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Interview: Ask the Internet Political Activists
Jonah Seiger and Shabbir Safdar own Mindshare Internet Campaigns, a Washington DC consulting firm that specializes in online political campaigning. Jonah and Shabbir are geeks who originally got into political activism by working to defeat political attempts to muzzle free expression on the Internet. Now they've turned pro -- very successfully -- but they're still avid Slashdot readers, and they're happy to answer questions about how the Internet is gaining acceptance as a political tool, and how you can use it to further your favorite cause or candidate. Please post your questions as comments below. Slashdot moderators and assorted dancing hamsters will pick 10 or 12 of them to forward. Answers will be posted Friday.
It's clear that the net provides a vast, new forum for the dissemination and debate of political ideas. It's also clear that netizens are aware and vocal regarding political issues.
However, it also seems that the net opinions are routinely ignored by politicians. There are some success stories, such as the defeat of CDA and the spy-on-your-customers proposals. But more typically, we hear that email to politicians is considered chaff and earns form replies. Or that netizens' demands are unheard as corporations dictate policy.
So for all we hear about net activism and democracy, what _is_ the connection between Internet politics and the political system? What are the mechanisms by which we make ourselves heard? Which ones work now, and what should we be doing to create effective channels in the future?
Strong crypto? Internet casinos? Child pornagraphy? Sale of perscription drugs over the net? Gun sales over the 'net? Piracy (software, movies, music, pictures, etc.)? All of these items are LEGAL somewhere on the planet. The 'net, though, brings totally counter and conflicting laws and idealogoes together in the same place in a way that's never been done before. And isolationism and treating the whole 'net as within your borders in making up laws to deal with these issues is not acceptable. Tolerance and a hands-off approach to the 'net in the EXTREME is called for and a realization that no-one has a monopoly of definitions for the terms "right" and "wrong" across the planet.
Right now Bill Bradley winning the Democratic nomination is the only hope I can see of getting an at least somewhat sane/competent candidate elected.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm not so sure about that. If I understand correctly, canada gets most of its internet connectivity through American backbone providers (mainly MCI and AT&T). Most (all?) of the North AmericaEurope backbones are also run by American companies. If these all died, the rest of the world would have some big problems. Europe could still communicate within itself, and possibly to Australia and Asia, but that's about it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Sure, this isn't true now, but it could have worked out that way. The Internet was entirely 100% US-only at one point, so when the first Europeans hooked up (basically, getting their bandwidth from the Americans who ran the backbones), the US could have forced them to abide by the Terms of Service in order to get that feed. Fortunately, they agreed on a peer-to-peer network hierarchy instead.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
IMHO, some very big questions are "how do we detect further abuses of this kind", and "what should be done, once they are detected."
We can't just leave it to the European Union's techs and politicians in Australia to blow the whistle. And once the whistle IS blown, it's criminal to simply allow the abuse to continue. However, with a program of this kind, how can anyone know if anything changes? We're not likely to be told, and I don't see public accounts being set up on their ultra-secret machines.
Whilst it remains possible for Governments to run programs such as Echelon, cryptography is useless. You can regard the message as being essentially open. Privacy is a joke, with anything you send being readable and loggable.
IMHO, if political activists cannot convince politicians to set up an effective watchdog, with teeth, to prevent intelligence services from indulging in industrial espionage and unlawfully spying on private citizens, nothing else you can ever hope to gain will have any value or meaning.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I would imagine the problems we have with the conflicting and silly laws we have is the low voter turnout and research on a bill's viability is based on polls. Statistics, not for love of the country.
So, my question is, if better than 95% of eligible voters had their voice punched on the ballot, would it be the end all of obscure laws, mudslinging, and corruption? Eligible voters should be based on age only (18) and nothing else. Having a disagreement with the law and getting a felony, etc, should be no excuse for silence. I feel it is everyone's duty to participate. Is this unreasonable?
Question: How does one organize a group of people entirely online? I have seen several attempts at getting a movement off the ground - setting up a listserv, website, discussing the issues.. but that's usually all the farther it goes, and then the whole thing sinks.
What's the best way to get in touch with people and get something off the ground?
--
Al Gore offends Open Source fans by mocking the concept on his campaign web page. He offends internet users by claiming that he invented the internet.
On the other hand, G.W. Bush offends free thinkers by announcing that he wants religous organizations to take a larger part in government programs, and might directly tax dollars to those programs.
What is the best way to let these candidates know that their current positions are counter-productive? I want someone to say clearly that they will increase NASA's budget over the next 4 years.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Where does your organization stand on the usage of technologies to block websites in schools and libraries? What opposition have you run into (and from whom) trying to advocate your solution?
