by Adam Pacio, Ryan Millner and Willow Ann Sirch

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

There is a long tradition of social and political activism in the United States, with the first example of popular uprising for a cause to be found in the Revolutionary War itself. Early American author Henry David Thoreau later set pen to paper to produce ‘Civil Disobedience’, a treatise examining the means by which a law or institution found to be unjust or immoral can be intentionally broken or resisted by people of conscience as a socially acceptable means for producing change. In the 1960’s, the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. also demonstrated that social activism is not limited to tackling government policy alone, but cultural awareness as well. As the internet and the world wide web saturated the American cultural landscape, however, there have been definite changes to the way in which protests and activism are carried out. As activism crossed into the online realms, the culture of activism, its tools and techniques, activist theory, and the responses and considerations of the government have also changed.

In this paper, we will begin by analyzing the development of activist theory. We will demonstrate the point/counterpoint progression of an ideological dialogue being carried out between this activist theory and the U.S. governmental response to establish the social climate of cyberactivism today. With this framework established, we will analyze the tools and methods of activism utilized by a small sample of organizations championing causes within the environmental movement in the U.S. in an attempt to gain some insights into the current state of environmental cyberactivism.

Recent Developments in Activist Theory

The internet and the world wide web have continued to bring about changes in our culture, and the culture of activism is no exception. While the internet as a tool has added a level of complexity to the ongoing point and counterpoint between activist groups and proponents of the status quo, the theory of civil disobedience has continued to develop since Henry David Thoreau created his eponymous 1848 essay. That work attempted to define a basic philosophical and ethical framework for understanding under which conditions of oppression it becomes the duty of free men to resist through the conscientious, willful and knowing violation of laws or social institutions perceived to be unjust. In the case of representative democracies and republican models of government, the underlying idea behind symbolic gestures of resistance is often aimed, in part, at raising awareness among the community in hopes that citizens will be motivated to act in concert to change or remove the unjust laws or institutions. Civil disobedience, therefore, has come to be understood as a non-violent personal political statement. Perhaps because of this conflation of political action and self-expression of personal conscience, the judicial system in the United States has typically regarded civil disobedience as a separate type of illegal activity, often awarding sentences to civil disobedience activists which were lenient compared to traditional sentencing without civil disobedience as a motivation (Manion and Goodrum, 2000).

Given the understanding of civil disobedience as an action with multiple shades of meaning and arenas of implication, the tactics of activism seen in the 20th century dealt primarily with occupation and disruption of centers of power and commerce. By occupying physical offices, monuments and government buildings or else taking to the street demonstrating support for the activist agenda through turnout numbers, the activist sought to interrupt high profile operations peacefully and in a manner that would earn the attention, sympathy, or respect of various parties. In a pre-digital age, the maximum impact was assured by occupying physical space. While the activists and protesters remained non-violent, a sufficient display of support and action could bring local, regional, or national infrastructures to a halt.

Those tactics worked well enough at the time, but the late 20th century saw the development of a theory of activism that emphasized the need to begin adapting to more mobile or flexible methods of protest. In 1986, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari released “Nomadology and the War Machine”, a treatise based in part on some of Nietzche’s philosophy, which began to emphasize the changing relationship between the centers of power and the ‘war machine’. Hakim Bey released “The Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism” in 1991, a work that further developed the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari within the framework of social rhetoric, calling for the establishment of essentially nomadic zones of temporary autonomy. The Critical Art Ensemble (or CAE), an association of artists, philosophers, and scholars, released two works, Electronic Disturbance (1994) and Electronic Civil Disobedience (1996), further refining the philosophy of nomadic centers of power and control, and calling for sweeping changes to the tactics employed by activists in the age of the internet. All three of these works highlighted one common point – the changing relationship between traditional centers of power and control in the face of the internet’s influence.

Increasingly, we find that the headquarters of organizations – governmental, social, or economic – are not located in the physical world. Governments and organizations are moving away from headquartering themselves in brick and mortar edifices. Many are instead establishing digital infrastructures that do not rely on a geographical place, but that can be networked from many locations. These redundancies, combined with the lack of reliance on a single geographical center of control, means that the old model of civil disobedience can no longer target physical headquarters with disruptive tactics and get the same level of results. Essentially, according to the CAE in Electronic Civil Disobedience (1996), this created a system of diminishing returns for protest actions in the cyber age. According to that work, “The strategy and tactics of [Civil Disobedience] can still be useful beyond local actions, but only if they are used to block the flow of information rather than the flow of personnel.”

The Response From the Status Quo

Changing communication technologies influenced the shift in activist theory, calling for protests and demonstrations to move from the streets to the networks, but the primary reason for altering protest methods was that the old tactics no longer worked as efficiently as they once had. The institutions targeted by civil disobedience had developed a new infrastructure of power on the internet that severely minimized the disruptive effectiveness of physical occupation and demonstration. This transition, however convenient for eliminating organizational vulnerability to traditional protest activities like sit-ins or marches, merely exchanged one set of security concerns for another. In the physical political and economic arena, the potential threat from a single individual taking action in a non-violent means was effectively minimized.

As long as the analog system of organizational hierarchy and control based on physical access prevailed, the individual alone could only hope to have so much impact without the support and attention of other sympathizers. With the advent of cyberspace, however, the individual’s potential to have direct influence in terms of protest actions like disruption of communications or denial of service became much more worrisome to organizations now relying upon the internet to safeguard their economic, social and political capital. Technological savvy could turn an individual, previously seen as merely a constituent part of an organization, or perhaps a customer or client, into a potential force of disruption and perhaps even destruction within the information-based realm of cyberspace. With a new set of institutional vulnerabilities replacing the old and the perception of potentially harmful disruption now in the hands of individuals as well as organizations, we need to examine how the champions of the status quo have responded.

Although the new online activist theory was emerging from the works of Deleuze and Guattari, Bey, and the Critical Art Ensemble, up until the 1997 Acteal Massacre in Chiapas, the dialogue between government and activism theorists was essentially theoretical musings (Stefan Wray, 2006). One of the earlier voices to take up a cautionary tone can be found in Ronfeldt and Arquilla’s 1993 paper, “Cyberwar is Coming!,” published as the result of a study put forth by the RAND Institute, a think tank long associated with the U.S. military. In “Cyberwar is Coming!,” Ronfeldt and Arquilla warned of two imminent dangers resulting from the new communications and computerized age – cyberwar and netwar. Whereas cyberwar dealt with the actual waging of war in the physical arena through the use of computerized equipment and digital technologies, netwar referred to the ideological conflict expressed within the realm of the internet itself. The networking of computers, which forms the structure of the internet, also facilitated the creation of networks around causes as well. This concept was expressed in another work by theorists Deleuze and Guattari called A Thousand Plateaus (1987), in which they described networks using the analogy of botanical rhizomes, offshoots that spawn new tubers and root vegetables but remain hidden beneath the ground and, over time, assemble a complex network nearly impossible to root out.

As the new activism theory of electronic civil disobedience was given voice by the Critical Art Ensemble in 1994, the U.S. government continued to pay close attention to new developments in the online arena of protest. Dorothy Denning, an academic and expert in computer security and encryption theory, began her work on the subject matter of online activism, protest and cyberterrorism in a series of papers and books. She gave testimony to Congress regarding aspects of cyberterrorism and cyberactivism on three separate occasions, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information on September 3, 1997; before the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property two years later in March of 1999; and before the Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism for the House of Representatives’ Committee on Armed Services in May of 2000.

In addition to government testimony, Denning also presented a 1999 paper entitled “Activism, Hactivism & Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a Tool for Influencing Foreign Policy,” a paper that helped to solidify the language used to describe different degrees of online activism, as well as highlighting that these activities were being used to affect the politics of foreign policy. In the same year, a Navy-funded white paper was released by the Center for the Study of Terrorism & Irregular Warfare in Monterrey, California. One of the authors on this research team was J. Arquilla, and the paper, entitled “CyberTerror: Prospects and Implications,” investigated varying levels of threat both current and projected via the vulnerabilities of misuse of the internet for terrorist activities. Collectively, these papers, testimonies and studies depict a definite awareness and focus within the realm of the U.S. Government regarding the threat potential of the internet.

Actual Netwar or Culture of Intolerance?

