After a night to sleep on this post, here's my take: >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.
"Wrong" is subjective. I think everyone does what they can do. If a busy, suburban parent of four who hacks in his spare time is pissed off enough about a techno-political issue to post his opinion to a weblog, webpage, or mailing list etc. then more power to him/her! Better then nothing, I say. > >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. Washington's political class is used to ignoring >frenzied yowls from far more organized and well-funded groups >than "geektivists" can hope to emulate anytime soon. These efforts are not necessarily only directed at politicians though, they're directed at anyone who will listen. Irate websites, onlines petitions etc. are the modern day example of the soap-box in the town square on which individuals can try to convert whoever will stop and listen to them. Similarly, with continued action comes better organization and hopefully, more funding. > >Take the widely reviled Digital Millennium Copyright Act >(DMCA). Even though Slashdotters have spent years buzzing >around in circles over DMCA lawsuits brought by the Justice >Department against Dmitry Sklyarov, and the big movie studios >against 2600 magazine, Congress simply doesn't care. They don't care.....yet! Be patient, Declan. > >Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., chairman of the House Judiciary >subcommittee on intellectual property, says the law is >"performing the way we hoped." No bill has been introduced in >Congress to rescind the DMCA for one simple reason: Official >Washington loves the law precisely as much as hackers and >programmers despise it. Some of Washington's most powerful >insiders even gathered in May to toast the DMCA with glasses >of champagne. So what. Just as many hacker/political types are raising their pints of beer to the emerging political geektivism movement. > >Things aren't getting better. The House of Representatives >voted 385-3 last month to approve life prison sentences for >malicious computer hackers. The Senate approved the USA >Patriot Act, which expanded police ability to perform Internet >surveillance without a court order, by a 98-1 vote last fall. Both are a result of the 9/11 attacks. Again, history has shown that this always happens. Then society spends another 100 years over turning the freedom-inhibiting laws that they endorsed in order to "protect" Joe Public. > >Trust me, a few--even a few thousand--peeved e-mail messages >won't change vote totals that lopsided. (Did you know the >Senate approved the DMCA unanimously?) Washington's political >class is used to ignoring frenzied yowls from far more >organized and well-funded groups than "geektivists" can hope >to emulate anytime soon. "They're much better off doing what >they do best, writing code." --Sonia Arrison, Pacific Research >Institute This essay leads me to not "trust" Declan at all! He's basically saying, stop participating in the democratic process, because you can't win. > >Instead, technologists should be doing what comes naturally: >inventing technology that outpaces the law and could even make >new laws irrelevant. Why does Declan conclude that technologists aren't doing this too. > >"They're much better off doing what they do best, writing >code," says Sonia Arrison of the Pacific Research Institute, a >free-market think tank in San Francisco. "That's where their >competitive advantage lies." > >Put another way, who made a bigger difference: Yet another >letter-scribbling activist or Phil Zimmermann, who wrote the >Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software? How about Shawn >Fanning, the man who created Napster? Or the veterans of the >Internet Engineering Task Force, which oversees the >fundamental protocols of the Internet? So every letter-scriblling activist has the technical ability of Phil Zimmerman, Shawn Fanning or the IETF? Declan, you overestimate the abilities of the average geek. > >It's true that such an approach isn't for everyone. Tech >companies, of course, need to take a defensive stance. >"There's a difference between geeks and the technology >industry," Arrison says. "I wouldn't say it's wise for the >technology industry to ignore government. But individual tech >people are probably better off spending their energy writing >code than being part of the political process." Argh!! This statement just makes me mad. This defeatist attitude is exactly why change takes so long to bring about. Similarly, technology companies will lobby for the benefit of tech companies, not individual freedoms. > >Adam Back, an encryption researcher living in Canada, says >that he tries to ignore day-to-day developments in the news. >"What's the point?" Back asks. "You know whatever they are >working on will be pretty much exclusively damaging to Net >freedoms and personal liberty. New laws are almost exclusively >damaging to personal freedoms these days." For every person saying "What's the point?", there's another who wants to get active. > >"By participating in the lobby process, you're effectively >giving money to the political system," Back says. "It's >effectively a favor-trading system where the politician wins >and the geek loses...You're better of spending time writing >code and influencing Internet protocols to work towards making >the politicians irrelevant in the future." The political system will never be irrelevant. Better to try to work with it than against it. > >That's the motto of the Cypherpunks, a group of >programmers-turned-activists who first met in Silicon Valley a >decade ago and graced the second cover of Wired magazine. They >recognized that technology is a more effective tool than the >political process to stop governments from overreaching. (An >example: Unlike Supreme Court justices who may change their >views on privacy, the algorithms embedded in encryption >software won't stop working because of political >pressure.) Both, technological and political methods need to be used to stop governments from overreaching, not one or the other. > >Lance Cottrell is a former Cypherpunk who founded >Anonymizer.com, a San Diego company that announced an improved >fee-based anonymous browsing service last week. > >"I'm of two minds," Cottrell says. "On one hand, I think it's >important that the (technologist) perspective be aired. But I >think that rather few geeks are temperamentally suited for >lobbying. I think there's a cultural tendency toward bluntness >and directness, which is not the bread and butter of politics." Lobbying, public speaking etc. are all learned skills, just like C++ or Java. Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
