The Dominion - 34

Copyfight

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:37:17 +0000

Internet freedom comes of age

Creative Commons and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are two of the organizations leading the "copyfight". photo: Rob Maguire

As many a policy wonk/ green lobbyist/aging ex-frontman of the Boomtown Rats will tell you, there comes a time in the life of a political rebel when you cut your hair, put on a tie, put down the placard and walk into the building. Entering the corridors of power to make your case may involve a little compromise of your principles, but that's all part of growing up.

Similarly, it seems, the internet is entering a new age of responsibility. Where once the out-of-control look seemed sexy – all off-the-cuff and emergent in an oversized Grateful Dead t-shirt – now as the World Wide Web is increasingly finding its place in polite, and profitable, society, something a little more refined is in order. Something with a degree of self-control.

Before November's World Summit of the Information Society in Tunis, the idea that the internet could be controlled was anathema to the "network of ends". Then when Google went into China last month, it cast light into the shadowy corners of a regime bent on censoring the net and controlling the packets of data that pass between its citizens and the outside world, to perpetuate its iron grip over a nation by depriving them of information. The image of internet control that was projected back out to the rest of the world spurred the US Congress to draft the Global Internet Freedom Bill, bringing the impulse to legislate into the open.

But legislation to harness the net's unstoppable flow of information has been drafted, away from the public eye, ever since powerful rightsholder lobbies realised that the internet's potential to distribute information at zero cost had grave implications for the way they did business.

A disparate group of campaigners has been the only voice for internet freedom in this often rarefied and remote debate. Sitting in on working groups in forgotten corners of Brussels, attending endless hearings of court cases in Washington, it has marked up both defeats and successes in the quest to keep technological innovation in the information age free from inappropriate constraints pursued by rightsholder groups.

In January 2003, creative commons frontman Lawrence Lessig failed to persuade the US Supreme Court that extending the period of copyright to nearly a century hinders the progress of science and the useful arts. The case against copyright term extension is now being fought by Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive on free speech grounds.

In May 2005, the Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully persuaded the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission to disable digital recordings of television broadcasts and criminalize the sale of hardware that did not conform to the specifications of rightsholder groups was beyond the organization's remit. Following the US ruling's defeat, a similar piece of legislation developed by the Digital Video Broadcasting project is now making its way through Brussels.

In June 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that Grokster, the manufacturer of the peer-to-peer networking service Morpheus, was liable for copyright infringement that took place over its network. This reversed the precedent set by the famous Sony Betamax case against the video recorders, which decided that technologists working in the information field were free to create new ways of distributing and copying information so long as their inventions had significant non-copyright-infringing uses.

In July 2005, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject a European Commission recommendation to allow patents on software code, a development that could have led to the demise of free and open source software and the fossilisation of one of the most dynamic, innovative industries in "new Europe".

As these cases show, the fight between internet freedom and intellectual property law – the "copyfight" – is a never-ending one. Many characterise its protagonists as techno-utopians, or geeks worried that someone might take their toys away. But as the narrative of control over internet freedom joins the mainstream, it is worth remembering how long, and against what adversaries, the fight has been fought up until now.

The movement to keep the internet free will be the defining fight in the information age, just as the environmental movement is the defining fight of the industrial age. As our physical make-up is reduced to a string of ones and zeros, and knowledge replaces property and labour as the means of production, democratic access to information becomes a basic civil right.

The copyfight has many parallels with the early environmental movement. Valid interest in access to information unhindered by intellectual property law is diverse – from librarians to scientists to developing world campaigners fighting for the right to distribute lifesaving generic antiretrovirals in Africa. These parties are beginning to organise together, as shown by Consumers International's recent condemnation of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization's pursuit of tighter intellectual property controls. Just as peace campaigners joined with conservationists, animal rights activists with anti-nuclear protesters, so will the people who fight on the fringes of the information war join forces.

Copyfighters, like environmentalists, seek to protect a complex ecology. The abolition of copyright and patent law is not the goal of these defenders of internet freedom – they merely seek a balance between the needs of creators to profit from their work and the needs of the public eventually to own it. As players in the knowledge economy continue to prospect in the pool of collective wisdom, copyfighters ask only that they do not over-farm.

Now that the fight for internet freedom has moved from the corporate to the political stage, it is likely to gain more exposure and more support. But it should be noted that the arguments used in this fight – such as freedom of speech and transparency of government – are similar to those used in the copyfight.

On 14 February, Condoleeza Rice announced a Global Internet Freedom Task Force. It will "consider the foreign policy aspects of internet freedom, including the use of technology to restrict access to political content and…efforts to modify internet governance structures in order to restrict the free flow of information." The fight for internet freedom has finally entered the corridors of power. Let's hope it remembers its roots.

Originally published on OpenDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons Licence.

As the corridors of power resound with debate about internet control, Becky Hogge champions the internet freedom movement.

Canada's Military-Media Complex

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:03:29 +0000

What's the difference between government, defense contractors and media?

Corporal Tracy Scott inspects a vehicle entering Kabul's Camp Julian. Institutional connections between government, the defense industry and the media often pass unexamined, argues Fenton. photo: Paul MacGregor, Combat Camera

The lines separating Canada's government, military, media, and private defense contractors are, if not imaginary, then ill-defined.