One important point concerning the literature cited above is that it all was produced prior to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on the day of September 11, 2001. On September 14, 2001, Ronfeldt and Arquilla released “Networks, Netwars, and the Fight for the Future,” a study that deals extensively with how current malcontents, religious and environmental fanatics have all been able to utilize the internet to form independent networks and recruit cyberterrorists, threatening the social, political, and cultural hierarchy. Here, we see Deleuze and Guaratti’s rhizome model updated in the language of the proponents of the status quo, released immediately in the wake of a devastating blow to the national identity of America and the first real sense of national fear of terrorist attacks. On October 24, 2001, H.R.3162, the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) passed into law, and with it brought some sweeping and general changes to the legal definitions of domestic terrorism. It also strengthened the U.S. government’s powers to act against suspected domestic terrorists without following the previous due process of law (ACLU, “How the USA PATRIOT Act Redefines ‘Domestic Terrorism,” 2002).

It can be tempting to view the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act solely as a response to the crisis of 9-11 and the terrorist attacks on the United States. By looking at the literature surrounding the issue of online activism in the decade prior to the attacks, however, we can make the argument that the Act itself is simply the next action taken from the developing dialogue between activists and institutions within the online sphere. The attacks of 9-11 tipped the cultural balance in the general populace to an attitude of fear and the desperate desire for more security. In brokering that security, the culture of intolerance that had been developing in the government studies was effectively exported to the social culture at large. As early as 1993 in “Cyberwar is Coming!,” Ronfeldt and Arquilla drew attention to the fact that there would be two separate battles waged with the tools of the information age, with ‘netwar’ being the battle of ideas and words, waged over the internet itself. It is to this clash of ideas, a war of definitions, that we need to turn.

Out of the ongoing dialogue between activism theorists and proponents of the institutional status quo, there was a gradual establishment of a vocabulary used to classify the actions of dissent and protest in the online realm. With the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, the compromise between the language of activism and the language of the status quo that was slowly beginning to emerge was completely co-opted by the preferences and prejudices of the establishment. Pre-USA PATRIOT Act, the question of how to continue the dialogue between government and governed in the realm of personal and social conscience was beginning to reach for a level of compromise, with moderate voices such as Manion & Goodrum emerging on the theoretical and academic stage. In their work “Terrorism or Civil Disobedience: Toward a Hacktivist Ethic,” (2000) they proposed a definition under which protest activity online could be defined as electronic civil disobedience (as opposed to terrorism or hacktivism). That definition featured five points: the protest action 1) did no harm to persons or property, 2) adhered to non-violent practices, 3) were not undertaken for personal profit, 4) were motivated by ethical or conscience-based personal considerations, and 5) the activist was willing to accept responsibility for violating the law. In the ongoing sphere of netwar, with the language used to express the ideas of activism being a facet of the larger cultural issues, the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act marked a bid by the establishment to dominate in the ideological arena without accepting such compromises as moderate viewpoints such as those put forth by Manion & Goodrum.

While the USA PATRIOT Act carries the enforcement of law in the U.S., our system of checks and balances makes legislation as controversial as the USA PATRIOT Act subject to debate. In Ronfeldt & Arquilla’s model of a netwar, it becomes important for us to understand not only how the establishment defines its arguments, but also the way in which the language central to the conflict at hand is applied by both the activists and scholars who have studied the field. It is not surprising, then, that we will need to look to many of the same sources as we have already in order to piece together an understanding of the different shades of definitions and vocabulary that developed surrounding the issue of civil disobedience and protest actions in cyberspace. Only once we have an understanding of those themes running through the culture of activism in the U.S., can we seriously begin to consider the different tools, tactics, and techniques of cyberactivists as they are used by different environmental groups today.

Activist Websites, Activist Strategies

One way to classify electronic contention is to break it into three categories based on the legality of the action: electronic activism, hacktivism and cyberterrorism (Costanza-Chock, 2003). Cyberprotests that fall into the category of electronic activism include those actions that passively draw attention to a cause. Hacktivism, on the other hand, usually involves some sort of technological attack to disrupt or alter the day-to-day operations of a target institution. With regard to the ongoing conflict over language, this classification of cyberprotest is currently an ethical grey area that the establishment is attempting to remove via channels like the USA PATRIOT Act. Cyberterrorism, a form of violent hacktivism by one definition and the use of computers to propagate terrorist or domestic terrorist activity, is considered both illegal and unethical by members of both sides of the social debate.

Most electronic activism can be accomplished by means of an organization’s website, which has become synonymous in many ways with the modern protest organization’s base of operations, or virtual headquarters. As such, the website needs to fulfill all the managerial and administrative functions of traditional brick and mortar headquarters. An activist website must provide a centralized meeting place, house the leadership’s philosophical agenda, allow a meeting place between other members and the leadership, and allow public access to cause-related information. However, a website as a virtual headquarters does all these historical organizational activities for protest groups on a much grander scale. Since very few of the website’s potential audience will be familiar with the organization, the website needs to have historical information about that organization, its current and anticipated activities (Costanza-Chock, 2003).

Activist groups may use their websites to espouse agitation rhetoric. Bowers, Ochs and Jensen state that the most basic kinds of agitation rhetoric are promulgation, petition, solidification and polarization (Bowers et al, 1993). The mere establishment of a web site promulgates an organization’s message by giving it a web presence. The users of an organization’s web site, even those who visit only briefly, may be encouraged to sign on to a petition. Data on the website may be structured to appeal to as many possible supporters (solidification) and to paint the issue as black and white (polarization) as possible. These strategies maximize potential recruits by appealing to the widest array of viewers. The inclusion of historical data allows users to familiarize themselves and even join the organization and support its cause. As soon as the website is created, it can be viewed by the Internet-capable, global public, effectively several billion people. Because there are actions of support that do not require a physical presence in a given location, each user has the potential to assist with an organization’s cyberprotest (Costanza-Chock, 2003). Indeed, recruitment and worldwide representation are considered by some to be the number one goal of a cyberprotest (Bowers et al., 1993).

While using a website to gain new recruits is a relatively important tool, an activist web site can also be used as an ancillary revenue stream (Costanza-Chock, 2003). Members want something to show that they are members, build feelings and the experience of solidarity, and announce their participation in a cause or belief. Activist websites provide a direct way to tap into that audience. An organization’s branding may even appear on consumer items (such as t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads and so on) to raise capital to fund organization expenses.

Hacktivism and Disruptive Activities

To apply the tactics of hacktivism, more technological expertise is required. Hacktivism combines activism with the hacking of computer systems. Where hacking is regarded as the purview of apolitical computer aficionados, hactivism is hacking with a difference – that of being politicized. (Pickerill, 2003). Hacktivist methods involve attacking web sites that actually or even symbolically support the target of activism. Tactics belonging to this camp straddle a fine line between legality and ethics. In many ways, they represent modern updates of traditional blockade and trespass methods of historical protests. When applied as an expression of conscience using Manion & Goodrum’s five qualifiers to define “civil disobedience,” these activities could perhaps be expected to be treated as a form of civil disobedience by the American judicial system. However, in many cases, sentencing does not bear out this assumption (Manion & Goodrum, 2000).

For the technologically savvy, denial of service (DoS) attacks are among the most common forms of disruptive attacks on target websites. These attacks involve flooding a system with benign and legal electronic requests such that it is rendered inoperable: either it crashes or is taken offline to prevent a wider system from crashing. Email barrages, form floods and fax bombs attempt to bring down their respective communication systems by sending large amounts of emails, forms or faxes to a system until it crashes (Costanza-Chock, 2003). The most labor-intensive type of DoS attack is a virtual sit-in, also known as a net strike. It involves large numbers of people repeatedly trying to access a website or file. If the flood of requests is large enough, either the server will crash or the web site’s administrator will remove the request file/site to prevent the site from crashing. Both are equally effective from the standpoint of eliminating the offending data from the world wide web (Costanza-Chock, 2003, p. 177).

