Volunteerism, public information, and the open regulation of the information society.

Peter Timusk B.Math

Course LAWS3501

Term winter 2003

Section A

Professor Steve Tasson

Carleton University
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Introduction:

Volunteers regulate the Internet

The best known and possibly the largest body of volunteers working with computers are the Open Source community volunteers. There are also the lessor known communities such as, the FreeNets, and the CyberAngels. Most likely hundreds of other on-line communities involve volunteers on-line. This paper will explore volunteering on the Internet and the possibility that volunteers regulate the Internet. I will look at regulation issues raised by Lawrence Lessig in his book Code and suggest some ways that on-line volunteering is regulating the Internet and will always be a partner in computing. I will tie this thesis in with the concept of public information.

Volunteers contribute greatly to our economy. Canadian volunteers in 2000 contributed 1.05 billion hours of work. [1] In fact, volunteers seem to be involved in many levels of government although this is not at all obvious to a casual observer. Think of meteorological volunteers or volunteers in criminal justice such as those who help ex-convicts. There are volunteers involved as members of lobby groups, special interest groups, in fact, involved in a wide array of non-government organizations. Volunteers are also active in the Internet society on many levels.

Open Source Volunteers

Lessig in his book finds that software could regulate the Internet. [2] There is hope that the Open Source community will produce open software code that will add transparency to software code that governs cyberspace. [3] This software code will be known, published, [4] and we will be able to monitor it. The regulation effected by this software code will be accessible and knowable. There are these days perhaps millions of people who could possible read and understand [5] this software code. Many people have learned programming languages and can read and understand software code and it effects. Further, many software tools can operate software code or make it understandable for humans. [6] It would not be surprising if security agencies were already watching open software code with tools and assessments that would allow government agents to evaluate software code for its legal values and possible effects or affects on society. We know the opposite closed software code is being pried open as in the case of the Microsoft trial. The court in the Microsoft case is judging not just the affects of business practices but the affects of software code on these practices. [7] However, volunteers, as well as, the government are viewing software code and testing open and perhaps closed code. I am sure there will always be volunteers reacting as watchdogs and whistle blowers for software code, open or closed.

There is another aspect to open code, free code. Why would someone write software code, which is an intellectual property, and then share this freely? Richard Stallman in his essay Why Software Should Be Free, [8] argues a number of points about this. He argues that software is a public good not a private good. He believes if software is useful to us we should be free to help our neighbour by sharing it. He also feels we need to learn from previously written software. Student programmers should be able to learn from software code in products that work. There we have it, open code and arguments for it being a public good. [9]

There are code repositories on the Internet where one can download at no cost say JavaScript code to effect things on web pages. People do share code voluntarily. Much of the code made by the open source movement is a voluntary effort, [10] although not all is freely available code. Richard Stallman’s General Public License (GPL) for open source software, [11] requires that if the software is copyright with the GPL, that the code be readable, in other words open. In addition, under the GPL, the cost of the software must have a free option costing no more, than the media to hold the software costs, or be free to download as an option. The Internet seems like a place, where there is a lot of free software, and email is cheap. It is probably this GPL license and the free software that it provides, that influence, this aspect of the architecture of the Internet. [12]

Linus Torvalds, the original creator and maintainer of the Linux kernel discusses in his autobiography some of the issues involved in the GPL. He suggests that this license is a voluntary code with no legal force. [13]

Code is, in fact, similar to a mathematical idea. It is an algorithm and in some senses just a common idea. [14] There are few ways to compute a derivative of a mathematical function. So that with common mathematical ideas involved that many people know, there are not that many ways to program a computer to calculate a derivative. Can code really make a claim at originality or copyright? [15] Or is code a public, or commons property, as I believe, and Richard Stallman argues? [16]

Public information and participatory democracy

However, there is more too information that is public, than just open code. Governments, the world over, are going on-line. Governments "need to provide useful information and recognize the explicit right of citizens to such information." [17] To inform people of their rights and responsibilities via the Internet or other information technologies is a going concern. [18] Jane Steele looks at some European nations and their policies and efforts in this domain in her paper Information and citizenship in Europe. [19] Therefore, while we might think that the governments of the world are only after tax dollars from the Internet [20] there are other fundamentally important bits of information that involve the government and its citizens.

Laws, to be effective need to be knowable by the public. This legal information was at one time inaccessible in vast volumes that only found homes in lawyer’s offices and in law libraries. Now these codes, statutes, and regulations are published on Canadian government web spaces. Citizens can find what they need to know for "their relationships with their governments." [21] Decisions and common law are also finding published expression in cyberspace.

E-democracy is public information, and interaction with government officials on-line. In some ways, this has an end, an ultimate goal. It is through an informed citizenship that our government will be improved. [22] Using the Internet for politics, Al Gore spoke of the "new Athenian age of democracy" while United States' Vice President. [23] In addition, by allowing the public to communicate in an easy manner with government, as Internet e-mail and web searches for Ministry homepages make possible, the government can react with greater citizen input. Although "‘participation’ is used to refer to a wide variety of different situations by different people", [24] I think e-democracy is participatory democracy. Again a hoped for result. This is widely actualized these days by volunteers, at least in the sense, that we all volunteer our information and our time to the government by interacting with it. Lobby groups are often composed of a volunteer membership base. Volunteers decide what laws they will ask the government to change.

