Monday, October 31, 2011

Net Neutrality and the Amazon Fire

It could be said that the nature of technological development and the nature of government regulation are diametrically opposed. One is constantly evolving and enthusiastically pursued at an unprecedented rate; the other a system of compromises begrudgingly instituted after months of fettering debate. It’s unsurprising, then, that the speed of legislation pales in comparison to the speed at which tech companies are able to develop new, better and different products. In recent years, attempts made by the government to protect the media consumption and expression rights of its citizens have often been thwarted by Internet service providers that are incredibly motivated to direct the flow of online traffic to suit their interests.
                                                                                                                    
In fact, the current batch of FCC rules regarding net neutrality, instituted just last year, are already being sidestepped by new technologies. Amazon’s newest toy, the “Fire” tablet (an offshoot from their “Kindle” line of e-readers), has become the target of criticism regarding its browser’s processing system. The Kindle uses a new browser technology dubbed “Silk,” which allows for faster page load times on the tablet computer. Although this new browser technology would usually be seen as an improvement, complaints have surfaced about the browser’s potential to serve as a gatekeeper for certain web sites.  

In 2010 the FCC banned ISPs from employing this very practice. Unfortunately, with the way the FCC has defined the term “ISP,” Amazon may be able to escape any enforcement of its rule by arguing that they are not technically an ISP.  Until the FCC can modify its definition of ISP to include mobile devices like the Fire, manufacturers of these products will be able to escape regulation that protects the freedom of expression and consumption its users are entitled to via net neutrality rules.

What’s more, because the Fire is designed around the oft-touted cloud technology, Fire users face a risk that the new device may violate their privacy rights. This is because the cloud system of computing stores user data in off-device locations, which can then be farmed for consumer data at any time. Concerns have been raised that this technology would allow the corporation to collect web-browsing data on any of its users. 

In a world where the web has replaced television as the most popular news delivery source, it is clear that we need to protect our citizens’ rights to free consumption and expression on the Internet. It follows, then, that our government must adapt its practices to account for the unprecedented pace at which technologies are developing and altering the landscape of media consumption in this country. 

Ben Cukerbaum

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Horizontalism and the Occupy Movement

          As the Occupy movement stretches across the nation, the United States is experiencing yet another episode of protest sparked by the ongoing economic recession and its effect on the widening wealth gap between the nation’s economic classes. In a decentralized outpouring of frustration, individuals are assembling to make their voices heard – although the voices lack a unified ring.
          At this point, the movement’s concrete goals seem unclear. While some localities have developed specific calls for action (e.g. Chicago, which issued a list of twelve demands on Sunday, October 16), the movement still lacks an overarching mission statement apart from the vision of decreasing wealth disparity. Various scholars point to the movement’s potential power from this disunity – one that is giving “time for activists to find each other, for them to identify common grievances and goals, even to identify their political opponents and how to attack the problem” (per Michelle Nickerson, Assistant professor of history at Loyola University).
          As we examine the movement in light of this disunity, its efficacy may hinge upon the strength of its organizational strategy and process. While Obama’s 2008 campaign and the Tea Party’s rise are recent examples of successful public assembly to achieve political ends, the Occupy movement may not fit within this policitized framework.
          Organizer, lawyer, and postdoctoral fellow at the Committee on Globalization and Social change Marina Sitrin argues that the movement fits better into “horizontal” framework – one that recognizes the need for individuals to come together and make change outside of the government. She cites Argentina after the 2001 economic recession as a protypical example of such a movement,  gaining strength from its “from the people, by the people” approach outside of a traditional political context. She hopes that this is the beginning of a societal shift, in which people begin to form participatory units outside of the traditional political context to create change within their own communities.
          Does this movement have the power to give back Americans the strength of their social capital, which Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone argues has disappeared as we become more socially disconnected in the internet age? Whether widespread and decentralized organization can spring from the Occupy movement is yet to be seen. However,  in examining the movement’s efficacy, we must look less to its political accomplishments and focus on the ways it expands our strength in achieving ends in workplaces, schools, and towns across the United States.

Friday, October 21, 2011

If Canada isn’t enough for Occupy, then what is?

In late September 2008, after the federal government took over Fannie and Freddie Mac and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, my development studies professor looked at the class and said something along the lines of “well class, modern capitalism as we know is going to change and I’m not sure what will happen.” In the years following 2008 it became clear the changes to modern capitalism would not be nearly as cataclysmic as my professor speculated—the Second Great Depression never materialized. In recent weeks however a new questions has been brought to the forefront—what should the modern capitalism look like.

The Occupy Protests have spread from Wall Street to over 70 major cities in the US. There is no unifying manifesto of the protests across America. Instead protestors have vented their frustration about the status quo of the economy. An often repeated fact is that almost forty percent of the wealth in America is held by the top one percent of Americans. The protestors identify themselves as the other ninety-nine percent of Americans.

An interesting off-shot has been the spread of the protests across the forty-ninth parallel to Canada. Fifteen Canadian cities have seen Occupy Protests as of October 14, 2011. The protests have found traction in Canada despite the presence of a more progressive tax system, less income inequality than the U.S., and the supervision and regulation of financial institutions, which are the very things American Occupy Protests implicitly advocate. But, in the view of the Canadian protestors, the Canadian system is still not enough to be what the modern economy should be.