DoS attacks are usually not considered illegal, but there are pending cases and new legislation which could arguably change the matter decidedly in favor of the rhetoric of the establishment in the ongoing “netwar” concerning cyberprotest activities. Even with the possibility of new attention being given to DoS attacks, other hacktivist tactics are more likely to get law enforcement personal involved. Hackers who have bypassed security and gained entry into a target organization’s computer network have a variety of tactics at their disposal. One popular strategy is to plant a virus or Trojan horse program that will allow the hacktivists to continue accessing the network once the original security hole has been closed. Another popular strategy of hactivism involves changing the content or links of the target organization’s website so viewers to their websites are directed elsewhere. Destruction of data is yet another course of action. (Costanza-Chock, 2003). As we can see from these examples, there is a wide range of tactics available to hacktivists that go beyond the appeal to higher judgment or sympathy that may be generated by cyberactivism in its legal form. Potential protestors must consider if they want their protests to be Internet-enhanced or Internet-based (Vegh, 2003). Internet-enhanced protests occur in the real world and use the Internet mainly as a device for mass communication. Internet-based protests occur primarily in cyberspace; as a result, most Internet-based protests belong to the hacktivism school.

Cyberterrorism is the most extreme category of online protest mechanisms and unquestionably illegal. The goal of cyberterrorism is to cause deliberate harm. Examples include hacking the systems of a power company to cause power outages or taking control of air traffic control systems, thereby placing airplanes and their passengers in danger. Activities such as these are clearly actionable. While we do not question the unethical nature of this form of violent and aggressive behavior, whether carried out over the internet or in the real world, we feel it is important to keep in mind that the word ‘terrorism’ is central to the ongoing netwar of ideas surrounding cyberactivism in all its forms. Given the long history of civil disobedience and the role of activism in effecting social change within the United States, it is important to resist the urge to utilize too broad a definition of what constitutes ‘terrorism,’ which is one tactic being used by the establishment today (ACLU, 2002).

Application to Environmental Activism

The internet has become an accepted part of how environmental organizations inform the public and engage constituencies. (Castells, 2001) That conclusion is further substantiated by the fact that a list of 57 environmental organizations in Connecticut published by the environmental information resource Eco-USA.net (see http://www.eco-usa.net/orgs/ct.shtml) contained no organizations without a web site (although one link was dysfunctional). A list of 49 Connecticut land trusts published by the Connecticut Conservation Clearinghouse (see http://www.newhartfordforests.net/Conservation/CTLandTrusts.html) contained no land trusts without a web presence (although seven links on the page were dysfunctional and four linked to emails despite existing web sites for those land trusts).

There are many factors that make the internet an appealing tool for engagement on environmental protection. Environmental issues are frequently subject to rapid change. The internet allows for expeditious dissemination of information. Environmental issues are often complex and admit to differing views and approaches. Web sites enable complex issues to be elucidated, making it possible for users to share information and discuss opinions on complex issues. Low cost is also a practical benefit, given that out of every dollar spent on charitable giving, approximately three cents or less is spent on environmental organizations (AAFRC, 2007). The internet also allows access to a tremendous number of users, bringing the issues to more people than ever before. Although there is a tension between environmentalists who view technology generally as counter to experiencing and preserving nature, most organizers agree that the internet is a valuable tool for bringing about social change in general and with respect to environmental protection issues in particular. At the same time, some environmentalists downplay the effectiveness of “armchair activism,” feeling that it may distract some users from being more active in supporting environmental protection issues (Pickerill, 2003).

Project Rationale

We began our project by developing an understanding of how electronic civil disobedience grew out of traditional civil disobedience, proceeding to a consideration of what constitutes cyberactivism vs. cyberterrorism. For the purpose of collecting information as to the online tools and methods currently in use by a small sample of environmental organizations, we adopted a broad definition of activism, an approach for which there is clear precedent (Pickerill, 2003). For the purpose of our analysis, we regarded as activists those who take any direct form of action, from supporting a physical gathering as the result of a call to action to simply voicing concerns or opinions.

Modest in scope, this project explores the web sites of eight U.S.-based environmental organizations in an effort to gain insight into which online communication techniques were actually being employed and to what extent. A small sample of environmental organizations, all but one of which are active in the state of Connecticut and focused on general environmental protection issues, was selected in consultation with an expert in the area of Connecticut environmental protection issues. Of those organizations, two are statewide in focus, two are regional in scope (one northeastern states, one northwestern states), one has a national focus (although some international issues are covered) and the remaining three are international with a constituency base and/or offices in Connecticut.

The organizations that formed the basis of this study were Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE), the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters (CTLCV), Environment Northeast, Environmental Defense (ED), Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and North Coast Earth First! The content of the web sites was reviewed during a ten-day period in November 2007. Information was drawn from the main sites of these organizations except as noted.

A wide range of online communication techniques was used collectively by the selected organizations. Those techniques included informative web pages, issue tracking/voter guides, email campaigns, web-based recruiting, online donation systems, blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, video, virtual sit-ins, online newsletters, GIS mapping that allowed identification of and response to local issues, virtual sit-ins, e-cards featuring organizational branding, discussion boards, online calculation and analysis mechanisms and live audio chat.

Technologies and Extent of Use

Web-based information, hyperlinks, external resources. All of the organizations examined used their web site to engage and inform constituents as to their position on a variety of environmental issues. All offered internal links to externally-generated information. ED, Greenpeace, NRDC and TNC included among their links external news articles in support of their position on issues. NRDC went a step further by providing external links to information not strictly in support of its own program statements. A disclaimer was included stating the opinions expressed did not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organization. NRDC also offered a daily (weekdays) news summary of environmental issues produced by an external source (Grist). Earth First! provided external links of other organizations with which it partners on various initiatives.

Online fundraising. All of the organizations examined offered an online donation option. Six out of seven offered an EFT (electronic funds transfer) donation option. (CFE had no recurring gift option.) Earth First! was the only organization to offer a Paypal donation option.

Legislator activism and e-mail campaigns. Four out of the eight organizations provided a mechanism for activism by mobilizing users to contact legislators and lobby in favor of legislation. CFE did not support legislator e-mail on its web site, but constituents could sign up online to become part of its Activist Network and receive directives to join e-mail campaigns in support of specific bills at strategic times during the legislative session. Environment Northeast did not have an email campaign feature. CTLCV did not have an e-mail campaign feature, but its legislator scorecard, its primary function, empowered users to vote for legislators who supported conservation issues and withhold their vote from legislators who did not support those issues. TNC’s stated non-confrontational approach to environmental protection would appear to preclude e-mail activism. North Coast Earth First! did not support an email campaign or legislator activism that would require users to identify themselves.

Online petitions. Three of the eight organizations featured online petitions for users to “sign” electronically. Petitions were used by ED, Greenpeace and NRDC to encourage online protest. The petitions were really no different than sending an e-mail, but the language introducing them focused on user signage, rather than user messaging. (Indeed, the primary purpose of such petitions may well be to build an email network of supporters, rather than stimulate specific action.)

Online recruitment. All of the organizations used their web sites to recruit users to take action. Greenpeace actively recruited college students to become trained activists through its GOT (Greenpeace Organizing Term). North Coast Earth First! encouraged users to financially and morally support physical protests (such as tree-sits) that core Earth Firsters were already undertaking. There was no recruitment of real time protesters through these web sites. The possibility of recruitment to real time protests on linked or related sites existed, was not examined.

E-newsletters. E-newsletters have been cited as useful in building relationships with users and for their social benefit of being forwardable to others (Neilsen 2004). Five out of eight organizations used an online newsletter to inform and mobilize constituents to action. Environment Northeast and North Coast Earth First! offered no e-newsletter option and CTLCV offered a periodic e-mail update, but this was not referred to as a “newsletter.” CFE provided an online version of its quarterly hard copy newsletter. The remaining organizations used e-newsletters to encourage activism on the part of users who self-selected the e-newsletter option by submitting their e-mail address online.

Blogs, Podcasts, RSS Feeds. It has been said that activists have understood the importance of blogs in motivating grassroots activism ever since the success of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign blog in 2003 (Cone, 2003). Among the organizations examined, the use of blogs, podcasts and feeds was restricted to ED, Greenpeace, NRDC and TNC. CFE, CTLCV and Environment Northeast did not offer those online features. TNC did not offer blogging (although blogs were a feature of individual TNC chapters.) North Coast Earth First! offered blogging, but no podcasts or feeds. ED offered blogs by staff members to which registered users could comment, but active recruitment of the public to engage in environmental issues by blogging about them appeared to be restricted to Greenpeace and NRDC. NRDC also hosted two related interactive sites: www.switchboard.nrdc.org which featured blogs on a wide variety of issues and www.itsyournature.org, which focused on blogging, podcasts, videos and other interactive features, encouraging action on a variety of levels.

