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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 369
Netizens-Digest Sunday, February 11 2001 Volume 01 : Number 369
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] posting to the netizens list
[netz] 1st anniversary EU conference on citizen participation
[netz] Lockout of WBAI staffers
[netz] Fallout From An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson
[netz] discussion on the origins of the internet on a mailing list
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Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:21:14 -0500 (EST)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] posting to the netizens list
Hi Liss,
On the netizens list your address is given as ljeffrey@mcluhan.utoronto.ca
but your latest post came from ljeffery@mcluhan.org. Which one will be the
one you post from?
The reason I ask is that the list only automatically remails to all
subscribers posts that come form addresses on the list. Posts from email
addresses not on the list bounce to the list owner. If it is a commercial
post or the post of copyright material without expression of approval of
the copyright holder I discard it. Otherwise in general I will send the
post to the list.
Take care.
Jay
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 13:39:30 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] 1st anniversary conference on EU conference on citizen participation
[This is an email I sent to Amy Goodman at the radio station WBAI who
broadcasts "Democracy Now" about an the first anniversary of an
important event that in Finland last year. I am in the process of
writing up a version of the talk I gave in Finland.
If anyone is interested in a copy, let me know and I'll send a copy.]
>From: <ronda@panix.com>
>To: mail@democracynow.org
>Subject: Email for Amy Goodman about 1st anniversary citizen2000 conference
Dear Amy or others at Democracy Now (WBAI)
It seems important to not get into the interparty (oneparty) squabbles
that are now dominating the election talk and leaving the people
out and the real issues of the campaign out.
The real issue that is underlying the whole crisis in the American
government right now is that the current party processes and practices
leave out the American people. A government needs connections
with its citizens to be able to function and both the Democracy
and Republican parties have increasingly seen the corporations
as their citizens, not the American people. That is the basis of the
current constitutional crisis in the US, rather than whether some candidate
got their votes counted or not counted. Most of the American people
didn't vote for either of these two candidates and for good reason.
Democracy is not the result of voting for candidates chosen
by a process that leaves most of the citizens out. And that leaves
them out after the election as well.
Today, September 4 is an anniversary of an important event that
broke through this narrow framing of issues of what democracy means.
It is the anniversary of a European Union conference in Tampere, Finland
last year (September 3, 4, 5, 1999) on the subject of how can citizens
have more of a voice in the decisions made by governments. This
conference was called Citizen Agenda 2000 NGO Forum and the program is online
at http://www.citizen2000.net It was a conference held by the NGO's
of the European Union. I was invited to participate in a seminar
about potential of the Internet to make increased citizenship participation
in government decisions possible.
This seminar (Civic Participation, Virtual Democracy and the Net) is
described in http://www.citizen2000.net/E2.html
The speakers at the seminar presented a varied set of experiences
of research in trying to determine the potential of the Internet.
My talk was on "Is the Internet a Laboratory for Democracy? The
vision of the Netizens versus the E-commerce Agenda.
A number of interesting problems were raised at the seminar including
the need for all citizens to have access to the Internet if it is to
make it possible for citizens to have more say in the decisions of
government. And the problem of government representatives who claim
that because they are elected they don't have to listen to citizens
and their concerns, but can choose to listen to whomever they wish
(i.e. corporate interests).
An important point raised during the talks was that it is critical
for citizens to make a record of their efforts to participate in
government processes and decisions, and to document the fact that
their input is not being considered as a means to change the situation.
In my talk I spoke about the issue of the US government privatizing
first the backbone to the US portion of the Internet, and now
trying to privatize essential functions of the Internet's infrastructure.
And that it is crucial that citizens know of these activities and
continue the challenge that is being raised about them.
The conference in Finland followed directly after the protests in
Seattle and some of the NGO's had sent representatives to the protests
and then to the conference. The conference was in an important way
a clear statement of what the protests in Seattle and Washington and
Prague and at the Democratic and Republican Conventions in the US
have been about.
The vision of the socio-technical pioneers who began the research
which has resulted in the Internet was of a network that would make
it possible for citizens to participate in the decisions of its
development.
The concept of citizen and of netizen are important concepts for our
times and the conference in Finland one year ago has helped to rekindle
the vision of the pioneers of the Internet for increased human-to-human
communication faciliated by the developing computer network.
Ronda Hauben
co-author "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet"
published by IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997 and online at
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
ronda@panix.com
(212)787-9361
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 22:14:28 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] Lockout of WBAI staffers
This notice was sent out on another mailing list I am on.
