>Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 13:12:45 -0400 >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: FC: Testimony before Democracy Online Task Force on May 22 > >[Yesterday's meeting was chaired by former Reps. Pat Schroeder and Rick >White. White seemed to be the most interested in engaging in debate, and >seemed somewhat more pro-regulation than I had expected. Other speakers >covered other issues, so I focused on just two: public spaces and >anonymity. The debate after prepared remarks was much more interesting, >and I'm told a cybercast will be available at http://democracyonline.org/ >eventually. --Declan] > > >http://www.mccullagh.org/speeches/democracyonline.052200.html > > Democracy Online Project > National Task Force testimony > May 22, 2000 > > Declan McCullagh > Wired News > Washington, DC > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this morning's > discussion. It's an honor to be on a panel with such distinguished > guests. I hope my perspective as the Washington correspondent for > Wired News and a longtime Internet user proves helpful. > > We were asked "How do we create a public space online?" I think the > answer is we don't need to create one. We already have one, and an > unexpectedly wonderful one at that. > > Think of the Internet as an unlimited expanse of public park, where > soapboxes are available for free to anyone who wants one. You can set > up your own web site on any of scores of free hosting services, > including places like Geocities and Tripod, with little effort. These > companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in making it > easy for you to say whatever you want - you don't have to a programmer > to be heard. > > Once your site is online, it's discovered by search engines and people > looking for information on your topic can find you. I launched one > political web site in March, and it only took a few days before search > engines like Google found it and began steering visitors toward it. > > You can start your own mailing list for free as well, on sites like > onelist.com. I run one called politech in my spare time that has > thousands of subscribers. > > If you don't like the idea of free hosting services that usually place > ads on top of your web pages, you can do it yourself. Pay web hosting > services start at around $10 a month - less than the cost of cable TV > or telephone service. And you can say whatever you want. > > It is true that obscure sites may not get the same number of visitors > as more mainstream ones. But that's true offline as well as online: > More people read Tom Clancy than Hemingway. More Americans will be > watching Ally McBeal this evening than tuning in to this cybercast or > CSPAN, for that matter. More people will go to Disney's new dinosaur > movie than listen to that street preacher on the corner of Connecticut > and K streets. But there are no structural barriers to being watched > or heard online. > > In fact, exactly the opposite is the case. For the ultimate in public > spaces, there's Usenet. Usenet is a distributed collection of tens of > thousands of discussion areas devoted to everything in the world you > might want to talk about. It's been around for a few decades, and was > already well-established when I first got an Internet account in 1988. > Nobody controls it, nobody owns it, and nobody can censor it. > > According to the most recent statistics from yesterday, the average > number of individual messages people post each day is 791,377. That > amounts to 46,800 megabytes a day. To put this into more realistic > terms, most of the folks in the audience have seen the size of books > with the complete works of Shakespare. Usenet messages, if printed > out, would fill about 5,200 of these books. A day. > > This is one reason the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 called the Internet > a "new marketplace of ideas." > > ANONYMITY AND FREE SPEECH > > We were also asked "Is it possible to create an online public space > for political discourse? What are the constitutional and legal > issues?" > > People feel comfortable engaging in public discourse online if they > can do so without their privacy being violated. Anonymity is an > important part of that, and I'd like to make you aware of some legal > threats to anonymity on the Internet: > > * The federal government must take steps to improve online > traceability and promote international cooperation to identify > Internet users, according to a report commissioned by President > Clinton and released in March. The document, written by a > high-level working group chaired by Attorney General Janet Reno, > says that police should be able to determine the source of > anonymous email in some situations. > * Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary > committee at the same time that Internet malcontents are "often > wearing the equivalent of Internet electronic gloves to hide their > fingerprints and their identity." > * U.S. Customs has suggested that Internet providers keep records on > what their users are doing, according to a CNN report. > * Some think tanks are suggesting that in response to the > controversy over Napster, Congress should require Napster to > collect addresses and credit card information of users before they > can use it. The people most affected would be the young, the poor, > and those in developing nations with limited access to credit > cards. > * A Council of Europe draft treaty, crafted in part by the U.S., > would require websites and Internet providers to collect > information about their users, a rule that would potentially limit > anonymous remailers. The treaty is expected to be finalized by > December 2000 and voted on by participating nations next year. > * Yahoo inappropriately disclosed information about the true name > belonging to a pseudonym of a user in response to a subpoena, > according to a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month in > California. > > Anonymity has long been a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It > protects individuals from retaliation for having unpopular views, and > it prevents controversial ideas from being suppressed. Shakespeare, > James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Mark Twain, and Ann Rice used > pseudonyms. In the McIntyre case, the Supreme Court struck down a law > that requred pamphleteers to identify themselves, saying there was a > right to anonymity in a democracy. Journalists rely on guarantees of > anonymity to shield their sources from disclosure. > > Anonymity protects whistleblowers from being fired when revealing > corporate malfeasance or government wrongdoing. Without anonymity and > pseudonymity, some communities could not exist. Alcoholics Anonymous, > AIDS support groups, drug addiction support and other mutual help > organizations rely on anonymity to protect the identity of their > members. Anonymity reduces the risk of social ostracism, and promotes > democracy online. Legal attempts to restrict it should be rejected. > > Thank you. > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology >To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html >This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ >--------------------------------------------------------------------------