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
it says heroine - not heroin. Two different words with different meanings, I think. ;-)
If the US government decided to take their ball and go home, that would be stupid, but we built it - we make the rules.
Umm, and what would that prove, exactly?
There would be a big, gaping, hole in the internet that the other backbone providers would simply route around (it might create some chaos for a few weeks, until everything settled.)
Likewise, DNS is not a (persistant) issue, my TLD is ca. It's pretty simple to point to different root servers.
"address assignment" is a joke - sounds like you're implying that my IP address would become invalid.
The genie is out of the bottle; there's nothing now that can be done about it. "Taking your ball and going home" would do nothing except piss off the few americans who actually have a brain.
Just as the Internet allows for a new level of free communication, it also allows a new level of disinformation to be spread. Can you remark on what safeguards we might have or expect to have to filter the purposefully misleading information out of Internet campaigns?
---- "When I grow up, I'll know far less"
I would like to know if they, while up there rubbing elbows with the powerful and incompetent, have gotten some sort of feeling for where the rabid Crypto-phobia of Washington is stemming from?
Certainly, most free thinkers of the world recognize the importance of free and strong crypto in the information society, yet in Washington, which as I understand and hope is still a collection of moderately intelligent and educated people, it seems no one supports the issue. Even our friends (SAFE etc) are just less destructive enemies.
Is it, as many like to believe, the NSA and the rest of the Intelligence community still running the show like puppet masters with absolutely no resistance, or is there in Washington a deep, pessimistic belief that freedom must truly be fought with all means possible because we the lesser people of the earth cannot handle it?
While not everyone on the net shares a common political philosophy, there are some very common tendencies, such a strong libertarian undercurrent. Do you guys think the net could be used as an important tool in bringing together freedom-loving people to form a third party to represent the interests of liberty that so often get stepped on by the two major political parties in the USA? And could such a party have a chance of winning a significant number of elections, unlike (apparently) other third parties such as the lamented Libertarian Party?
-- $SIGNATURE
Now it seems that the federal government is trying to censor such discussion. For example, we have the "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999", which would criminalize many discussions of drug policy.
I believe that you can't have a meaningful discussion on, for instance, the sentancing guidelines for possession of crack vs. powder cocaine without an understanding of how crack is made. Thus, my drug policy site has such information.
Trying to censor "dirty" bits is bad enough, but to censor political discussion is utterly abhorant. Political censorship is a life-and-death issue - people will fight, kill, and die for free speech. What, short of bullets, is it going to take to stop the cybercensors? (Or should I just go buy more bullets while I still can?)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
1. New models of politics
What do they think about using the Net to spawn new types of democratic politics, e.g. the ability to vote on individual issues bypassing traditional representatives. Maybe only allowing people to vote if they have already contributed something to the debate on the topic?
2. Advocacy
There is strong advocacy within the geek population as epitomised by the Linux Advocacy
How To, ways of increasing debate, and providing good quality information rather than FUD, therefore increasing everyones understanding of the situation rather than polarising arguements and ending up in irrational finger pointing. Do you think this ethos can be translated to the world of politics, and what effect do you think it might have?
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
What is your organization doing about various congressional legislation that is attempting to legislate away our pricacy. Specifically regarding the plan to make all encryption software makers include a backdoor key that the FBI would hold in escrow to monitor criminals and the plan to "standardize" network communications so that the FBI/CIA/NSA can monitor "traffic patterns" that could suggest a "cyber-attack"? These are, in my opinion, the biggest threat to personal privacy ever.
Some people take their .sig way too seriously
Arguably, the Internet can be used as a tool for the dissemination of propaganda -- including outright lies. This is at least partly due to
* The availability of free Web hosting.
* The difficulty of confirming the identity and credentials of 'net publishers/speakers.
* The occasional strange credulity of people...
An organized effort by any reasonably large group, be it a fringe, partisan group of people out to "get" somebody; or an activist group that does not bother with checking its "facts" can rapidly evangelize a cause with nonsense -- such as blatantly questionable statistics, out-of-context quotes, and so forth.
Is there any reason that the people *should* view the 'Net as a medium for information and activism, given all this? That is, why -- and how -- should people write or listen?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
For over a year, we have been told to either vote for Bush or Gore in 2000. The mainstream media does not let anyone else get air time.
How can you bypass the networks and use the internet to publicize a candidate that actually has a brain and a flying chance in hell of getting elected?
Hey, leave comments about my mother out of this!