I had seen a mention on Usenet on Sunday that something was
happening at the WBAI radio station in NYC but there were
very few details. This gives more of a picture of what is
happening. Not a good sign to be sure that the one radio
station where there has been some worthwhile reporting
of the events going on in the world and in the US with
the corporate takeover of the US government is subject
to what seems to be retaliatory harrassment by their
parent station.
If anyone else knows more details of what is happening with
this situation, please let the Netizens list know.
Ronda
>Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 01:06:59 -0000
>Reply-To: J4Team@egroups.com
>Subject: [J4Team] Pacifica's hypocrisy against Democracy Now!
ACT NOW.
_________
Lockout at WBAI: Pacifica management fires senior s taff, changes=20
locks at New York station
LOCKOUT AT WBAI:
Pacifica management fires senior staff, changes locks at New York=20
station
December 26, 2000
The national management of Pacifica Radio has fired several long-time
staffers at WBAI, the New York City community radio station that is=20
home to the award-winning show "Democracy Now!": program director=20
Bernard White, producer Sharan Harper, and station manager Valerie
Van Isler (see "Pacifica Management Move to Undermine WBAI's=20
Independence," http://www.fair.org/press-releases/van-isler.html ).
Accompanied by security guards, Pacifica executive director Bessie=20
Wash arrived at WBAI late at night on Friday, December 23, and
changed=20
the locks both to the station and to individual offices. WBAI staff--=20
including "Democracy Now!"'s Amy Goodman--=A0 are now being admitted
to=20
the building only on a "controlled entry" basis until further notice.=20
White and Harper have been threatened with arrest should they attempt=20
to enter the building.
Pacifica has appointed WBAI afternoon talk show host Utrice Leid as=20
acting station manager. Last week, WBAI news director Jose Santiago=20
turned down the job, saying he had been falsely assured by management=20
that Van Isler was resigning voluntarily. Since the lockout, Leid has=20
asserted on air that the crisis is simply an internal personnel=20
dispute. Given Pacifica management's recent embrace of arbitrary=20
firings and other autocratic management techniques, this is at best=20
hard to believe.
The current crisis is reminiscent of last year's lockout at KPFA in
Berkeley, which also came on the heels of a number of politically=20
motivated firings. That lockout brought thousands of Berkeley=20
listeners out into the streets to protest Pacifica management's=20
actions and demand greater accountability to the community, in
keeping=20
with the progressive core values laid out by Pacifica founder Lew=20
Hill.
Over the last year and a half, Pacifica's management has increasingly
orchestrated censorship-- including of FAIR's own radio show,=20
CounterSpin--retaliatory personnel moves and the disenfranchisement
of=20
listeners and local advisory boards in order to impose its often=20
regressive decisions on the network. FAIR had feared that Pacifica's=20
recent moves against "Democracy Now!" (see=20
http://www.fair.org/activism/democracy-now.html ) were an
indication that the network was preparing an attempt to break the
independence of WBAI, one of the cornerstones of the progressive=20
community. The holiday firings and lockout have more than confirmed=20
those fears.
When FAIR asked for help in supporting "Democracy Now!" against=20
harassment from Pacifica management this October, members of our
email=20
list responded passionately and swiftly, writing over 1,300 letters
to=20
Pacifica in just over four days, and organizing demonstrations across=20
the country.
Since then, listener meetings and demonstrations have been ongoing,=20
and early signs are that listeners are responding to this latest=20
crisis with just as much energy. Despite the organizing difficulties=20
presented by the holiday season and below-freezing temperatures,=20
listeners have already begun to take action in New York City. Several=20
dozen people held a vigil outside WBAI's Manhattan studios on the=20
night of the lockout, and hundreds attended a demonstration outside=20
the building on Saturday the 23rd. Daily protests are planned outside=20
the station from four to six pm, beginning Tuesday,
December 26.
ACTION:
1. The group Concerned Friends of WBAI is urging New York City=20
listeners to attend a community planning meeting this Wednesday,=20
December 27, 6:30 pm at SEIU Local 32 B-J, 101 Sixth Avenue. For more=20
information, see: http://www.wbai.net .
Concerned listeners in other cities should check the Save Pacifica=20
website for updates and for links to local listener groups that may
be=20
organizing in their area: http://www.savepacifica.net .
2. Please call or write to Pacifica and let them know that you
support the locked out WBAI staffers. Urge the network to reinstate=20
Valerie Van Isler, Bernard White and Sharan Harper, and to cease=20
harassment of WBAI employees.