I believe our parents and other authorities have volunteered much of our knowledge of laws to us in the past as part of our socialization process. The Internet will change and has changed the spread of legal or public information. So, while the government will publish much of itself, there will be the volunteers as well, acting in tension with this public information. There will also be the adult citizens of tomorrow, the children, who will be using the Internet to learn about government and volunteer their time.

The Cyber Angels: guardians of moral panic

The law, software companies, or parents are not the only ones considering children’s use of the Internet. Volunteers, such as the Pedowatch people and the Cyber Angels are actively hopping to make life safer on the Internet for children. Perhaps it is true that this concern for children is a moral panic, and that the Internet is no new or greater threat in regards to child safety. [25]

Where there are moral panics there are reactions. The Communications Decency Act (1996) was an attempt [26] to be concerned or react to this moral panic. The formation of the CyberAngels in 1995 was also a reaction to this panic. It was a reaction by volunteers.

In their work, the "CyberAngel volunteers have been instrumental in putting child pornographers and predators behind bars, where they belong." [27] There is an article displayed on the CyberAngels web site, from an American Newspaper the Morning Call. In this article writer Christian Berg quotes the coordinators of this large volunteer effort.

One quote strikes me. Cynthia Neff who is co-director of the CyberAngels cyber crimes unit is quoted as saying, "…(CyberAngels) never takes matters into its own hands. It wants to be an ally to legitimate authorities." [28] This seems like volunteers involved with government to better the world and to regulate the Internet.

Web pages and Usenet FAQ’s maintained by volunteers

I maintain some web pages for the newsgroup called alt.support.schizophrenia which people read on Usenet. While Usenet is more or less the old Internet, it is still going strong. I publish a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file at the web site. [29] This is collection of facts and opinions about schizophrenia, an illness I happen to have. One person only known as maD PropheT, apparently living in London England, created the FAQ and then with people contributing facts about local service from Australia, Canada, and the USA, we created the rest of the document. It serves to answer questions about schizophrenia. [30] However, it also has sections that hope to guide or regulate behaviour on the newsgroup. [31] This FAQ writes out what we will tolerate in our use of the newsgroup. For example, there are suggestions "that we keep personal information that we may come to know, about other users [32] private", and that others honour us by doing the same. This section covering on-line behaviour is like a social code that volunteers have created. It does not guide everyone who shows up at the newsgroup but it does guide some users. Just as some criminal laws are broken and unpunished, our FAQ works some of the time. It is publicly accessible and will show up in web searches. I host it on my account with the National Capital FreeNet a public Internet service provider.

Many of the newsgroups on Usenet have a FAQ file. Volunteers typically maintain these FAQs. The volunteers are users of the newsgroup in question. This is where much of the real knowledge of the Internet resides. It is not in the commercial Internet and news service web sites that the net has information. Information is in the knowledge provided by volunteers contained in these FAQs. To many users of the Internet it is just this rich content the makes the Internet appealing.

These FAQs also suggest behaviour on-line. These are guides to using the Internet, as well as, being information rich files. The FAQs act as a code, a code numbered like software, but then sectioned like laws. There are consequences for breaking these codes. Other users will ignore abusers of these FAQs. These generally are only rules for avoiding annoyances, but in some cases, the FAQs contain more serious codes, that in affect allow national legal codes and social beliefs to find force on the Internet.

The National Capital FreeNet: a volunteer run, public Internet service provider.

What could possibly control the use of the Internet other than law or software? In fact, at the National Capital FreeNet (NCF) it is volunteers, who are regulating the use of their service. Volunteers sign up new members providing some oversight by people who are not commercially involved in the service. At the NCF, volunteers help with software and hardware problems for accessing the Internet. Volunteers discuss issues around objectable content and in a sense, this Internet service attempts to be as clean as any public service should be. By encouraging the open discussion of Internet use and content, this on-line community is guarding against the improper use of the Internet.

While some users that I know, may still make an abusive use of the Internet that FreeNet provides this is not because of the new features of the Internet. This is it seems to me the ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’ that Peter Grabosky writes about. [33] Computer ethicist Deborah Johnston too, writes that, ethical problems with this new communications, and research tool the Internet, and computers, in general, are only new species of problems. We do not need a new ethical theory to deal with these problems. [34] She writes in response to computer ethicist James Moor who argues that the computers create a moral vacuum, requiring new policies applicable to the new situations. [35]

Conclusions: Volunteers run the Internet.

In this paper, I have looked at the users of the Internet as volunteers and looked at those who volunteer to make the Internet what it is. In using the Internet, we do not just read what is there. We also add our own writing to the Internet. Interaction in my sense of the word means a two-way street to communications. It is this basic fact of interaction that allows that we will also regulate what we use. We will maintain our present or past moral perspectives and views. These values will continue to be reflected in our use of the Internet. Volunteers too will continue to be good people and valued. The Internet will not escape the actions and values of the voluntary sector. While it is possible to imagine a completely government run, or corporate run, Internet, this is hardly likely. The Internet like the guitar that reflects its player’s personality will be a technology that will reflect it user’s personalities. If there is even just one person on the network who knows what giving and helping is like then there will be volunteers on the Net. These volunteers will define and regulate what the Internet is.
 
