<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font face="Verdana"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://boundary2.org/2015/04/29/dissecting-the-internet-freedom-agenda/">http://boundary2.org/2015/04/29/dissecting-the-internet-freedom-agenda/</a><br>
<br>
<b>A</b><b> review by Richard Hill of</b><br>
</font>
<meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title></title>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="LibreOffice 3.5 (Linux)">
<style type="text/css">
<!--
@page { margin: 2cm }
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }
-->
</style><b><big><strong><span style="font-weight: normal"></span></strong></big></b>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm"><em><font size="4"><span
style="font-style: normal"><b>The
Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom</b></span></font></em><span
style="font-style: normal"><b> <br>
</b></span><font size="4"><span style="font-style: normal"><b>by
</b></span></font><big><strong><span style="font-weight:
normal"><b>Shawn M. Powers and Michael Jablonski</b></span></strong></big></p>
<big><strong><span style="font-weight: normal"><b> </b></span></strong></big>
<title></title>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="LibreOffice 3.5 (Linux)">
<style type="text/css">
<!--
@page { margin: 2cm }
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }
-->
</style><span style="font-weight: normal"><br>
</span>
<p>Both <a href="http://www.justnetcoalition.org/">radical civil
society organizations</a> and <a
href="http://www.internetsociety.org/">mainstream</a> defenders
of the status quo agree that the free and open Internet is
threatened: see for example the <a
href="http://www.justnetcoalition.org/delhi-declaration">Delhi
Declaration</a>, Bob Hinden’s <a
href="http://www.internetsociety.org/blog/institutional/2014/12/year-end-thoughts">2014
Year End Thoughts</a>, and Kathy Brown’s <a
href="http://www.internetsociety.org/blog/public-policy/2015/03/connecting-dots-options-future-action">March
2015 statement</a> at a UNESCO conference. The threats include
government censorship and mass surveillance, but also the failure
of governments to control rampant industry concentration and
commercial exploitation of personal data, which increasingly takes
the form of providing “free” services in exchange for personal
information that is resold at a profit, or used to provide
targeted advertising, also at a profit.</p>
<p>In <em><a
href="http://boundary2.org/2015/04/08/the-internet-vs-democracy/">Digital
Disconnect</a></em>, Robert McChesney has explained how the
Internet, which was supposed to be a force for the improvement of
human rights and living conditions, has been used to erode privacy
and to increase the concentration of economic power, to the point
where it is becoming a <a
href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/03/11/no-democracy-is-not-excess-baggage/">threat
to democracy</a>. In <em><a
href="http://boundary2.org/2014/12/03/internet-freedom-digital-empire/">Digital
Depression</a></em>, Dan Schiller has documented how US
policies regarding the Internet have favored its geo-economic and
geo-political goals, in particular the interests of its large
private companies that dominate the information and communications
technology (ICT) sector worldwide.</p>
<p><a href="http://gsu.academia.edu/smp">Shawn M. Powers</a> and <a
href="http://gsu.academia.edu/MichaelJablonski">Michael
Jablonski</a>’s seminal new book <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/025208070X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=025208070X&linkCode=as2&tag=uncomputing-20&linkId=NZ23PH2SQQTRGQAY"
target="_blank"><em>The Real Cyber War</em></a> takes us further
down the road of understanding what went wrong, and what might be
done to correct the situation. Powers, an assistant professor at
Georgia State University, specializes in international political
communication, with particular attention to the geopolitics of
information and information technologies. Jablonski is an attorney
and presidential fellow, also at Georgia State.</p>
<p>There is a vast literature on internet governance (see for
example the bibliography in <span id="ext-gen17" class="value"><span
id="ext-gen16">Radu, Chenou, and Weber, eds.,</span></span> <em><a
href="https://www.schulthess.com/buchshop/detail/ISBN-9783725569083/Radu-Roxana-Editeur-Chenou-Jean-Marie-Editeur-Weber-Rolf-H.-Editeur/The-Evolution-of-Global-Internet-Governance">The
Evolution of Global Internet Governance</a></em>), but much of
it is ideological and normative: the author espouses a certain
point of view, explains why that point of view is good, and
proposes actions that would lead to the author’s desired outcome
(a good example is Milton Mueller’s well researched but utopian <em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Networks-States-Governance-Information-Revolution/dp/0262518570">Networks
and States</a></em>). There is nothing wrong with that
approach: on the contrary, such advocacy is necessary and welcome.</p>
<p>But a more detached analytical approach is also needed, and
Powers and Jablonski provide exactly that. Their objective is to
help us understand (citing from p. 19 of the paperback edition)
“why states pursue the policies they do”. The book “focuses
centrally on understanding the numerous ways in which power and
control are exerted in cyberspace” (p. 19).</p>