CONTACT:
Bessie Wash, Pacifica executive director
mailto:FALCON1591@aol.com
Phone: 888-770-4944 x348 (toll free)
Post: The Pacifica Foundation
2390 Champlain St.
WA
- -30-
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 23:29:42 -0500 (EST)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Fallout From An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson
The following was sent to the netizens list by Curtis Sahakian
(cpart@interaccess.com):
Subject: Fallout From An Exchange of Emails with Esther Dyson About ICANN
Disenfranchising Internet Users Right to Vote For the ICANN Board
Governing the Internet
Hey everyone,
1. THE HIGH AND MIGHTY ICANN FINALLY BROUGHT ON THE CARPET BEFORE
CONGRESS
Nine witnesses, including Vint Cerf, were given five minutes each before
the House Energy and Commerce committee on telecommunications and the
Internet.
The press said that the subcommittee "harshly criticized" ICANN's process
of selecting new suffixes.
Rep. Charles Pickering, said that ICANN's selection process was "arbitrary
and subjective," and that "If you don't take steps to reform quickly ...
the promise and future of ICANN is at risk."
Rep. Fred Upton said Our goal here is to make sure that this is a fair and
open process in every way, particularly for those that have qualified
applications, so that they may, in fact, succeed,"
Rep. John Dingell, fumed that ICANN "appears to be accountable to no one
except perhaps God Almighty."
2. MY MESSAGE TO VINT
Vint Cerf said "I accept the idea that we need to re-examine the
procedures that we used," and admitted that ICANN "needs to find more
objective ways of making these decisions."
My message to Vint is "Go Screw Yourself" If you really believe that, why
don't you just resign... It would make a lot of people happy.
Go apply your great wisdom, analytical skills and judgement to some
greater and higher use. Maybe to someone else's internet... not mine.
3. SOME RELATED LINKS
Here are some related news links collected by The Standard. You can
subscribe to their free newsletter at http://www.TheStandard.com
ICANN Under Attack (Network World Fusion)
http://tm0.com/thestandard/sbct.cgi?s=64386407&i=301965&d=1009354
Getting to Domain Argument
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41683,00.html
U.S. Lawyers Criticize ICANN (Reuters)
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41699,00.html
Is It Too Late for Sex.Coop?
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41609,00.html
ICANN Chairman Responds To House Charges
http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/1,2171,8_583731,00.html
Cerf's Up! Congress Grills ICANN Chair on Domain Names
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2683840,00.html
3. ICANN DEBACLE RESOURCES FOR THE PRESS.
Here is a collection of resources for anyone who wants to learn more about
ICANN vs. Internet Democracy.
http://infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/10/02/001002oplivingston.xml
(by brian_livingston@infoworld.com) - In my opinion, the best article to
date on ICANN's dysfunctional behavior...
http://www.msnbc.com/news/480700.asp?0nm=T12O
(by Brock N. Meeks brock.meeks@msnbc.com) an critical article about how
ICANN has acted in the process for selecting new registrys
http://www.media-visions.com/icann.htm
(Analyzing ICANN - a page with a very good set of links to pages
containing well researched and reasoned critical analysis of ICANN)
http://www.ADOR-DOC.ORG/wipoletter.html (
you can't understand how outrageous has been ICANN's behavior with respect
to favoring large corporations in domain disputes... unless you read this)
http://www.news.com/Perspectives/Column/0,176,459,00.html
(article by by Brian Livingston of cnet about ICANN bias in domain name
arbitration)
http://www.Icannwatch.org (
regularly updated website monitoring ICANN activities)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/full_coverage/tech/domain_names_and_registration/
(100s of articles written by reporters who've been covering these issues)
http://www.flywheel.com/ircw/overview.html
(an overview of the domain names controversy - starting pre-ICANN with an
extensive and thorough set of related links)
http://www.icann.org (ICANN's Web Site)
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/gao-icann/DNS-Proposal.txt
http://umcc.ais.org/~ronda/
(background on the development of the Internet and the role of the government)
http://www.domainhandbook.com/toc.html
http://www.iciiu.org/
(International Congress of Independent Internet Users)
http://www.domainnotes.com/
http://www.eff.org/
(electronic Frontier Foundation (the ACLU of the Internet)
http://www.media-visions.com/newdom2b.html
(links to government and industry leaders)
http://www.media-visions.com/icann-involved.htm
(steps you can take to help this problem)
http://www.civsoc.org
(the Civil Society Democracy Project has a good set of links on internet
democracy and related current happenings)
4. PASS THE WORD ON.
Please pass this email along to anyone who might want to be added to the
distribution list.
