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March 10, 2005

Terrorism and Democracy in Madrid - John Perry Barlow

This needs to be said. Hooray for the people who actually made it to Madrid for this. Although my personal travels to these International Venues to be more "hands on" with Internet Freedom have been curtailed due to budgetary considerations, I follow the trends, and do what I can from my side of the keyboard. Mikki Barry

I re-emerge.

Sorry for the hiatus. I will do my best in following posts to recount the sound and fury in my part of Meatspace that has led to my recent silence in Cyberspace. For now, here I am, in real time.

I'm in Madrid at a meeting convened by the Club of Madrid, a group of former heads of state, led by former Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso and, including everyone from Bill Clinton to Mikhail Gorbachev to Vaclav Havel, to John Major, all seeking to expiate their sins of office with subsequent good works.

The good work at hand is called The International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism, and Security. It feel a little like the World Economic Forum, though smaller and more focused. The security is intense and the press is excluded.( Though, interestingly, I am posting these words from inside a session, along with the many other bloggers.)

I fear, that despite enough good intentions to pave a superhighway to hell, not much is likely to come from this. Everyone seems to be playing we within the boundaries of his usual rule set. I have yet to hear anyone say something that seemed likely to mitigate the idiocy of this age.

And I'm no better in this regard. I spent all damned day yesterday in session with many of the stars of Cyberspace, folks like Joichi Ito, John Gage, Dan Gillmor, David Weinberger, Ethan Zuckerman, Marc Rotenberg, Andrew Mclaughlin, Rebecca MacKinnon, etc. etc. Laboring long and loud, we collectively produced the following statement:




The Infrastructure of Democracy
Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World
March 11, 2005


I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.
1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all -- increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.

II. Decentralized systems -- the power of many -- can combat decentralized foes.
1. Terrorist networks are highly decentralized and distributed. A centralized effort by itself cannot effectively fight terrorism.
2. Terrorism is everyone's issue. The internet connects everyone. A connected citizenry is the best defense against terrorist propaganda.
3. As we saw in the aftermath of the March 11 bombing, response was spontaneous and rapid because the citizens were able to use the Internet to organize themselves.
4. As we are seeing in the distributed world of weblogs and other kinds of citizen media, truth emerges best in open conversation among people with divergent views.

III. The best response to abuses of openness is more openness.
1. Open, transparent environments are more secure and more stable than closed, opaque ones.
2. While Internet services can be interrupted, the Internet as a global system is ultimately resilient to attacks, even sophisticated and widely distributed ones.
3. The connectedness of the Internet – people talking with people – counters the divisiveness terrorists are trying to create.
4. The openness of the Internet may be exploited by terrorists, but as with democratic governments, openness minimizes the likelihood of terrorist acts and enables effective responses to terrorism.

IV. Well-meaning regulation of the Internet in established democracies could threaten the development of emerging democracies.
1. Terrorism cannot destroy the internet, but over-zealous legislation in response to terrorism could. Governments should consider mandating changes to core Internet functionality only with extraordinary caution.
2. Some government initiatives that look reasonable in fact violate the basic principles that have made the Internet a success.
3. For example, several interests have called for an end to anonymity. This would be highly unlikely to stop determined terrorists, but it would have a chilling effect on political activity and thereby reduce freedom and transparency. Limiting anonymity would have a cascading series of unintended results that would hurt freedom of expression, especially in countries seeking transition to democratic rule.

V. In conclusion we urge those gathered here in Madrid to:
1. Embrace the open Internet as a foundation of 21st Century democracy, and a critical tool in the fight against terrorism.
2. Recognizing the Internet's value as a critical communications infrastructure, invest to strengthen it against attacks and recover quickly from damage.
3. Work to spread access more evenly, aggressively addressing the Digital Divide, and to provide Internet access for all.
4. To protect free speech and association, endorse the availability of anonymous communications for all.
5. Resist attempts at international governance of the Internet: It can introduce processes that have unintended effects and violate the bottom-up democratic nature of the Net.


In other words, precisely what you would expect us to say. So predictable as to be the equivalent of silence. And yet, it's what we all passionately believe.


We are now all in a session where we are presenting this little manifesto.

It has just been strongly and rather surprisingly rebuked by my friend Benjamin Barber who laid out the usual older, indigerate stuff about how the Internet is nothing but the handmaiden of big media, scarcely better than television.

Now an Iranian lady has risen to discuss, among other things, the fact that all the ayatollahs of Iran have sites on the Internet.

Posted by mikki at March 10, 2005 07:38 PM

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