Videos. The videos examined in conjunction with this effort were among the most emotionally charged examples of communication techniques used. Indeed, video can be a particularly powerful motivator (Enzinna, 2007). Five out of the eight organizations used video as a tool to engage users, stimulate protest and/or encourage action on environmental issues. North Coast Earth First! offered a single music video on its site. ED, Greenpeace, NRDC and TNC all featured mulitple videos on their sites and links to videos on YouTube.

Virtual sit-in. Greenpeace was the only organization that featured a virtual sit-in (see http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/bhopal-protests-move-online). Dated March 10, 2003, the sit-in is still active and features a multi-visit page whose stated attempt is to slow down or halt the servers at Bhopal.com, a web site hosted by Dow Chemical Company to inform the public about its role with regard to the victims of the Bhopal disaster. (Note: The site does not mention that Dow is involved in litigation against Bhopal survivors as alleged by Greenpeace.)

Other interactive features. CTLCV offered a candidate questionnaire for legislators who wanted to publicize their “green-ness” to constituents. ED launched the first web site that linked constituents to local environmental issues of concern. Ownership of that site at scorecard.org was transferred to an independent nonprofit in November 2005. NRDC uses Google Earth maps to mobilize activism on specific regional issues. Greenpeace and the TNC offered e-cards with organizational branding. ED and TNC offered interactive calculator features geared toward encouraging users to take action, including a carbon calculator, paper use calculator, global warming and energy cost savings calculator. Interactive “ask-an-expert” features were offered by NRDC and TNC, as were live audio chat and audio downloads. Greenpeace and North Coast Earth First! offered discussion boards. North Coast Earth First! was the only organization to offer a chat room in which the issue of security was addressed, i.e. that chat messages would be deleted after 96 hours and usernames after four minutes. NRDC was the only group to offer spin-off web sites geared to specific age groups. Its http://www.nrdc/greensquad.org was directed to children and youth, while http://www.itsyournature.org used a format and language that suggested it was primarily for an internet-saavy audience of young adults. North Coast Earth First! was the only organization with a presence in Second Life. NRDC and North Coast Earth First! both offered Spanish version of portions of their web sites. Greenpeace was the only organization that linked to an example of hijacking in which a related group produced their own version or parody of a Dow web site geared to embarass the company for its role in environmental pollution issues. See http://dowethics.com/index.html.

Conclusions

Perhaps the most important issue raised by this exploration is the need for further study. The web sites of the organizations of international focus are detailed and complex. Future research should take into account, not only the online communication technologies, but the language employed in their use. While action was encouraged on all the sites reviewed, activism was not. North Coast Earth First! was the only organization to frame its mission in terms of “nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action.” CFE, ED, Greenpeace and NRDC all used the term “activism” on their web sites. Environment Northeast, CTLCV and TNC avoided use of the words “civil disobedience” or “activism,” although similar language in the Nature Conservancy’s chapter web sites was not reviewed.

We found that organizations with stated similar goals regarding problem-solving approaches can employ very different methods of web-based communication techniques. Both TNC and ED used consensus-building language, but TNC was notable for the absence of any kind of legislator protest mechanism, including automated emails and petitions. ED freely used such methods. It would appear that TNC may regard the emailing of legislators to protest or voice controversial opinions as being contrary to the value of building consensus among stakeholders.

We also concluded that funding did not necessarily translate into an organization being more progressive with regard to internet communication techniques used. Of the organizations we reviewed, North Coast Earth First! was the only group that does not publish its financials online. From the information that it does publish, however, it would not appear to be funded on the level of the national/international groups we considered. Yet, its use of web-based tools for advocacy was more in keeping with those well-funded groups than it was with the less well-funded statewide groups. Consequently, it appears that wealth is not necessarily the determining factor in the extent to which an environmental organization embraces internet communication techniques.

As we considered the development of electronic civil disobedience in the U.S., we recognized that avoidance of language in keeping with civil disobedience or activism might not necessarily be a response to post-9/11 realities. It may simply mean that organizations have become increasingly savvy about what they can and cannot actually expect to accomplish through the internet. That is to say that “armchair activism” may be the most they hope to gain from casual users who visit their web sites. By the same token, these organizations may have learned that they can expect more in the line of electronic activism from users who sign up for newsletters, become donating members or sign in to post opinions, and that they respond accordingly. Interestingly, we found no organization among those whose web sites were reviewed that used online communication to rally users to a specific offline event. The one marginal exception was Greenpeace, which recruits students to its activist training program that is held at certain times.

Given the extent to which the culture of activism, its tools and techniques, activist theory, and the responses and considerations of the government have changed in recent years, we concur that environmental organizations need to be aware of how the political climate has changed with regard to perceptions of cyberterrorism. It will continue to be important for environmental organizations to avoid the perception of aligning themselves with hacktivism, cyberterrorism, or even electronic civil disobedience if those approaches are deemed counterproductive to maintaining their constituencies both on and offline.

References

AAFRC. (2007) Giving USA 2007 annual report on philanthropy. Downloaded on October 12, 2007 from http://www.aafrc.org/gusa/gusa_order.cfm.

ACLU. (2002). “How the USA PATRIOT Act Redefines ‘Domestic Terrorism.’” Downloaded on October 29, 2007 from
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/emergpowers/14444leg20021206.html.

Arquilla, J. and Ronfeldt, D. (1993) “Cyberwar is Coming!” Comparative Strategy 12: (141-65).

Bey, H. (1991). T. A. Z. The temporary autonomous zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.

Bowers, J. W., Ochs, D. J., and Jensen, R. J. (1993). The rhetoric of agitation and control (2nd ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

Castells, M. (2001). The internet galaxy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, (280).

Cone, E. (2003). “The marketing of the president 2004.” Messaging & Collaboration in eWEEK.com. Retrieved from http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1387087,00.asp.

Costanza-Chock, S. (2003). “Mapping the repertoire of electronic contention.” In A. Opel and D. Pompper (eds.), Representing resistance: media, civil disobedience and the
global justice movement. Westport, CT: Praeger. (173-191).

Critical Art Ensemble. (1995). “Electronic Civil Disobedience.” Chapter 1. Downloaded on October 29, 2007 from http://www.critical-art.net/books/ecd/index.html.

“Cyber Terror: Prospects and implications.” (1999). Center for the Study of Terrorism and Irregular Warfare, Monterey, CA. Downloaded on October 29, 2007 from
http://www.nps.navy.mil/ctiw/files/Cyberterror%20Prospects%20and%20Implications.pdf.

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. trans. by B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

_________. (1987). “Treatise on Nomadology – the War Machine, from A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. trans. by B. Massumi. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.

Denning, D. E. (1999). “Activism, hactivism, and cyber-terrorism: the internet as a tool for influencing foreign policy,” originally appearing in Internet and international systems:
Information technology and American foreign policy decision-making workshop given at the Nautilus Institute, San Francisco, December 10, 1999. Retrieved October 29, 2007 from http://www.nautilus.org/gps/info-policy/workshop/papers/denning.html

_________. Academic web site, including Testimony to U.S. Congress Transcripts, Retrieved October 29, 2007 from
http://www.nautilus.org/gps/info-policy/workshop/papers/denning.html.

Enzinna, W. (2007). “The Revolution will be you-tubed.” The Nation. April 2, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/enzinna.

Manion, M. and Goodrum, A. (2004) “Terrorism or civil disobedience: toward a hacktivist ethic,” appearing in R. Spinello and H. Tavani, (Eds.) Readings in CyberEthics, 2nd
edition, Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Neilsen, J. (2004). “Targeted email newsletters show continued strength.” Jacob Neilsen’s Alertbox, February 17, 2004. Retrieved from:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040217.html.

Pickerill, J. (2001). “Environmental internet activism in Britain,” Peace Review, 13:3 (365).

Pickerill, J. (2003). Cyberprotest: environmental activism online. Manchester: Manchester University Press. (91).

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Ronfeldt, D. and Arquilla, J. (2001). Networks, netwars, and the fight for the future. FirstMonday, 6(10).

Thoreau, H. D. (1848). Civil Disobedience, Simon & Schuster: New York.

