Well, Mike Godwin and I have argued about NII/Data Highway before, and we see things differently. When I read the main position papers, and look to the "big picture," the future being envisioned, I get a differenct sense of it than Mike gets. The NII papers (ftp.ntia.doc.gov, in /pub as "agenda.asc") and the CPSR docs (distributed on this list) are clearly not leading to an anarchic net. For example, what will be the NII management's response to a "No blacks allowed" area? To a "women need not apply" on-line consulting situation? To a cyberspatial version of the "old boy's network" that Gloria Allred and her feminista compadres are constantly filing lawsuits against? (I go to a health club/gym that has a "women only" facility. There are no longer any "men only" gyms anywhere in California, but "women only" facilities are flourishing.) Please understand that I'm not proposing a "no blacks allowed" service, only arguing that freedom of association is a basic principle I support, and one on which free societies are based. Yes, I support the right of a store owner to hang a sign out that says "No straights allowed," or "No ragheads allowed." Of course, the general population would probably find this fairly offensive and the store owner would reconsider or go out of business. Sounds fair to me. (Sorry for a digresssion into Libertarianism 101.) Somehow I think the "fair access" and "nondiscriminatory environment" language used in many of these proposals is a clue about what's coming.
For what it's worth, I don't think this interpretation can be read into EFF's Open Platform paper. EFF doesn't care about making money off the Data Highway, nor does it think the debate should be about the number of channels cable offers.
Instead, EFF wants an infrastructure in which Tim May's anarchic vision can flourish along with the visions of anarchophobes. On an Open Platform, a hundred flowers can and will bloom, and a thousand schools of thought will contend.
EFF indeed has a more libertarian view than does, say, the CPSR (I almost typed CPUSA). Mitch Kapor, Mike Godwin, Stanton McClandish, and others certainly understand the dangers of a surveillance state. I've heard it argued by some of them (sorry for forgetting exactly who said what) that some form of data superhighway will be built regardless of our objections, so we might as well get involved and be helpful. The better to ensure our vision. Well, I take the more radical view that to get involved with them is to run the risk of getting co-opted by them, to be manouvered into accepting their views. I support the Open Platform ideas about ending the current local monopoly on cable and phone provision, but that's as far as I go.
Anarchists like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy could find individualistic redemption on the (government-built) road. EFF thinks private-enterprise roads are better, but we also think its promise is unfulfilled if it doesn't allow net.kerouacs and net.cassidys to create there.
Oh, to be sure, _literary anarchists_ like Cassidy and Kerouac will be tolerated. They're no threat, they're covered by artistic license standards (notwithstanding Mapplethorpe and his censors), and they're even a very useful social pressure releaf valve. I'm more concerned about the regulation of business transactions on the Net of the future, on the ease with which access to the Data Highway can be denied to anyone who fails to have the proper business license, the properly approved encryption algorithms, the "tax stamp" on data packets, and the wrong views about taxation and black markets. As commerce moves onto the Nets in an even large way, there is every reason to believe government and special interest groups will seek to use the state monopoly or regulation to control the types of transactions. Wonder how long the newsgroups on child porn will last when the Net is "the data interstate" instead of a loose anarchic collection? How about the White Aryan Resistance Net, featuring the latest in anonymous communication systems? We don't need no steenking data superhighway! --Tim May -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.