<p>Starting from the rather obvious premise that states compete to
shape international policies that favor their interests, and using
the framework of political economy, the authors outline the
geopolitical stakes and show how questions of <a
href="http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/03_tni_state-of-power-2015_the_true_stakes_of_internet_governance-1.pdf">power</a>,
and not <a
href="http://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2014/287-288/cover07.htm">human
rights</a>, are the real drivers of much of the debate about
Internet governance. They show how the United States has
deliberately used a human rights discourse to promote policies
that further its geo-economic and geo-political interests. And how
it has used subsidies and government contracts to help its private
companies to acquire or maintain dominant positions in much of the
ICT sector.</p>
<p>Jacob Silverman has <a
href="http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/crowdsourcing-scam">decried</a>
the “the misguided belief that once power is arrogated away from
doddering governmental institutions, it will somehow find itself
in the hands of ordinary people”. Powers and Jablonski dissect the
mechanisms by which vibrant government institutions deliberately
transferred power to US corporations in order to further US
geo-economical and geo-political goals.</p>
<p>In particular, they show how a “freedom to connect” narrative is
used by the USA to attempt to transform information and personal
data into commercial commodities that should be subject to free
trade. Yet all states (including the US) regulate, at least to
some extent, the flow of information within and across their
borders. If information is the “new oil” of our times, then it is
not surprising that states wish to shape the production and flow
of information in ways that favor their interests. Thus it is not
surprising that states such as China, India, and Russia have
started to assert sovereign rights to control some aspect of the
production and flow of information within their borders, and that
European Union courts have made decisions on the basis of European
law that affect global information flows and access.</p>
<p>As the authors put the matter (p. 6): “the [US] doctrine of
internet freedom … is the realization of a broader [US] strategy
promoting a particular conception of networked communication that
depends on American companies …, supports Western norms …, and
promotes Western products.” (I would personally say that it
actually supports US norms and US products and services.) As the
authors point out, one can ask (p. 11): “If states have a right to
control the types of people allowed into their territory
(immigration), and how its money is exchanged with foreign banks,
then why don’t they have a right to control information flows from
foreign actors?”</p>
<p>To be sure, any such controls would have to comply with
international human rights law. But the current US policies go
much further, implying that those human rights laws must be
implemented in accordance with the US interpretation, meaning few
restrictions on freedom of speech, <a
href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Privacy/United%20States.pdf">weak
protection</a> of privacy, and <a
href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/04/06/the-shaky-rationale-for-tpps-copyright-term/">ever
stricter</a> protection for intellectual property. As Powers and
Jablonski point out (p. 31), the US does not hesitate to promote
restrictions on information flows when that promotes its goals.</p>
<p>Again, the authors do not make value judgments: they explain in
Chapter 1 how the US deliberately attempts to shape (<a
href="http://www.global.asc.upenn.edu/internet-governance-the-new-great-game/"
target="_blank">to a large extent successfully</a>)
international policies, so that both actions and inactions serve
its interests and those of the large corporations that
increasingly influence US policies.</p>
<p>The authors then explain how the US military-industrial complex
has morphed into an information-industrial complex, with
deleterious consequences for both industry and government,
consequences such as “weakened oversight, accountability, and
industry vitality and competitiveness”(p. 23) that create risks
for society and democracy. As the authors say, the shift “from
adversarial to cooperative and<em> laissez-faire</em> rule making
is a keystone moment in the rise of the information-industrial
complex” (p. 61).</p>
<p>As a specific example, they focus on Google, showing how it
(largely successfully) aims to control and dominate all aspects of
the data market, from production, through extraction, refinement,
infrastructure and demand. A chapter is devoted to the economics
of internet connectivity, showing how US internet policy is
basically about getting the largest number of people online, so
that US companies can extract ever greater profits from the
resulting data flows. They show how the network effects, economies
of scale, and externalities that are fundamental features of the
internet favor first-movers, which are mostly US companies.</p>
<p>The remedy to such situations is well known: government
intervention: widely accepted regarding air transport, road
transport, pharmaceuticals, etc., and yet unthinkable for many
regarding the internet. But why? As the authors put the matter (p.