Vegh, S. (2003). Classifying forms of online activism: the case of cyberprotests against the world bank. In M. McCaughey and M. Ayers (Eds.), Cyberactivism: online activism in
theory and practice. New York: Routledge. (71-95).

Wray, S. (1998). “On electronic civil disobedience.” Paper presented to the 1998 socialist scholars conference March 20, 21, and 22, New York, NY. Retrieved on November 15, 2007 from http://cristine.org/borders/Wray_Essay.html.

For years, I’ve used the internet as a writing and communications tool. I’ve emailed, googled and wiki-ed all in pursuit of professional aims. But I had to go to graduate school to learn that the internet can be fun.

I had a discussion this weekend with a Yale research professional who is downright blistered that she not only has to read books to complete her work, but blogs for godsakes! “How can anyone keep up with all this junk?!” she exploded. “Email is bad enough. When do people find time to work?”

Maybe they don’t, Which brings to mind, how did a site like I-am-bored come into being? The site itself indicates that it all started because some people actually do get so incredibly bored (presumeably from 9 to 5) that they really will type something as silly as “I am bored” into their search engines just to see what will come up. And
bless you, what does? A site full of ideas for things to do when you’re bored.

Unfortunately, I found it all rather boring. So I started to wonder how my own I-am-bored site might map out and here’s what I came up with:

Watch an animated video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmwqpHsMExg
Play with tangrams: http://pbskids.org/sagwa/games/tangrams/index.html
Download a cool recipe: http://www.recipesource.com/
Learn a new tune: http://www.thesession.org/
Watch baby sea turtles hatch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNqKi2eUUi0
Find a quilt pattern: http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/u/quilt_patterns.htm
Read the words of an Indian poet: http://www.poemhunter.com/rabindranath-tagore/
Learn how to do something new: http://www.essortment.com/
Take a virtual tour of Kew Gardens: http://www.explore-kew-gardens.net/
Make a Celtic knot: http://www.clanbadge.com/tutorial.htm

Which brings us to the question, what does your I-am-bored site look like? And how might it be combined with mine or someone else’s?

For those of us who might never have conceived of the possibility that the topic of search engines could be made interesting, Professor Halavais’ has written a book just for us. His Search Engine Society: Search Engines, Search Divides, Social Search challenges us to see search engines as much more than a functional tool. (Who’d a thunk it?!) Portraying the search engine as the lens through which we view web content, he demonstrates that search technology is both produced within a cultural context and influences the culture of which it is a part. More than mere gatekeepers, search engines may be developed so as to encourage interaction among those conducting similar searches. Sort of like, “Hey, look what I found; it might be useful to you too!”

He begins by setting search engines in a historical context, explains what search engines are and how they work, offering up my new favorite word, “metadata” (data about data). He also explains Vertical search, observing that while most technologies move from small scale implementation to large-scale implementation, search engines, in contrast, have moved from the general to the more manageable and specific. It seems every niche is gaining its own search tool.

He proceeds to take us on a search engine journey through issues of democracy (when I Googled Martin Luther King, the racist supremacist group no longer showed up. That’s censorship I can live with.) Professor Halavais challenges our preconceptions about what does and does not deserve to rank high in a search. He goes on to cite examples of national governments having carried out acts of search engine censorship, pointing to the tension between authoritarian government and the new freedom of search engines. He also discusses the role search engines have played in privacy invasion. I was surprised to learn that more than 75% of executive recruiters used search engines when screening applicants and 30% had actually eliminated candidates based on the results of searches.

In his section on “The Search Intellectual,” Professor Halavais guides us in seeing the saavy searcher as not merely a hunter/gatherer, but a cooperative architect of knowledge. He points to a range of professional communicators and the role that heightened search capabilities will play in those professions — journalists, librarians and bloggers among them.

The range of sociable or collaborative search options available is just astonishing. Collaboration, in the form of blogs and sites like Slashdot help to uncover a wide range of obscure sites that would otherwise receive little traffic. The way in which some sites combine social bookmarking, blogging and very democratic, user-determined rankings is amazing.

I proceeded to read about a man who married a dog at Digg, learned about swarming behavior at Slashdot, saw amazing video clips from around the world at StumbleUpon, read what the Iraq war has cost my family (I consider myself lucky it’s only $20,000) at Reddit, got bored at I-am-bored, and made a to-do list after reading about organ transplants that gave patients AIDS at netvibes (To-Do: 1. avoid organ transplants, 2. try to stay out of hospitals generally.)

Throughout this manuscript, it was satisfying to see references to previous readings and understand how the course has built up our understanding of texts relevant, not just to where the field of interactive communications currently is, but where it appears to be going.

Upon reading Finding the Flow in Web Site Search by Marti Hearst, et al, I took a crack at Flamenco. Up to now, I had not used a search engine featuring a
collaborative filtering feature, but I Flamenco-ed traditional music and continued exploring. Through that, I discovered www.scotlandsmusic.com, a traditional Scottish music site with free downloadable sheet music for learning tunes and mp3 files for hearing what they sound like (so you can decide if you want to bother learning them.) Considering that a host of the tunes date from the 1700s and 1800s, it was a really neat combination of old art form meeting new technology. As traditional music gets pushed more and more to the sidelines, interactive technologies that make the mechanics of playing the tunes more accessible to musicians everywhere will play a larger role in keeping this centuries-old music alive.

I guess that makes me a believer in search engines.

Outline
 
by Ryan Millner, Adam Pacio and Willow Ann Sirch
Introduction
1. Civil Disobedience has been a tool for political and social change in the USA through the course of our history. From expression within the Declaration of Independence, to Henry David Thoreau, the concept of Civil Disobedience has been such an accepted part of our political machine that the courts themselves have historically taken Civil Disobedience into account and offered more lenient sentencing for people found guilty of various infractions in the course of exercising Civil Disobedience.

2. Environmental Activist groups have long relied upon Civil Disobedience techniques in order to advance their social and political agendas in awareness and action.

3. With the advent of the Internet and ICTs, the practices of Civil Disobedience have extended to include Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD). However, the courts do not recognize ECD the same way that they acknowledge in-person Civil Disobedience, as we see from the severity of sentencing for perpetrators of ECD.

4. The USA PATRIOT Act has changed legal definitions of ‘terrorism’ in the US, which has the potential to result in severe consequences for activities normally covered under the consideration of ECD.  This changing definition and consequences patterns of CD/ECD has important implications for any special interest group seeking to utilize ECD techniques.  Defining cyberactivism as terrorism is the establishment rhetorical technique of suppression.

5. For our research, we have selected Environmental Activism as our focal special interest group case study. Environmental Activism has a long history of civil disobedience and recently of ECD. Environmental groups span the spectrum of political viewpoints though focusing on similar topics of concern, giving rise to a wide range of electronic activist activities.

6. In our paper we will a) establish a working definition of ECD as opposed to Terrorism or cyberterrorism, b) examine a survey of ECD techniques used by various environmental activist groups, c) evaluate those environmental ECD practices in light of our definition of ECD vs. Cyberterrorism, comparing our definition against any known consequences or repercussions faced by those involved in those actions.

Civil Disobedience: As American as Apple Pie

1. Civil Disobedience has been an integral part of the American political consciousness, from the language of the Declaration of Independence, to Thoreau, to the civil rights movements and war protests of the 1960’s and 70’s.

2. Traditionally, the courts have assigned lenient sentencing when ruling against a case involving Civil Disobedience compared to similar infractions not motivated by CD.

3. With the advent of ICTs, the traditional leniency applied to civil disobedience has not been granted to its electronic form (ECD).

4. A recent addition to the literature of Civil Disobedience is “Electronic Civil Disobedience” by the Critical Art Ensemble, or CAE. Their theory is that with the Internet, the physical structures are no longer the actual seat of government or operations, but instead such things have become part of the cyberspace network.

5. Electronic Civil Disobedience therefore is seen by the CAE as directly threatening to the body politic, since it provides real disruption and a real sense of threat to the whole.

Government Intolerance of ECD, 9-11, and the USA PATRIOT Act
1. The idea that ECD is being somehow targeted in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks is patently untrue.

2.  There was already a heavy bias against ECD in the 1990’s, with well-known authors like Ronfeldt actually participating in a US Navy White Paper which describes ECD as a major threat to national security… years -before- any terrorist attack on the US.