 


End Notes

Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, Fact Sheet, <http://www.nsgvp.org/factsheets.asp?fn=view&id=8253> (cited April 4, 2003).

2 L. Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 1999) at 6.

3 Ibid. at 107.

4 Ibid. at 107.

5 Ibid. at 105.

6 Ibid. at 105.

7 J. Wilcox, States use source code to press Microsoft, on CNET web site, <http://news.com.com/2100-1001-276733.html?legacy=cnet>, (cited April 4, 2003), (CNET Networks, Inc., December 7, 2001)

8 R. Stallman, Why Software Should Be Free, (version of April 24, 1992) <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html> [cited March 25, 2003].

9 Ibid..

10 Free Software Foundation, Inc., How you can help the GNU Project, <http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html> (cited April 4, 2003).

11 Free Software Foundation, Inc., Frequently Asked Questions about GNU GPL, <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html> (cited March 30, 2003).

12 Lessig, supra note 2 at 103.

13 L. Torvalds, & D. Diamond, Just for fun, the story of an accidental revolutionary (New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2001) at 96.

14 R. Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age, The People, the Hardware and the Software trans. J. Howlett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984) at 4.

15 J. Boyle, Shamans, Software and Spleens, Law and the Construction of the Information Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) at.132-133.

16 Stallman, supra note 8.

17 P. Tang, Managing the cyberspace divide: government investment in electronic information services in ed. B. D. Loader, Cyberspace Divide pp. 183-202 (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1998) at 185.

18 J. Steele, Information and citizenship in Europe in ed. B. D. Loader, Cyberspace Divide pp. 161-182 (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1998) at 161.

19 Ibid. at 161.

20 Lessig, supra note 2 at 5.

21 Ibid. at 163.

22 Ibid. at 163.

23 H. Buchstein, Bytes that Bite: The Internet and Deliberative Democracy (1997) 4 (2) Constellations 248 249.

24 C. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (London, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1970) at 1.

25 P. N. Grabosky, "Virtual Criminality: Old Wine in New Bottles?" (2001) 10(2) Social and Legal Studies 243 at 244.

26 Lessig, supra note 2 at 174.

27 CyberAngels web site, Home Page <www.cyberangels.org> [cited March 25, 2003].

28 C. Berg, CyberAngels earn wings for keeping Internet safe in The Morning Call, December 15, 2002, (Allentown, PA: The Morning Call, 2002).

29 MaD PropheT, et al., Frequently asked questions for the newsgroup alt.support.schizophrenia <http://www.ncf.ca/~at571/FAQ.html> (cited April 6, 2003).

30 Ibid. at section 1.

31 Ibid. at section 2.

32 Ibid. at section 2.

33 Grabosky, supra note 25 at 243.

34 D. Johnson, Computer Ethics, 3rd ed., (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001) at 22.

35 J. Moor, "What is computer ethics?" (1985) 16 (4) Metaphilosophy 266. Paraphrased in D. Johnson, Computer Ethics, 3rd ed., (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001) at 6.
 
 



Works Cited

alt.support.schizophrenia, FAQ, <www.ncf.ca/~at571/FAQ.html> (cited April 4, 2003).

Berg, C., "CyberAngels earn wings for keeping Internet safe" in The Morning Call, December 15, 2002, (Allentown, PA: The Morning Call, 2002).

Buchstein, H., "Bytes that Bite: The Internet and Deliberative Democracy" (1997) 4 (2) Constellations 248-263.

Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, web site <http://www.nsgvp.org/> (cited April 4, 2003).

CyberAngels web site, <www.cyberangels.org> [cited March 25, 2003].

Free Software Foundation, Inc., Frequently Asked Questions about GNU GPL <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html> (cited March 30, 2003).

Free Software Foundation, Inc., How you can help the GNU Project <http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html> (cited April 4, 2003).

Grabosky, P.N., "Virtual Criminality: Old Wine in New Bottles?" (2001) 10(2) Social and Legal Studies 243-249.

Johnson, D., Computer Ethics, 3rd ed., (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001)

Lessig, L., Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 1999)

Moreau, R., The Computer Comes of Age, The People, the Hardware and the Software trans. J. Howlett (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984)

Pateman, C., Participation and Democratic Theory (London, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1970)

Stallman, R., Why Software Should Be Free (version of April 24, 1992) <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html> [cited March 25, 2003].

Steele, J., Information and citizenship in Europe in ed. Loader, B. D., Cyberspace Divide, pp. 161-182, (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1998).

Tang, P., Managing the cyberspace divide: government investment in electronic information services in ed. Loader B. D., Cyberspace Divide, pp. 183-202, (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1998).

Torvalds, L. & Diamond, D. Just for fun, the story of an accidental revolutionary (New York, N.Y.: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 2001).

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