24): “While heavy-handed government controls over the internet
should be resisted, so should a system whereby internet
connectivity requires the systematic transfer of wealth from the
developing world to the developed.” But freedom of information is
put forward to justify specific economic practices which would not
be easy to justify otherwise, for example “no government taxes
companies for data extraction or for data imports/exports, both of
which are heavily regulated aspects of markets exchanging other
valuable commodities”(p. 97).</p>
<p>The authors show in detail how the so-called internet <a
href="https://gurstein.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/democracy-or-multi-stakeholderism-competing-models-of-governance/">multi-stakeholder</a>
model of governance is dominated by insiders and used “under the
veil of consensus’” (p. 136) to further US policies and
corporations. A chapter is devoted to explaining how all states
control, at least to some extent, information flows within their
territories, and presents detailed studies of how four states
(China, Egypt, Iran and the USA) have addressed the challenges of
maintaining political control while respecting (or not) freedom of
speech. The authors then turn to the very current topic of mass
surveillance, and its relation to anonymity, showing how, when the
US presents the internet and “freedom to connect” as analogous to
public speech and town halls, it is deliberately arguing against
anonymity and against privacy – and this of course in order to
avoid restrictions on its mass surveillance activities.</p>
<p>Thus the authors posit that there are tensions between the US
call for “internet freedom” and other states’ <a
href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2014/11/05/what-is-happening-at-the-itu-plenipotentiary-conference/">calls</a>
for “information sovereignty”, and analyze the 2012 <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/The-International-Telecommunication-Regulations-Internet/dp/3642454151">World
Conference on International Telecommunications</a> from that
point of view.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the authors conclude that international
cooperation, recognizing the legitimate aspirations of all the
world’s peoples, is the only proper way forward. As the authors
put the matter (p. 206): “Activists and defenders of the original
vision of the Web as a ‘fair and humane’ cyber-civilization need
to avoid lofty ‘internet freedom’ declarations and instead
champion specific reforms required to protect the values and
practices they hold dear.” And it is with that in mind, as a
counterweight to US and US-based corporate power, that a group of
civil society organizations have launched the <a
href="http://internetsocialforum.net/?q=Tunis_Call_for_a_Peoples_Internet">Internet
Social Forum</a>.</p>
Anybody who is seriously interested in the evolution of internet
governance and its impact on society and democracy will enjoy
reading this well researched book and its clear exposition of key
facts. One can only hope that the Council of Europe will heed Powers
and Jablonski’s advice and avoid adopting more resolutions such as
the recent <a href="https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=2306649">recommendation
to member states by the EU Committee of Ministers</a>, which
merely pander to the US discourse and US power that Powers and
Jablonski describe so aptly. And one can fondly hope that this book
will help to inspire a change in course that will restore the
internet to what it might become (and what many thought it was
supposed to be): an engine for democracy and social and economic
progress, justice, and equity.<a name="authorbio"></a>
<title></title>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="LibreOffice 3.5 (Linux)">
<style type="text/css">
<!--
@page { margin: 2cm }
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }
-->
</style>
</body>
</html>