3. The question of a definition of ECD vs. Cyberterrorism was similarly addressed prior to 9-11 by Manion and Goodrum.

4. Post Manion & Goodrum, the USA PATRIOT Act made a fundamental shift in the definition of Terrorism according to US Federal Law. While this act has certainly changed the legal definitions, it is not the driving force behind a lack of tolerance for ECD from governmental sources.

5. Given the extensive literature about ECD prior to the 9-11 attacks and prior to the USA PATRIOT Act, it can be argued that the social issue of intolerance by modern government officials and court interpretations has not significantly changed since the initial definition by Manion and Goodrum.

Reexamining the Definitions of ECD vs. Cyberterrorism

1. Manion & Goodrum’s definition of ECD was that it included the following items: 1) no damage done to persons or property, 2) non-violent, 3) not for personal profit, 4) ethically motivated, and 5) willingness to accept personal responsibility for consequences of action.

2. The US legal system itself has established precedent with the persecution and punishment of CD cases. If a practice warranted Civil Disobedience status in the eyes of the law, then the same interpretation needs to be applied to ECD with regard to ‘no damage to persons or property’.

3. Sit-ins and body blockades to deny access to goods and services, whether or governmental agencies or in the private sector, have long been considered Civil Disobedience practices by the US Courts.

4. If disruption of services or access is considered to be ethical demonstrations of CD by the US courts in cases of physical civil disobedience, then it also follows that disruption of service attacks or denial of access attacks must also be considered ethical demonstrations of CD in the electronic realm as well.

5. The USA PATRIOT Act is an X factor on the stage, granting the US Government powers to apprehend, detain and prosecute on simply the ‘appearance of intending’ to do harm to the US or a US citizen. (ACLU document).  While it is imprudent to dismiss, it is impossible to predict. While the USA PATRIOT Act definitely needs to be taken into account in the practice of ECD, the impossibility of prediction of- or reliance on the fairness of- its application makes it impossible for us to incorporate it into our definition beyond “Keep the PATRIOT Act in mind.”

6. For our purposes, with the addition of “Keep the PATRIOT Act in mind.” we will be using Manion & Goodrum’s definition to move forward.

7.     Cyberactivism vs. cyberterrorism may be defined by the language used.  Euphemisms to hide the destructive nature of  attacks may be a sign of terrorism, not protest.

8.     Cyberactivism vs. cyberterrorism may be defined by the electronic techniques used (where conventional is activism, violent is terrorism and disruptive is a large gray area)
    A. Conventional: fund-raising, research, cultural production, representation, etc…
    B. Disruptive: email floods, viruses, DNS attacks, virtual sit ins
    C. Violent: server wipes, data corruption, hacking

The Many Faces of Cyberactivism

1. Electronic communications offer a wide range of methods for informing and mobilizing a concerned citizenry about environmental issues that threaten public health.

2. Yet, it has been proposed that computer technologies may actually hinder environmental activism more than they help.

3. When online tactics enable “armchair activism” at the expense of real-life advocacy, the results may not always be successful from the standpoint of effecting change. At the same time Internet advocacy allows many more people to participate

4. A number of aspects of mass communication theory, as it applies to protest movements, may be applicable to environmental Internet advocacy. Real-life protest rhetoric falls into several different strategies: petition, promulgation  (including newsworthy events), solidification and polarization.

5. Analysis of acceptable techniques
    A. Conventional: education, public opinion, build constituencies, network, advocacy, fundraising
    B. Disruptive: email floods, viruses, DNS attacks, virtual sit ins

Online Activism Techniques of U.S.-based Groups

1. The online environmentalist’s toolbox includes a wide range of techniques such as include tracking and voter guides, virtual sit-ins, legislator automatic email, email campaigns, web-based recruiting techniques, and constituent education resource files.

2. Greenpeace has used the technique of a virtual sit-in at http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/bhopal-protests-move-online with mixed results.

3. Connecticut Fund for the Environment at www.cfenv.org  uses sophisticated Internet advocacy tools (tracking and voter guides, automated legislator email, email campaigns, and web-based recruiting) as part of its Activist Network strategy.

4. Environmental Defense uses Scorecard at http://www.scorecard.org as an educational resource to mobilize a concerned citizenry about issues that affect them close to home. It is the first web site of its kind to empower citizens about environmental issues in their locale.

5. NRDC uses its blog at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/ to generate buzz about key issues.
 
6. The Nature Conservancy advocates for preservation on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy-zU7p2l3I.

Conclusion

1. Environmental activism in the U.S. has traditionally been aligned with civil disobedience and more recently with electronic civil disobedience. Environmental organizations, however, have a wide range of means at their disposal for electronic communications that are not aligned with the perception of cyberterrorism. 

This weekend, my friend Hilary ran the New York Marathon. As impressed as I was by her ability and stamina, I was even more awe-struck by the spectacle of 38,000 people moving around the city in more or less the same direction at the same time. A little like Shibuya Station where “every time the lights turn green, 1,500 people cross from eight directions at once, performing a complex, collective ad hoc choreography…” (p.2)

What strikes me most about “Shibuya Epiphany” by Howard Rheingold is the culture of youth. It’s axiomatic that our children can work our (insert whatever electronic devise name you wish) cell phone/computer/DVD player better than we can. In Shibuya, they’ve hijacked the new technology itself.

Shibuya Station is dominated by hoards of young people with their keitai.“Keitai” is the Japanese term for cell phone, and means literally “to bring or carry”. And indeed, every young person carries one. It is as if they are carrying the conduit to everything that is most meaningful to them in their pockets. As traditional Japanese lifestyles and institutions disintegrate, young people are remaking their own traditions, using their cells to send multitudes of chatty text messages or order from a vending machine. Perhaps most compelling is the way in which these youngsters are hurling back and forth bits and pieces of their random moments in what virtually becomes a “continuously shared life.”  (p. 16) They stay in touch with friends while shopping, moving from home to school, or stopping at a coffee shop. The “always on” characteristic of mobile phones creates an experience in which the reality of those connected by phone is as immediate as that of people who are physically close.

Perhaps the best lens through which to regard this phenomenon of the connected reality of keitai-bearing youth is illustrated by the pager that sold so well. It offered the opportunity to send someone the symbol of a heart, which made a critical difference in its sales.(p. 10)

As a person who routinely misplaces keys, checkbooks and other vital articles of contemporary life, I especially appreciated the promise held out by Mary Czerwinski, Douglas W. Gage, Jim Gemmell and others in Digital Memories in an Era of Ubiquitous Computing and Abundant Storage. Some of the reasons for retaining a life’s worth of digital memories really resonated: finding things (!), reviewing research and travel, remembering the names of people and places, sharing personal experiences, monitoring personal development and feelings, improving productivity, coordinating activities, and maintaining security, among them.

Organizing the material so it can be successfully accessed presents perhaps the biggest challenge, with maintaining the privacy of information a close second. References to authors we read earlier in this class (Bush, Engelbart and Nelson) were a reminder of how the thinking on information collection and retrieval has progressed. As the authors conclude, the components needed to capture and store information are already here today.
 
Fab by Neil Gershenfeld offered a promising glimpse of a world devoid of malls. If the mainframes of yesterday could give way to the hand-held personal computer, I might yet get to order “tea, Earl Gray, hot” myself one day. The prospect of personal fabricators that “print things rather than images” (p.3) is particularly exciting for what it leaves out as for what it leaves in. When you can make what you require by rearranging atoms, then you can obviate the need for the transfer station. When you are through with an object, you simply deconstruct it, leaving its molecules available to be rearranged into another item at a later date. In a world that is wondering where its next landfill is going to come from, going a step beyond recycling offers an exciting prospect.

The tools are here today, asserts Gershefeld, observing, “In the research lab today, there are similar inks that can be used to print insulators, conductors, and semi-conductors to make circuits, as well as structure materials that can be deposited to make three-dimensional shapes.” (p. 9) But lest Scotty beam us up just yet, the author gives us a glimpse of an exciting experiment on five continents in which people in developing nations (and in an inner city in a developed one) make use of this new technology in creating the things they need to improve their lifestyles, not just mirror ours. As the author points out, “We’ve had a digital revolution, but we don’t need to keep having it.” (p.17) We can use the technology already developed to bring innovative inventions to the world of today. It might sound futuristic, but the fact is, the future is here now.

