

 ********************

   Roadblocks on the Super-Information Highway
    from Workers Solidarity No 45
               (1995)

In the last issue of Workers Solidarity we mentioned 
the anarchist electronic library Spunk Press.  Some of 
our readers may have seen it mentioned since in the 
Sunday Times (British) as part of a complicated 
conspiracy theory which attempted to link it to 
everything from drug making to school riots to bank-
robbing to "outlawed loyalist paramilitary groups"!!

The same weekend a computer bulletin board was raided 
in Italy and the administrators of it charged with 
"association with intent to subvert the democratic 
order".   This is a charge which carries a penalty for 
those convicted of 7 to 15 years imprisonment.  More 
recently articles in the US media and a paper 
published by the Rand institute have warned of the 
danger of the internet making Mexico ungovernable 
through 'netwar'.  Essentially this refers to the 
posting of EZLN communiquŽs and the organisation of 
anti-repression demonstrations through mailing lists.

Anarchists are aware that capitalism will not allow 
'freedom of information' in any real sense.  The mass 
media is all state owned or owned by wealthy 
corporations.  Its primary role is not to tell us 
about the world we live in  but rather to "manufacture 
consent" (defining the limits of 'legitimate' debate).  
As long as access to the internet was confined to a 
narrow layer of academics and students,  freedom of 
expression was permitted.  But now that it starts to 
become a mass medium of communication the state is 
seeking to impose limits on this expression.

In order to do so, it is trying to label those it 
wishes to silence as 'terrorists'.  That is the 
purpose of all the events listed above.  A month after 
the Italian raids the material seized was returned.  
In a press release Luc Pac, one of those charged, 
pointed out "The complete restitution of the material 
seized suggests that nothing useful was found amongst 
it that might confirm the charges laid out in the 
authorities' original warrants. In any case, the three 
magistrates who ordered the raids have been unable to 
find the time to meet with us over the past 23 days; 
similarly, the Carabinieri (Police) who actually 
returned the seized goods refused to answer any 
questions concerning the enquiry or its future 
course."

Effector on-line, a publication of the Electronic 
Frontier Foundation [the EFF is a 'highly respected' 
lobbying body supported by many parts of the computer 
industry] describes the attacks on Spunk Press as 
"replete with errors and remarkably 
biased...Additionally it makes many wild and highly 
unrealistic accusations of global anarchist 
conspiracy.  No relevant evidence or sources are 
cited."  Many of those involved with Spunk Press 
suspect that the ultimate 'source' of this article is 
MI5, desperately seeking a justification for their 
funding now that the Cold War is over.

What is being attacked is the threat of effective 
opposition to state repression.  The attacks on the 
mailing lists carrying EZLN communiquŽs prompted a 
debate on the internet as to whether it was really 
that effective or was is just a lot of "alienated 
bourgeois professors" talking to each other.  The 
lists played a key part in not only getting out the 
information but also organising opposition to the 
January invasion by the Mexican army within hours of 
it happening.  Demonstrations and occupations have 
been reported on it from Italy, France, USA, Canada 
and Ireland along with other countries.

These lists gave activists not only detailed first 
hand accounts of torture being used by the Mexican 
state but also exposed the reasons for the invasion in 
the form of a memo from Chase Bank saying that if the 
government wanted to continue receiving loans it would 
have to eliminate the Zapatista's.  The liberal 
mainstream media may be willing to cover events in the 
third world from the point of view of "look what the 
nasty tin pot dictator is doing".  It is generally 
unwilling to expose the involvement of western 
companies and governments as the puppet masters behind 
this repression.  Eyewitness accounts circulated on 
mailing lists have also revealed the use of US 'War on 
Drugs' helicopters by the Mexican army in strafing 
civilian targets.

Although the importance of the Chiapas related mailing 
lists should not be over estimated they have served as 
a conduit through which the truth about what is really 
going on in Mexico can flow.  Normally it takes months 
or years for these stories to emerge, now it is taking 
days or hours.  At the time of writing it has become 
obvious that the Mexican army is pursuing a policy of 
causing food shortages in Chiapas.  Although they have 
now left many of the villages they occupied they 
destroyed all or most of the foodstuffs before 
leaving.  Reports such as this from Santa Elana are 
typical "As in Ibarra, they returned to find their 
corn, beans and coffee (constituting a six-month food 
supply) scattered and eaten by animals, and their 
houses ransacked."

It is this sort of information that the state wants to 
censor from the internet.  The censorship will be 
camouflaged by a mist of lies, hidden behind buzz 
words like pornography, drugs and terrorism.  The last 
two months have seen the first shots in this battle 
and have seen some liberals falling into line in this 
new state offensive.  According to the Sunday Times, 
Chris Smith, Labour's Heritage spokesman, said the 
findings of their article showed the need for 
international agreements to ban groups preaching 
violence from the information super-highway.

The states job will not be easy however.  The current 
structure of the internet makes effectively censoring 
it a very difficult prospect.  And the crude attempts 
to set activists up for persecution has already met a 
heated response as thousands have e-mailed protest 
letters to some of the publications involved.  One 
magazine was forced to publish a double page of 
letters protesting its original article.  Many of 
these letters came from workers within the computer 
industry, protesting against the attempt to victimise 
fellow workers.  A key factor in keeping the 
information freely flowing will be how far workers 
using and maintaining the net go along with or oppose 
this censorship.

Joe Black

