Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/fade into you/being there/Rants/CommUnity/article.efa

Text File | 1994-02-20 | 9KB | 180 lines

[This article appeared in FidoNews, but left out the paragraph about crypto.
The crypto part still appears in this file.]


* Creating an Online Civil Liberties Organisation (in Australia)

by Michael Baker, 3:800/838 - [e-mail]
PO Box 5, Flaxley SA 5153, Australia.  Phone [phone]

I am writing this article for two separate audiences: those who live in
Australia, and those who live elsewhere.  It is about setting up
organisations which will promote the use of, and protect the rights of,
users of electronic communications.  The model we are using for such an
organisation is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in the States.

I and many others are engaged in setting up an organisation which for
now we're calling Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA).  Primarily I
have written this article to encourage those of you who live in
Australia to take part in setting up EFA.  I am also keen to encourage
those who don't live in Australia to set up your own thing.  To this end
I will pass on some of the advice I have been given on how to proceed.

I first used BBS's over 8 years ago.  More recently I have also started
to access the Internet.  Some of the others involved include: Tom
Koltai, sysop of Kakadu Konnection BBS in Darwin; Michael Malone in
Perth who has recently setup iinet.com.au (the home of our mailing
list); Bill Holder also in Perth who is planning to set up a FidoNet
echo for us; and Dwayne Jones-Evans who is studying social aspects of
electronic networks at Latrobe University.  Recently we have become
concerned with potential threats to BBS's and the Internet, particularly
here in Australia.  There is currently a proposal here to censor
computer games and this may adversely affect BBS's.

When I started to ask in BBS and Internet/Usenet conferences if anything
was being done to organise to fight this threat I also asked if there
was an organisation like the EFF in Australia.  The answer was no but
several people said they were interested in forming one.  In our
estimation what is needed is a proactive organisation which will define,
promote and defend online civil liberties, rather than a one off
reactive campaign.  The specific issue of censorship of computer games
is simply one symptom of a larger malaise.  It will be EFA's goal to
deal with this bigger picture. I'll return to this later.  First some
general background.

The opportunities, the threats and what to do about it
======================================================

Networks like FidoNet and the Internet with their online conferences and
virtual communities and email have opened up a new medium for the
exchange of ideas and information.  With the continuing fall in cost and
increase in power and capabilities of computers and networking
technology, these empowering and rapidly expanding media are becoming
more and more accessible, and more and more vital.  So far users of such
technology have been able to utilize it's capacity for "many-to-many"
communication, in which anyone can be a creator and distributor as well
as a reader or consumer, with very few restrictions on what they say, or
who they say it to.  It is as if each person has access to their own
printing press.

With the advent of strong public-key encryption there is also the
opportunity for unprecedented levels of privacy for one's
communications, and message authentication with cryptographically-secure
'digital signatures'. If you are asking why would one want such privacy,
let me ask why do you put most of your snail mail in envelopes?
Encrypting messages is like putting them in an envelope, instead of
sending all of your mail on postcards.

So the opportunities are there for the ability to talk to anyone and
listen to what anyone wishes to announce, and for privacy in one's
private communications. However there are those who have a tendency to
oppose such opportunities. In Australia we call such people wowsers.
{wowser (wou'zer) n. [Aust. Slang] an extremely puritanical person, esp.
a killjoy or teetotaller - Collins Australian Pocket English Dictionary,
5th reprint of first edition, Australian Editor: W.A. Krebs, 1985,
William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. Sydney.}

Wowsers have allies in the press and government.  They tend to want to
restrict or control what others can and cannot do, and they often have
respectable-sounding reasons for wanting to control others.  However if
they do achieve their end, then we shall all be the poorer - we shall
have lost some of our most cherished and guarded fundamental freedoms -
privacy, freedom of expression... etc.

There are two basic ways to handle such threats, one is to react to them
when they occur.  The other is to go out and promote the type of future
you want.  It is the latter that I favour.  By actively promoting what
we want we have more chance of setting the agenda.

Australia
=========

Since my initial posts over 50 people have expressed an interest in
helping set up EFA.  In the near future we hope to have a FidoNet echo
set up to help us in our deliberations over the details of what EFA will
do, its objectives and how it will be run.  In the mean time, for those
with access to Internet email, we have a mailing list which allows you
to send messages to one place and have them automatically sent to
everyone on the list.  To join the mailing list send email to
[e-mail].  If you would like to be sent details on
membership when EFA is formed contact Brenda Aynsley, 3:620/243
([e-mail]).

Elsewhere
=========

For those of you who live else where who would also like to form an
online civil liberties organisation I have these suggestions:

o Find other like minded people.  Post messages in likely online
  conferences stating what you want to do and ask who wants to do it
  with you.  It's just like voting (grin): "Post early, Post often."

o Get access to UseNet newsgroups and post articles there also.  If you
  can't get access to any of them yourself then find someone who does
  and get them to post articles.

o If you have access to it read comp.org.eff.talk and post messages
  there.  comp.org.eff.talk is gated to the INET.EFF.TALK fidonet echo,
  and the [e-mail] mailing list (ask [e-mail] to join).

o Find a BBS sysop who is willing to set up an echo, and someone on the
  Internet who can set up a mailing list, for coordinating your
  activities.  Get the mailing list gated to the echo, and a Usenet
  newsgroup.

o Via the echo/mailing list agree on the objectives of your new
  organisation.

o Similarly agree on its (legal) structure, how it will operate, what
  activities it will engage in, and what categories and costs of
  membership it will have.

o Decide if it will be a volunteer supported organization, or if it will
  be staffed (and where the funding for this will come from and how to
  get it.)

o Agree on who will be the first office holders in your new organisation,
  and ways of raising money and other forms of support, educating people
  about the missions and issues of the organization, how to encourage
  participation, if and when to start or participate in events such as
  conferences and conventions, etc.

o Keep Stanton McCandlish <[e-mail]>, of the Electronic Frontier
  Foundation, informed of your progress. (Several people now active in
  setting up EFA first heard of it from Stanton's activities, and he is
  maintaining a list of like minded organizations, the Outposts FAQ.)

o Announce the formation of your new organisation on echos and
  newsgroups and ask people to join it.

Why not form a local chapter of the EFF?
========================================

One of the first things I did was to contact EFF.  Part of the advice I
received was that EFF doesn't have chapters due to the administrative
overhead involved.  However, their board is encouraging others all over
the place to use Electronic Frontier in local organization names, to
make this as recognizable as possible and to foster a sense of united
purpose.

Acknowledgements
================

I would like to thank everyone who is working with me on establishing
EFA, and also Vicki Crawford, sysop of Computer Connection BBS,
3:800/838, and Stanton McCandlish ([e-mail]), for their continuing
support.

Metaphysical footnote
=====================

Let us dwell on what could go right.  The more we think of the future we
want, the more likely it is to come about, particularly when there are
many of us thinking about it.  That is not to say that we should ignore
dangers and threats.  We should be aware of them but not dwell on them.
This is just another way of saying that we should go out and say what
future we want, rather than just react and fight proposals which will
lead to futures we don't want.