Just in case you thought everybody’s thrilled with the new media, in this month’s Orion Magazine (http://www.orionmagazine.org) , Robert Michael Pyle extols the virtues of disconnecting in favor of getting out into nature. This writer and naturalist has spent an adulthood without television. (Actually, he has an old set, but it only plays movies, since he is without cable, aerial reception or dish.) While on a trip, he observes mobile moms ignoring their infants in favor of hand-held video games. They bring to his mind chilling pictures of those experiments long ago in which baby monkeys, deprived of their mothers, turned sociopathic. He further muses “…that the mass capture of our synapses by electronica may threaten not only serenity but society itself.”

In the end, he decides to pull the e-plug. He has been going to the library twice a week for years to read his e-mail. Now, he has determined to take himself off-line. In the words of Charles Frazier’s Thirteen Moons protagonist Will Cooper, it’s back to “the post, and … the virtues of patience and silence.”

No TV, no email. Unthinkable? In an age of texting and twittering, maybe so.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Pete Dunne, Vice President of the New Jersey Audubon Society and director of its Cape May Bird Observatory, (not to mention author of seven birding books) speak on the importance of getting children out into nature. Even he had to admit that television nature occasionally has it all over the real thing. Who wants to look at a black dot in the sky (even if it is a bald eagle) when you can see eagle chicks hatching live on web-cam? Nonetheless, he made a compelling argument that holding a frog in your hand, feeling its clammy, wet skin against your own, is better than seeing one on TV; that witnessing the spiraled courtship flight of a male woodcock in the spring twilight beats any bird show hands down.

Somewhere between Robert Michael Pyle’s courageous, if somewhat extreme rejection of electronic communication and the seemingly compulsive need of many in our society for continual stimulation by cell, blog, or video game, there must be some middle ground. Someplace where the beauty of a sunset needn’t compete with the bright lights of our laptops, just co-exist. I guess I’m still looking for it. And for now I’m holding off on Googling the answer.

Environmental Cyber-activism: Where Technology and Advocacy Meet 

Willow Ann Sirch, Ryan Millner& Adam Pacio 

Annotated Bibliography 

ACLU (2002) ‘How the USA PATRIOT Act Redefines “Domestic Terrorism.” Downloaded on October 29, 2007 from http://www.aclu.org/natsec/emergpowers/14444leg20021206.html.

This article explores some of the significant changes to the definitions of domestic terrorism, spelled out in plain English and intentionally provided to allow certain political organizations (Greenpeace is specifically named, and would fall within our project scope) to understand what new penalties they face for crossing the redefined “line.” The ACLU ends with a political statement that they do not support the breaking of law, politically motivated or not, but rather wish for a revision of the scope and definition of what would constitute terrorism, thus restoring a venue of civil disobedience once again.

Best, Stephen. The son of patriot act and the revenge on democracy. Retrieved October  25, 2007, from http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/sonofpatriotact.php.
The Patriot Act gives the United States extremely robust power to stem and stop terrorism.  What it does not do very well is define what constitutes terrorism.  Having a fluid definition of terrorism means that the overarching powers of the Patriot Act can be used for a myriad of different purposes.  Best argues that one of the purposes that law enforcement agencies are using the Patriot Act for is to police civil protests and other types of activism. His observations will be helpful as we come to a working definition of cyber-terrorism to classify our example protests as either cyber-activism or cyber-terrorism.

Best, Stephen. Defining terrorism. Retrieved October  25, 2007, from http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/defining_terrorism.php.
In this piece, Best argues that activists are being unfairly punished by the powers that be throughout America.  This article brings into play a number of issues relating to internet protest activities in an effort both to demonstrate that activism is not terrorist–based and to show what his fellow activists are can do without fear of reprisals. We will use this article to work towards a workable definition of cyber-terrorism and help distinguish between cyber-terrorism and contrast it with cyber-protests.

Bhopal Protests Move Online. (2003). Greenpeace News. Retrieved October 26, 2007 from http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/bhopal-protests-move-online.
This web site highlights the use of the Internet by Greenpeace and other environmental and social activist groups to stage a virtual sit-in. The site illustrates how a virtual sit-in can be used to support a nonviolent approach to an environmental public health issue. The protest in this case is lodged against Dow Chemical Company, which merged with Union Carbide Union Carbide owned the factory responsible for what has become an ongoing environmental disaster in Bhopal following the release of deadly toxic gas twenty years ago that killed 20,000 people and injured thousands more. Greenpeace is an environmental organization that has long skirted the border of radicalism in environmental protection. The organization’s adoption of this tactic raises questions about both the efficacy and approach of the environmental virtual sit-in.

Bosmajian, Haig A. (1983). The language of war. In Haig A. Bosmajian’s The language of oppression (121-132). Boston: University Press of America.
In the past, warfare was conducted by vast armies and long fronts.  Terrorism has supplanted this method by having small groups target specific locales.  According to some, terrorism is the new warfare.  Bosmajian’s book analyzes the rhetoric behind warfare.  While he does not ever mention terrorism, the rhetoric should not have changed.  (No matter how the war is fought, it still takes similar language to convince people to die for a cause.)  We will use Bosmajian’s language analysis to work towards a working definition of cyber-terrorism.  The language used will also help to group the example protests as actual cyber-protests or acts of cyber-terrorism.

Bowers, John W., Ochs, Donovan J., & Jensen, Richard J. (1993). The Rhetoric of agitation and control (2nd ed.). Prospect Heights, IL:  Waveland Press.
Bowers, Ochs and Jensen write about the rhetoric behind both protests and those trying to control them. Throughout the book there are theories and case examples to explain these distinctions in rhetoric.  By the end of the book, readers have a clear idea of what constitutes both protest and control rhetoric.  These distinctions will then be extrapolated to the environmental cyber-protests we are examining.  This information will be used to help define which cyber-protests are actual protests and which could be defined as cyber-terrorism.  The ultimate result of this source will be helping us further distinguish between cyber-protests and cyber-terrorism.

Center for the Study of Terrorism and Irregular Warfare, Monterey, CA. (1999) “Cyber Terror: Prospects and Implications.”  Downloaded on October 29, 2007 from http://www.nps.navy.mil/ctiw/files/Cyberterror%20Prospects%20and%20Implications.pdf.
This lengthy document, again pre-PATRIOT Act, established for the US Navy a host of criteria for evaluating potential risk and plausible life cycles for groups which would be likely to engage in “cyber-terror.” The interesting thing is that even pre-9/11 the groups which were being studied were preemptively labeled as “cyber-terrorists,” although in their own definitions they state that certain groups were much more likely to accept ‘disruptive’ methods rather than “destructive” methods. This is included in the Bibliography because it demonstrates a governmental bias against any use of hacking or hacktivism, refusing to recognize it as ECD but rather immediately and unilaterally labeling it “cyber-terrorism.” This helps to establish the continued credibility of the pre-PATRIOT theory articles because it demonstrates that the PATRIOT Act, far from being causal of a legal/philosophical shift in the government was actually an outgrowth of a philosophy and stance already well adopted in governmental agencies studying this phenomenon.

Costanza-Chock, Sasha. (2003). Mapping the repertoire of electronic contention. In Andy Opel and Donnalyn Pompper (Eds.), Representing resistance: media, civil disobedience and the global justice movement (173-191). Westport CT: Praeger.
This chapter attempts to map out all the methods of engaging in an “electronic contention.”  In addition to giving us a new euphemism for cyber-protest, these methods are useful.  Whether we agree with the methods or not, it gives the group fodder to create the best definition of both cyber-protest and cyber-terrorism possible.  The better definition we come up with, the more thoroughly we can analyze cyber-protests.  More analyzing will also allow us to isolate variables that affected the success/failure of protests we showcase as examples.  If we branch our paper into the technical details of a cyber-protests, these methods will also be very useful. 

