I forgot to include this when I wrote about Barlow’s book: a wonderful article from The Baffler about the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As it turns out–and you’ll be astonished to find this out–the group was, is, and will be completely full of shit. Guess who pays the bills? Give you a hint: it rhymes with “Apple and Facebook and a bunch of other assholes who couldn’t give two fucks about civil liberties as long as Silicon Valley is allowed to do whatever it wants whenever it wants.”
But we shouldn’t be surprised, should we? The organization got its start defending thievesOOPS I meant hackers who had broken into someone else’s propertyOOPS hacked into the mainframe and stoleOOPS liberated another person’s work. If they had jimmied open a window and snatched a file, then that would be illegal and wrong, but since they got in via modem…freedom fighters?
But, hey: information wants to be free and that’s why shoplifting books is legal. Case closed and all hail Eris.
Wow, TheBaffler is a great site, that was a long and information filled read.
Turned me from an EFF believer to a hater.
Dot communist
JPB’s associations with Snowden and Assange ain’t gonna age well either.
When EFF was starting up, I seriously considered working for them. Not that it would not have been fun.
I just wrote 2000 or so words about this and deleted it. I love this forum, am enthusiastic about the writing that this forum is centered around, but strongly disagree on this matter. If anyone needs to know why, they can find me on Twitter or Tumblr.
Send ’em over, brother. I may be wrong. It’s happened once or twice before.
It may take a while to get a head of steam again. I lost the whole thing trying to save it but not post it.
I believe I’m with Smoke, but I’d love to see the discussion. I’ve changed my mind after reading one article before, but it is unusual for one source to be that persuasive.
Thank you for that.
“information wants to be free and that’s why shoplifting books is legal”
Verity.
While usually here for the yucks, I found this topic serious and interesting. My hot take: the EFF’s (& Barlow’s) stance against governmental control and surveillance of the internet was honest and important. While at the same time, they put too much trust in Silicone Valley, and as a result ended up aiding corporate abuses of privacy. Both of these things can be true at the same time.
I therefore strongly disagree with the author’s premise that the EFF’s position against governmental overreach online was merely a cynical front to protect corporate interests. However, as an EFF and Barlow booster, I was unaware until now the extent of their industry lobbying, and hadn’t considered how much they, as a privacy advocacy group, had contributed to the loss of individual privacy by backing large internet corporations. Eye-opening.