There are definitely situations in which civil disobedience could be justified and even required, although such situations are much less common in the field of free culture than in the field of, say, civil rights.
The event that lead directly to the founding of SFC, the Diebold case, included a civil disobedience component, although it was not one that Luke and I directly participated in. There were these memos that detailed possible problems with the voting machines which are the backbone of our democracy, and Diebold was trying to suppress that information. Luke and I took the legal route, fighting it in the courts, but our allies didn't want to count on the courts making the right call when democracy itself was on the line: they wanted to make sure the public got the information it needed one way or the other. They organized a system of mirrors on college campuses, including people like Asheesh Laroia and many of our earliest SFC recruits, to make sure the Diebold memos stayed available. Diebold had to play whack-a-mole, sending takedown notices to each campus, but once the mirrors on one campus were shut down, the memos just popped up on another campus. It actually turned out that the court agreed with us that hosting the Diebold memos was legal and a fair use. Therefore the "electronic civil disobedience" campaign had been arguably legal the whole time, and not actually civil disobedience. However, if the court had ruled the other way, the mirrors would have continued to host the Diebold memos and ensure public knowledge of possible flaws with our elections, even if it had been judged to be against the law. And I would have supported them in that action 100%, even if I were unable to participate myself due to legal reasons (I would have wanted to keep my hands "clean" during the appeals process, presumably). Sometimes the law is wrong, and when the stakes are high enough, it is best to break the law, accepting the legal consequences for your actions. I am not saying that SFC should necessarily ever officially organize a campaign involving civil disobedience. That's a question for the lawyers, as to what is legally possible or what is legally most damaging, and an ethical question of whether it would be better to let the organization shoulder the consequences for a civil disobedience action, or to let the individuals hang separately. However, I can easily imagine another situation where civil disobedience would be justified and necessary, just like the Diebold case if the court had ruled the other way, and it would be a discussion worth having as to what SFC's responsibilities are given our mission, our resources and our constituents, and whether SFC should knowingly break an unjust law. Peace, ~Nelson Pavlosky~ Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > I hear a lot of people in this organization speak very highly of civil > disobedience, and it seems like some of us are just waiting for an > opportunity to justify breaking the law and sticking it to "the man." I > suppose I could right a very long-winded article on why I think civil > disobedience is a bad idea, but I'm not much of a writer, so I'll just > say a few things that come to mind. > > One example that often comes up is piracy, but I feel that that helps > out the mpaa/riaa far more than just boycotting it all together. I > suppose most of you don't know this, but I used to be on the far other > side of this discussion (about copyright/culture). I remember arguing > about copyright and piracy with someone in a philosophy class in high > school (and imagine me talking like a 16-year-old version of Dan > Glickman). I thought that everyone who disagreed with me was being > immature. How ironic that over four years later I became a grad student > and the person I was arguing with was one of my first chapter members. > But the thing is, I *still* think that all the people in the room who > disagreed were being immature! It wasn't until I discovered > *constructive* solutions like the FSF and CC that I really changed my > mind about things. > > I'm open for discussion, but if this organization ever plans a civil > disobedience event, you can count me out of the event, and possibly out > of the organization. > > ~Conley > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
