Piercing Curtains
By Stephen Michael Kellat, MSLS
Head Writer, Erie Looking Productions
The news as of late does not bode well for any sort of Global
Information Infrastructure. While that may be the more formal term
previously used for the Internet, it is hardly what we have today.
Whether it is an ally of the United States, a member of the Axis of
Evil, or firmly planted in the squishy middle the nation-states of
this planet are creating challenges for the Internet. For sites
like LISNews, this gives just cause for worrying.
The Digital Economy Bill proposed by the United Kingdom's First
Secretary of State, Lord Mandelson, as most recently amended
protects online communication far less than more traditional
communications like newspapers and radio programs. The People's
Republic of China has made it clear that Google's presence is
incompatible with its laws and ideals. This is currently pushing
towards a likely withdrawal by Google regardless of the economic
damage done to local partners. The Islamic Republic of Iran is
taking a page from the playbook of Communist China by attempting to
squeeze out Google's Gmail in favor of a locally operated service
that the Iranian government could monitor and control. In Australia
efforts by Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband,
Communications, and the Digital Economy, continue toward creating
an Internet filter covering the entire Australian continent. Word
has leaked out that a national filter was created in New Zealand by
their Department of Internal Affairs but it is not certain which
Internet Service Providers there are participating in its use. The
Venezeulan leader Hugo Chavez has called for outright regulation of
the Internet and has advocated for the suppression of free
expression online.
Instead of having a global architecture for the exchange of
information that might otherwise be converted into knowledge and/or
wisdom, we see perhaps a divided virtual realm that looks less
cohesive than the FIDONET sharing network between dial-up bulletin
boards of old. It should be remembered that while the concept of
the dial-up bulletin board is on the decline in the United States,
FIDONET remains alive in the Russian Federation of all places.
Whether or not the Internet moves in that direction is something
hardly predictable at this point, though.
With the Internet experiencing such a period of storm and stress,
the question does not go away relative to what action should be
taken. If anything it must be remembered that major action cannot
be taken in a time of crisis as it most likely takes time to
implement a solution after you determine what the solution is.
Preventive, prepared action is how you handle such events.
From the LISNews perspective, there is some debate in play. While
the site tries to serve more than just the local North American
world of librarianship, censorship efforts in the other lead
nations of the RDA world leave the site vulnerable. Since LISNews
is not a massive media conglomerate like News Corporation under
Rupert Murdoch, getting slapped with a shut-down injunction in the
United Kingdom would likely go uncontested as there simply are not
financial means for the site to defend itself. Under a previous
version of the Digital Economy Bill there would have been notice to
LISNews of court proceedings but due to recent amendments
concentrating power in Lord Mandelson's hands we would now only
know if something were wrong just as in Australia and New Zealand
if an astute reader noticed we suddenly dropped off the planet.
Saying LISNews is vulnerable now is an understatement.
There have been at least two streams of preventive action that have
been discussed. The first would be to get the LISNews Netcast
Network relayed via one or more shortwave stations to blanket parts
of the planet. Such would remove the need for all those other
layers of the OSI networking model for people accessing that
content through the Internet and replace such with simpler tools.
We know stations are out there that we can hire to do this but we
have to shell out cash we do not have to make such happen.
Strangely enough, conveying audio content through such a primitive
and antiquated form of communication would have greater protection
as of late than Internet-based transmission would.
The other stream of preventive action is something that has only
been hinted at so far. Efforts are presently underway at creating a
one-off test issue of what is being called "The LISNews Bulletin".
This small test issue is going to have a mix of content in it and
is going to be distributed through fairly unique means. If we
manage to successfully print these up, make sure you see Blake at
Computers in Libraries 2010 to get a copy as the plan currently
says that he will be the main distribution channel there for this
test issue. Strangely enough, conveying textual content through
such a primitive and antiquated form of communication would have
greater protection as of late than Internet-based transmission
would.
The fiction of Arthur C. Clarke remains disturbing as our world
today sometimes mirrors his art. In his short story simply titled
"Superiority", we hear the tale of an interplanetary war fleet
defeated by the inferiority of the weapons of its opponent that
also were far more reliable than the protagonist's whiz-bang
inventions that never quite worked as intended. As the lights start
to go out on Internet-based freedom of expression as we see the
erection of virtual curtains of suppression, that story by Clarke
keeps coming to mind as the simplest example of a solution to the
conundrum of Internet censorship.
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