Curtis Sahakian
1-847-676-2774
cpart@Corporate-Partnering.com
http://www.Corporate-Partnering.com/cpi
Governing the Internet
Governing the Internet
Disenfranchising Internet Users Right to Vote For the ICANN Board~h
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 12:03:10 -0500 (EST)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] discussion on the origins of the internet on a mailing list
This is a post I sent to the community memory maillist about
a recent discussion they have been having there about the origins
of the Internet and whether it was in the creation of terminals
connecting three time sharing systems.
I thought people on the netizens mailing list would find the
issues involved of interest.
ronda
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace
______________________________________________________________________
vint cerf <vcerf@MCI.NET> wrote:
>I think it is fair to say that the History Channel program used Bob Taylor's
>remarks (repeated in Katie Hafner's book) in an oversimplified way. I think
>Bob actually felt motivated by the belief that the systems he used required
>three distinct terminals (for whatever reason) and that it should have been
>possible to reach all three timeshared machines with one. Rightly or wrongly
>this led to the notion of networking things.
>Plainly the outcome solved a lot more than that "problem"
Yes and such oversimplification leads to myths that impede the public
understanding of the origins of the ARPANET and then the Internet.
And hence can also be harmful in the dissemination of the needed
public knowledge to support the continue the development of the Internet.
That is why it is good Les made an effort to challenge such
oversimplifications.
With regard to the origins of the ARPANET, JCR Licklider explains
(I think it was in his interview with the Babbage Institute) that
he had a vision for the need for an Intergalactic computer network,
but that it was too early to start it when he started at ARPA
and started the Information Processing Techniques Office in 1962.
However several people including Larry Roberts say that Lick's
vision of the importance of doing networking was an inspiration
to them. And Ivan Sutherland in his interview with the Babbage
Institute describes how he tried to start a networking program
at UCLA during his turn at IPTO, but that that didn't then succeed.
Also I think Steve Crocker in his interview with the Babbage
Institute mentions having known of or having been part of
this earlier effort to start a networking program by ARPA/IPTO.
Also ,in his Babbage Institute interview, Ivan Sutherland suggests
that it was important to have researchers who would take on the
problems of a networking research program, and he suggests that
that was one of the important contributions that made the
ARPANET research program a success as opposed to the problem
that hadn't been taken on by the earlier UCLA program.
This helps to suggest that it wasn't only a question of those
who would fund a networking research program, but that identifying
and welcoming the contributions of capable researchers was an
important task for ARPA/IPTO to have taken on which contributed
to the success of the ARPANET and then the Internet research
programs at ARPA.
It is good that Bob Taylor and Charles Herzfeld decided to fund
a networking program. But it is important that why the ARPANET
program was able to be started, not be looked at in that narrow
perspective.
Also it is important that the ARPANET not be confused with the
Internet, as it so often is in the portrayal in books and
tv etc.
The ARPANET program pioneered packetswitching and many other
important developments, it was one big network under the control
of one entity.
The Internet, via the creation of tcp/ip was able to change the
paradigm, by making it possible for diverse networks, under
different administrations and with different local characteristics
to communicate. The Internet made it possible to create a metanetwork
of networks, and hence to have an Internet.
This is an important development that needs to be understood
in its contribution.
While connecting different terminals was crucial for the development
of the ARPANET (for example this was as I understand it a special
challenge that was taken on at the 1972 ARPANET demonstration
at the ICCC'72 in Washington), it was not yet taking on the problem
that had to be solved to create an Internet.
That problem had to do with making it possible for different networks
to communicate. France for example by the 1972-1973 period was
creating Cyclades under Louis Pouzin and England the NPL under
Donald Davies and others.
It would not be possible to expect these countries to subordinate
their networks to the ARPANET, and to ask them to become a part
of the ARPANET.
By 1973 the need was recognized for the creation of an means of making
possible communication across the boundaries of dissimilar networks.
The problem was taken on in the paper describing TCP/IP (then
called TCP) which was presented at an international network working
group meeting in September 1973 in Great Britain and published by
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in May 1974 in the IEEE Transactions on
Communications, vol Com-22, N. 5, May 1974, pg 637.
It seems important to recognize the fact that it is the creation
of the TCP/IP protocol and the ability to have dissimilar networks
communicate that it makes possible that is at the essence
of what has made the Internet possible.
I have been working on some draft papers about these developments
and welcome comments on them.
They are online at
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/
Two particularly relevant papers to this discussion include
part IV http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/computer-communications.txt
part V http://www.columbia.,edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
and in a print edition published by the IEEE Computer Society
______________________________________________________________________
Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
Moderator: Community Memory
http://memex.org/community-memory.html
A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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End of Netizens-Digest V1 #369
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