The case of the new Minister of Defense Gordon O'Connor is illustrative. A veteran of the Canadian Forces, he was a tank squadron commander and is now a retired Brigadier-General who spent eight years as a lobbyist for some of Canada's largest military contractors. In his words, he was "helping defense companies navigate complicated government procurement rules." He ended his career as a lobbyist only to run for public office. He won a seat and became a Member of Parliament in June 2004. He then became the Conservative Party's Critic for National Defense and was a member of the Standing Committee on National Defense and Veterans Affairs.

When he was new to the House of Commons in November 2004, O'Connor's lobbyist past was scrutinized by journalists. At the time he flatly denied that his work as a military lobbyist could pose a potential conflict of interest in his role as defense critic. "I don't decide who wins and loses contracts," said O'Connor at the time. Now that's he's Minister of Defense, he will decide who wins and loses contracts.

O'Connor has made it clear that the Conservatives will only be following through on policy objectives that were established under the Liberals. "I'm pretty confident that our platform and the previous Liberal [policy] will blend quite well," O'Connor recently told the press.

The transformation of Canada's military was well underway before the Conservatives took power, but there are indications that the Conservative Government will outdo the Liberals. Military spending under the Liberals was already at its highest level since World War II, with additional spending of $12.8 billion promised by in 2004. The Conservatives will add at least another $5.3 billion to this. They will also be expanding the Canadian forces by 13,000 soldiers, 8,000 more than the Liberals had planned, all geared at allowing Canada to play "a more aggressive role in fighting terrorism."

The military's new direction involves greater emphasis on interoperability with US and other militaries committed to "the long war." Chief of Defense Staff, Rick Hillier, makes frequent appearances in the press, appealing for more money for the military. On February 25th, the second headline on Mike Blanchfield's National Post article was Hillier's assertion: "we need money."

A few days after Hillier's exhortations, the Globe and Mail and CTV published the result of a poll, showing 62 per cent of Canadians opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan.

The Globe and Mail's February 25th cover story announced a potential Prime Ministerial visit to Afghanistan. The Globe cites the anticipated trip–the first by a Canadian Prime Minister since Canada has occupied Afghanistan–as "a means of asserting support for a revitalized Canadian military." Top military brass, including Hillier, are quoted as being excited by the prospect of a "heartening," and "encouraging" visit that would certainly "be a major boost to the soldiers' morale." the Globe describes the purpose of the Canadian troop presence in Afghanistan, "to support the Afghans and help rebuild their infrastructure."

The article shifts focus to remarks made by Hillier in his keynote address at the Conference of Defense Associations (CDA) annual general meeting the previous day. The CDA describes itself as the "oldest and most influential advocacy group in Canada's defense community." According to the Globe, Hillier "made a passionate pitch for greater Canadian public support for the Afghan mission, saying the objectives are worth the costs and risks."

The CDA's sister organization, the Canadian Defense Associations Institute (CDAI), hosted a seminar on February 23rd, entitled "NATO in Transition: The impact on Canada" that also made headlines. Many high-ranking military officials, politicians, and diplomats were in attendance, including Minister O'Connor.

The CDAI's board of directors includes Jack Granatstein, and Hugh Segal, a Senator and former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who is today a close advisor to PM Harper's "transition team." Granatstein, a well known and prolific revisionist historian, is an advocate for Canada's increased global military presence.

The headline of Granatstein's Globe op/ed, written in response to the negative poll, in which 62% of Canadians opposed sending tropps to Afghanistan, conveys the singular message of recent Afghanistan coverage: "Wake up! This is our war too; We must accept reality: Our Afghan mission is very much in our national interests and in the interests of democracy." Noting that "Canadian anti-Americanism is at a record peak in 2006," Granatstein appeals to Canadians "to recognize what is at stake and to support their government and their soldiers in advancing their country's--and the world's--interests." Granatstein's column appeared in the February 28th edition of the Globe right below Margaret Wente's. Wente sits with Granatstein on the Advisory Council of another prominent lobby group, the Canadian defense and Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI). CDFAI's donors include General Dynamics, the sixth largest defense contractor in the world, and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Among other connections, the chairman of the Globe's parent company BCE's board, Richard J. Currie, is also a director on the board of CAE, one of Canada's largest defense contractors. In the BCE boardroom, Currie sits with other directors representing the defense and energy lobbies, like billionaire James Pattison, a close friend of George Bush Sr. and a board member of the Ronald Reagan Foundation.

The most striking thing about corporate media war coverage in Canada is the omission of the majority view.

Immediately after publishing a poll showing that 62 per cent of Canadians opposed the Canadian occupation in Afghanistan, the Globe (among others) did not seek out any of the majority of Canadians to justify their views. With near exclusivity, both the Globe and the Post seek only the viewpoints of military officials, politicians, embedded reporters, and pro-military think tanks. Reading the country's "national" newspapers, one is scarcely aware of the numerous anti-war organizations, all of which have spokespeople across Canada.

While media support for war and marginalization of anti-war views is long-standing, so are the devastating effects of war and occupation that rely on public support. An online poll conducted by the Globe after the initial poll, indicates that the nationalist appeals geared at winning Canadian public opinion are having their impact. A week after the original poll, the Globe reported that out of 32,499 online respondents, 53 per cent support Canadian troops leading NATO combat missions in southern Afghanistan.

Anthony Fenton examines the ill-defined lines separating Canada's government, private defense contractors, the military and the media.

March

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 22:13:50 +0000

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