The prevalence of the protests across the forty-ninth parallel raises an important question about what the ideal end result for the Occupy Protests in America will be. If the Canadian progressive tax system, and supervision of the financial sector is not enough to satisfy the Occupy Protest, then what will be? The protestors have been quick to vent their frustration with the status quo, but without a concrete vision of what the economy should look like, the Occupy Protest will have difficulty changing the status quo. Hopefully, if the protests continue, a clear message will be articulated other than just we don’t like the way it is. 

Monday, October 17, 2011

On the Scene at Occupy Austin

The other day I had occasion to be at Austin City Hall.  It was about 4:30 in the afternoon and I observed that the Occupy Austin group in the plaza was small and quiet, but the atmosphere was festive. There were colorful signs and banners hung on the walls and steps, and chalked messages on the concrete of the plaza. I was shocked, I admit, that the crowd wasn’t larger.

I walked back through the plaza about 7:30. The atmosphere was a bit different—still festive, but more active.  There were people standing by the curb holding signs, encouraging passing drivers to honk their support (which they did, regularly). There was a small, subdued drum circle, and more movement, more milling around. The crowd had probably doubled in size. “Ah,” I thought, “They’ve come from work.” An astute observation on my part, if I do say so myself, because what I’ve read, seen, or heard about the Occupy Wall Street movement is minimal (a first year law school student doesn’t have much time to keep up with current events).

So I began to wonder what was going on. Who are these people, exactly, and what do they want? Who’s in charge? Curious, I started exploring the Occupy Austin website http://occupyaustin.org, where I read their General Assembly Minutes from October 2nd. Because it’s in writing, I didn’t get the full benefit of a live GA, where the group uses “the people’s mike” and hand signals to discuss and decide issues. 

If you’re unfamiliar with this system, there’s a great 4-minute primer here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/05/141048592/occupy-wall-street-where-everybody-has-a-say-in-everything. In short, everyone repeats what is being said by everyone else so that everyone can hear what everyone is saying. And yes, when put into practice, it feels just that circular.

I’m sympathetic to the reasons behind this specific approach (the police won’t allow bullhorns, with which I’m also sympathetic), but it takes a really, really long time to get anywhere. The GA is where facilitators lead the group through decision-making by consensus using hand signals. You may have heard about the GA in Occupy Atlanta where it took 10 minutes to decide to NOT hear respected Civil Rights leader John Lewis speak. How they spend their time is at their discretion, but it took TEN minutes. Some members of the Occupy movement want to actually overthrow the government in its present form. Groovy. It’s gonna take a hellacious long time to make it happen at this rate.

But, back to the Occupy Austin GA. As I continued reading the transcript of the October 2nd GA, it became obvious that the movement consists of many different demographics, which I find hopeful—calling themselves the 99% and then actually striving for that as a reality. Sure, there will be a good percentage of people out there who think the Occupy movement is ludicrous, but calling it a movement of the 93.7% doesn’t sound as good as 99%. Anyway, I was right—many of the participants hold full-time, 40-hour a week jobs (“Wow, you mean they aren’t all drop-outs and slackers who could never hold a job and now that the economy soured and even Starbucks won’t hire them and they don’t know what else to do in the afternoons after they’ve smoked the last of their stash, they decided to just hang out at the plaza and try to make life difficult for those of us who do work and pay taxes like true, God-fearing Americans?”—and yes, I’ve seen all of this and more aimed at the participants in online comments to news articles and blogs).

There’s the “underage” set, teenagers, who have stricter guidelines from the city about when they can assemble and under what conditions, but that’s okay; they’ll have plenty of time to protest at will when they get older. There are folks there with little ones (the community specifically addresses child care issues so adults can march), members of the LGBT community, union and labor, and even slow-foodies who are resisting corporate control by growing their own food. There’s a blog entry on Occupy Austin’s website written in Spanish.  Elsewhere in the blogosphere I read of the middle-aged, middle-class white dude who said he was economically “well off” standing next to a leather clad young man who was out of work; they were getting along, communicating and wanting the same fundamental changes to come out of the movement.

Several exchanges during the October 2nd GA had to do with the police. I don’t remember seeing a single officer when I walked through, but I imagine there must have been a few. The facilitators stressed that the group had been given the go-ahead from the city government to assemble in the plaza, with one caveat—no sleeping in the plaza. The group decided to occupy in shifts, so no problem there. Otherwise, the facilitators reminded everyone, the police are public servants looking out for the safety of those in the plaza. Someone in the crowd (and hence the crowd in toto) suggested that everyone should be on the look out for any violence so that it could be dealt with immediately.  Someone else warned, a bit more ominously, “There could be provocateurs, government entities, so be aware and put a stop to it.”

It appears that the police and the Occupy participants had been on peaceful terms until this Thursday when four people were arrested for not leaving the plaza so it could be pressure-washed. Now, I have a problem with this last bit of the story for two reasons: one, some of the participants were using the corner of the plaza as their own private urinal, in which case, the city has every right to clean the place; but two, the city claimed that it “needed” to clean the chalk off the concrete—say what? Occupy Austin needs to be self-policing of its members or it will continue to have trouble with the city, and deservedly so. The city has a duty to the citizens of the city—100% of us. But…really? What harm is chalk going to do? It can wait until Dec 7th, the self-imposed end to the occupation.

Kristine Baumstark