Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge/Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge.iso/LEGAL/EFF501.TXT

Text File | 1994-07-17 | 28KB | 564 lines

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EFFector Online Volume 5 No. 1       2/5/1993       [e-mail]
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation   ISSN 1062-9424
584 lines
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                               In this issue:
Three perspectives of a two-day meeting in Atlanta between EFF and
representatives of regional groups of grassroots networking activists.
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INTRODUCTION:

This past January 23rd and 24th, 11 members of the electronic
community met in Atlanta with members of the staff and board of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  The meeting lasted a day and a
half, with topics of discussion including EFF's recent organizational
restructuring and how groups serving the electronic community can
work together to be more effective.  By the end of the two days,
meeting attendees had formed a group to organize and formulate
guidelines for continuing interchange among all who work to
strengthen electronic communications.

This issue of EFFector Online presents some first-hand views of what
transpired in Atlanta.  Mitch Ratcliffe, one of the members of
This!Group out of San Francisco's Bay area, David Smith, a board
member of the EFF-Austin group, and Jerry Berman, EFF's Executive
Director, all offer their thoughts about the meeting.  Other meeting
attendees were:

    Dick Anderson, Delegate from EFF-Austin
    John Perry Barlow, EFF Executive Committee Chairman
    Judi Clark, Delegate from This!Group
    Esther Dyson, EFF Board Member
    Dave Farber, EFF Board Member
    Cliff Figallo, EFF Online Coordinator
    John Gilmore, EFF Board Member
    Mike Godwin, EFF Legal Services Counsel
    Mitch Kapor, EFF Board Chairman
    Jon Lebkowsky, Delegate from EFF-Austin
    Matt Midboe, Delegate from Huntsville, Alabama
    Simona Nass, Delegate from NTE (New York)
    Alexis Rosen, Delegate from NTE (New York)
    Shari Steele, EFF Staff Attorney
    Bob Stratton, Delegate from Washington, DC, area
    Glenn Tenney, Delegate from This!Group
    Ed Vielmetti, Delegate from Ann Arbor, Michigan


     Information Activists Confer, Establish Understanding
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by Mitch Ratcliffe

Atlanta, where the world comes everyday for news and colorized
movies, the capitol of Cyberspace, was the setting for a discussion
between the Electronic Frontier Foundation and information activists
on the weekend of January 23-24. After two days of discussions, the
parties came away with a new understanding of EFF's legislative
agenda in coming years, and how local groups can work together to
raise awareness of electronic freedom and privacy.

EFF has endured a roller-coaster year, during which it wrestled with
the growth of its influence in Washington and growing interest in
local chapters. After the group's board of directors rejected investing
organizational energy in local chapters and closed its Cambridge,
Mass. office -- shifting all funding to a Washington office -- they
faced the challenge of explaining their new role to the world. EFF's
founders had already discovered the Internet community can be a
fickle friend. As the group succeeded inside the Beltway, its Internet
constituency has savaged them in e-mail and news groups. People
have questioned their commitment to civil liberties and whether the
EFF agenda served only its corporate sponsors.

So, the purpose of the meeting in Atlanta was clearly two-fold. In
addition to identifying the projects on which the attendees can work
together, EFF needed to cultivate a chorus of voices in key virtual
and actual forums that can articulate their new agenda. The
representatives invited to the summit included members of the
Austin, Texas,-based EFF chapter that has been growing for the past
year, as well as activists from New York, San Francisco, Ann Arbor,
Mich., and Huntsville, Ala.

EFF and the representatives of the various groups met bearing with
them considerable defensiveness after months of crossed signals and
animosity. What transpired was not a conversion, but a discovery of
the personalities behind the EFF machine. Mitch Kapor and John
Perry Barlow, the founders, and Jerry Berman, the lobbyist who has
ascended to head the now Washington-based organization, exposed
themselves to questioning for two days. What we found were very
human leaders, who are as confused about perceptions of them as
the world is about where they came from, what they have
accomplished and how they operate in Washington. While we do not
agree with everything they do, there is no denying that they are
effective. Considerable educational and advocacy territories are also
wide open for other groups who want to make them their own.

"There has been some ambiguity in people's minds with regard to
who we are," Barlow said. "We are who we've always been. The
changes we announced are fairly minimal. We've decided to focus a
lot of our activities in Washington because there is a significant
window of opportunity there"

If EFF has suffered from anything this last year, it's bad
communication. Without a concerted effort to reach out to the Net --
and to everyday people who live and work on the fringes of
Cyberspace, because they use computers, cable television and ATM
cards -- the organization has allowed itself to become a victim of its
own early expectations that enlightened visions of the future would
allow them to transcend organizational and Beltway politics. Instead,
the EFF received a fierce, full-body reality check. They've found that
experience can be a high-sticking teacher on the black ice of life.

"We're a bunch of permanent, chronic mavericks," Kapor said. "But
certain things became very clear when the board met to discuss our
direction. We clarified the role of chapters, or lack of chapters,
deciding that we did not want a centralized organization. The other
thing that's increasingly clear is that there is a sense in certain parts
of the net that EFF has a perceived obligation to serve particular
constituencies. We are not trying to be the provisional government of
Cyberspace, and we also reject the idea that we have an obligation to
serve the good of the net," he said.

He also said his own personal animosity for running the day-to-day
operations of a large organization had contributed to the
miscommunication between EFF and potential chapters.

Discussion on the first day revolved around the recently announced
changes at EFF. After EFF presented several perspectives on its
Washington-based strategy, the activists from around the country
explained how their groups were founded and had begun to grow.

"We're better defined and we're capable of changing based on what
we hear from the outside," said EFF board member Esther Dyson. "We
are not for the net community, we're for the idea of communities.
One that we come from and feel close to is the net community, but
that's not the only one."

Jerry Berman explained that EFF will continue to advocate for
freedom of expression and extension of civil liberties into
Cyberspace.

"We are committed to the legal services and civil liberties service
role and we will work with people using the technology in different
ways that will raise constitutional and public policy issues," Berman
said, citing as an example the 2600 case the EFF has just joined with
the American Civil Liberties Union. "With regard to those two
functions, of representing people in trouble and civil liberties
representation, we are on the ground. With regard to representation
of the net com