carriers," where universal access is
assured.
This placement has yet to be resolved, but the battle lines are already
being drawn. Under the guise of saving children from pedophiles, there is
now a media campaign that pushes for regulation against pornography and
other "obscenity" on the Internet. Last year, Carnegie-Mellon University
attempted to restrict campus users from assess to X-rated photographs on
the Internet. Of course if this comes to pass this would be just the
beginning -- the placement into the category of FCC regulation would be
complete. On the other side is a large number of civil rights
organizations like the ACLU and the Electronic Freedom Foundation who
argue for the "common carrier" approach.
Another scenario is control, not via the government, but from private
industry. Many people use the "highway" or "superhighway" analogy when
describing the Internet. But a new analogy has emerged: the railroad or
"super-railroad" if you will. Each one has very important connotations:
the highway is public, the railroad is private. The problem springs from
the growing pains that the Internet is currently experiencing. It is
growing a very rapid pace. So rapid that the "backbone" of the Net, the
high-speed data transmission line over which information travels is
becoming out dated.
One proposal from ANS, a joint venture between IBM and MCI is to
privatize the Internet "backbone," thus creating "toll-roads" for the
Internet. In other words, they lay the new cables, they own them and
users will have to "pay as they go." Currently the Internet works on
cooperation between the computers (nodes) that make-up the Internet. As
information travels from here to there, all the computers inbetween
cooperate by allowing and helping the information pass through to its
destination. With a "pay as you go" system, the cost of communication
would rise and would effectively limit the ability for social activists
and many other groups from participating in these "netwars."
This may be the long term solution, paralleling the fate of last
century's new form of popular communication, the newspaper. Faced with
the same problem, a cheap and accessable medium for expressing ideas
available to the general population, the inital response was to enforce
laws limiting its use (eg censorship laws). However, coercion is an
ineffective means of social control and was soon abandoned in the face of
better forces, forces implicit in the devlopment of any commodity under
capitalism, namely the concentration of capital required to produce that
commodity for a profit.
As capital costs increased, the laws were revoked as market forces
ensured that only those with access to vast amounts of money could start
even a weekly newspaper. In addition, the need for advertising to run a
paper ensured big business control over its content. Hence, for example,
we could see mainstream journals having free access web sites on the
Internet (funded entirely by advertising) while dissident publications
(who do not desire advertising nor the control of editoral decisions this
implies) will have to charge in order for their web sites to exist and
pay their way.
Under these conditions, a "pay as you go" backbone, sites and
publications subsidised by advertising and high initial capital costs,
the need for laws to control the information super highway are limited.
This, however, is still some way into the future. At present, this option
is not available.
What Might We Do?
It is clear that Rand, and possibly other wings of the establishment, are
not only interested in what activists are doing on the Internet, but they
think it is working. It is also clear that they are studying our
activities and analyzing our potential power. We should do the same, but
obviously not from the perspective of inhibiting our work, but the
opposite: how to further facilitate it.
Also, we should turn the tables as it were. They are studying our
behavior and actions -- we should study theirs. As was outlined above, we
should analyze their movements and attempt to anticipate attacks as much
as possible.
As Ronfeldt argues repeatedly, the potential is there for us to be more
effective. Information is getting out as is abundantly clear. But we can
do better than just a coordination of raw information, which has been the
majority of the "networking" so far on the Internet. To improve on the
work that is being done, we should attempt to provide more -- especially
in the area of indepth analysis. Not just what we are doing and what the
establishment is doing, but more to the point, we should attempt to
coordinate the dissemination of solid analysis of important events. In
this way members of the activist network will not only have the advantage
of up-to-date information of events, but also a good background analysis
of what each event means, politically, socially and/or economically as
the case may be.
The Flower as a Gift of Thanks
In a recent communique from the Zapatistas, written on March 17th,
Subcommandante Marcos reiterated the importance of this network
coordination. It is obvious from his words that these networks are making
a real difference. He said, "and we learned that there were marches and
songs and movies and other things that were not war in Chiapas, which is
the part of Mexico where we live and die. And we learned that these
things happened, and that "NO TO WAR!" was said in Spain and in France
and in Italy and in Germany and in Russia and in England and in Japan and
in Korea and in Canada and in the United States and in Argentina and in
Uruguay and in Chile and in Venezuela and in Brazil and in other parts
where it wasn't said but it was thought. And so we saw that there are
good people in many parts of the world..."
Marcos obviously was touched by the fact that people have labored all
over the world for the Zapatista cause. So he closed the communique with
a personal thank you: "And we want to say to you, to everyone, thank you.
And that if we had a flower we would give it to you... and when they are
old, then they can talk with the children and young people of their
country that, 'I struggled for Mexico at the end of the 20th century, and
from over here I was there with them and I only know that they wanted
what all human beings want, for it is not to be forgotten that they are
human beings and for it to be remembered what democracy, liberty and
justice are, and I did not know their faces but I did know their hearts
and it was the same as ours'... Goodbye. Health and a promised flower: a
green stem, a white flower, red leaves, and don't worry about the
serpent, this that flaps its wings is an eagle which is in charge of it,
you will see..."
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Article reprintable with permission of the author.
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"The great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise!"
-- Max Stirner
"Not whether we accomplish anarchism today tomorrow or within ten
centuries, but that we walk towards anarchism today tomorrow and always."
-- Errico Malatesta
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Wehling
<jason@ee.pdx.edu>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
= Daniel Davidson =
davidson@sfsu.edu
When seeing someone lying unconscious on a city street,
it is considered appropriate to continue walking,
essentially unaffected.
--
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