Critical Art Ensemble, The. (1995) “Electronic Civil Disobedience.” Chapter 1.
Downloaded on October 29, 2007 from http://www.critical-art.net/books/ecd/index.html.
The CAE sets up the theoretical viewpoint of the changing role of civil disobedience within an electronic society. They point to the establishment of information flow as the new political capital, which therefore is most heavily protected by the established hierarchies of government and business. They offer an explanation of the disproportionately heavy penalties for ECD. While their social theories remain essentially unproven as written, the CAE does recognize the inability or unwillingness of the government to recognize Electronic Civil Disobedience as a form of Civil Disobedience, in that they withhold the traditionally more lenient sentences for activists who engage in verifiable civil disobedience. This is important because, as an opposing philosophical viewpoint to the navy White Paper on Cyber-terror, it still recognizes the fundamental social problem of a discontinuity between Civil Disobedience and its electronic form. (This, incidentally, provides the most compelling independent argument in support of their often extreme social theories.)  This also further establishes that the PATRIOT Act, while it redefines the context and punishment of Cyber Terror, is merely one of the latest moves on the larger chess board of the role of Civil Disobedience within an electronic society.

Denning, Dorothy E., (1999) “Activism, hactivism, and cyber-terrorism: the internet as a tool for influencing foreign policy,” originally appearing in Internet and International Systems: Information Technology and American Foreign Policy Decision-making Workshop  given at the Nautilus Institute, San Francisco, December 10, 1999.  Retrieved October 29, 2007 from http://www.nautilus.org/gps/info-policy/workshop/papers/denning.html
Denning is regarded as one of the field experts in Cyber-terrorism and electronic activism. This article represents her work establishing the definitions and distinctions between Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyber-terrorism, definitions which have come to be commonly accepted among writings in this field. As with Manion & Goodrum (who cited this work) the definitions need to be revisited in light of the shift in political thinking and legality following the adoption of the Patriot Act following 9/11.

Galusky, Wyatt. (2003). Identifying with information: citizen empowerment, the internet and the environmental anti-toxins movement. In Martha McCaughey and Michael Ayers (Eds.), Cyberactivism: online activism in theory and practice (185-205). New York: Routledge.
This chapter in McCaughey and Ayers’s book analyzes examples of environmental online activism drawn from the anti-toxins movement in the context of a variety of computer-mediated protests. Their exploration raises issues as to whether computer technologies are helping or hindering our ability to respond adequately to environmental issues in an age in which online tactics allow us to be “armchair” activists.  In their book, McCaughey and Ayers question whether the public is simply being offered prepackaged political positions and how this might affect environmental outcomes and the empowerment of environmentally aware citizens.

Lusoli, Wainer & Ward, Stephen. (2003). Hunting protestors: mobilization, participation, and protest online in the countryside alliance. ECPR Joint Sessions, University of Edinburgh: 28 March- 2 April.
This article offers a report on how an English environmental group is using the World Wide Web to attract followers.  A lot of our examples could be based entirely in cyberspace.  Our thinking at this point is that it would be useful to showcase a group that, while they have a web presence, conducts a fair amount of activism in the real world.  This article shows that a cyber-protest can be more than a protest in cyberspace; it can also be a call to arms for a real world protest.  This article also shows the wide variety of things environmental protest groups can use the Internet for that is not specifically cyber-protests.

Manion, Mark and Goodrum, Abbey. (2000) “Terrorism or civil disobedience: toward a hacktivist ethic,” appearing in Spinello, Richard and Tavani, Herman, eds. (2004) Readings in CyberEthics, 2nd edition, Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
“Terrorism or Civil Disobedience” is a millennial survey work which studies the phenomenon of electronic activism, or ‘hacktivism’ and puts forth the argument that it is an extension of electronic civil disobedience. They discuss how under the laws of that time hacktivism definitely constitutes ECD and therefore is worthy of leniency in sentencing which is common for Civil Disobedience in other matters of law. We will be working primarily from their definitions as a point of reference since the Patriot Act has significantly and fundamentally altered the definitions of terrorism in the United States.

Pickerill, Jenny. (2004). Cyberprotest: environmental activism online. Manchester University Press: New York.
Although the focus of this exploration of cyber-protest focuses on contemporary environmental internet activism in Great Britain, it provides a blueprint for understanding how environmentalists can use the internet for a wide range of environmental advocacy issues. Environmental activists have been recognized for their effective use of the media to pressure politicians and inform and mobilize a concerned citizenry. More recently, environmentalists are extending their media approach to the Internet to publicize issues, launch campaigns, engage the public, and coordinate activities. Examining a range of groups, this book provides an opportunity to hear firsthand from environmentalists as to how the use of Internet technologies influence their outcomes with respect to different topics and campaigns. The authors offer reflections on the future of various tactics used by environmental organizations and identify emerging trends with implications for the future of environmental online activism.

Plows, A., Wall, D., and Doherty, B. (2001). From the Earth Liberation Front to universal dark matter: the challenge of covert repertoires to social movement research. Grenoble, France: Workshop on Democracy and Extremism, European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions.
This article frames a discussion of environmental cyber-terrorism vs. online activism. The authors document instances of how radical environmentalists have used the internet to disseminate information, engage their constituencies in participatory activities, aid mobilization and provide a forum for networking. They adopt the term ecotage, that is, the economic sabotage of inanimate objects seen as having played a part in environmental destruction. As part of their examination, they primarily focus on the tactics of highly radicalized groups, including Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front in their approach to the problem of measuring radical environmental online activities undertaken in an effort to effect action.

Vanderheiden, S. (2005). Eco-terrorism or justified resistance? Radical environmentalism and the “war on terror.” Politics & Society, vol. 33, No. 3, p. 425-447.
This author approaches the topic of environmental activism from the standpoint that the most radical enviro groups, those engaged in acts of ecotage, have been identified as a leading terrorist threat in the post-9/11 “War on Terror.” The author investigates whether a conventional definition of terrorism may accurately be applied to include activities that involve the destruction of inanimate objects as well as noncombatants. He considers the ethical limitations espoused by environmental activists engaged in acts of ecotage, rejecting the idea that terrorism and ecotage are linked. He offers a definition of the moral constraints that may properly be applied to acts of ecotage through a consideration of just war theory and nonviolent civil disobedience. Although his approach does not focus on online environmental protest activities, his conclusions may provide insights to our own internet-based considerations.

There appears to be plenty of untapped potential in viral video where the 2008 election campaign is concerned. Some observations along these lines are provided at http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001617.php . As EDM points out, “understanding video also requires understanding how people are accessing video. NPI Fellow Tim Chambers tells us that ‘by the 2008 election, more than 90 percent of the mobile phones used in the U.S. will be internet-enabled.’” Unfortunately, the percentage of mobile phone owners who will actually know how to access the internet on their phones by then will be substantially below that figure. Some of us are still figuring out our ring tones. But the article, nonetheless offers an interesting perspective. And as long as you’re in the market, don’t miss “The First Viral Video of the 2008 Election at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QcI3Bpw6r4.

Blogging is one thing. Blogging about blogging is something else. In the wrong hands, it could just border on the obtuse, but let’s have a go just the same.

When Meredirth Farkas, librarian, writer, tech geek and author of a library-science-related blog asked 116 people why they blogged, she got a range of answers. (See http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2005/09/12/survey-of-the-biblioblogosphere-why-we-blog/.) The three most popular were: to share ideas with other/to communicate with colleagues, friends, family: 47 (40.5%); to record ideas for self/to keep current: 28 (24.1%); and to network/to build community: 22 (19%). Obviously whom you ask plays a pretty important role in what answers you get.

If she had asked Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, authors of Naked Conversations, she’d have gotten a different answer entirely. Something along the lines of: because it’s good for business. These authors are gleeful, unabashed proponents of blogging for good customer relations. The business world, as they see it, has come full circle from an environment in which customers do business with a particular entity because of local word of mouth, to one in which they do business because of global word of mouth. Somewhere in between was a time when businesses sought to generate their own pre-fabricated spin, which most customers have come to distrust as marketing hype. The future according to Scoble and Israel will see fewer spin doctors and more bloggers.

Which brings us to the question of whether nonprofit organizations will be far behind the business model in establishing their own blogs. Scoble and Israel cite a communcations exec who admitted he ignored his own department’s press releases as “a bunch of crap,” in favor of “some really cool bloggers” who blogged about the company. The author’s explore the phenomenon of Microsoft’s retreat from its image as “the Evil Empire” through the weekly blogging of multitudes of employees. If customers didn’t exactly come to see Microsoft as a company with a heart, they at least edged away from the Microsoft as Borg model.

Nonprofits don’t have that problem. Being aligned with a good cause sets you up for positive public perception. What nonprofits do lack, though, is money. And that’s where blogging can come in particularly handy. Like a smile, it doesn’t cost a thing. (Unless you have to hire your blogger, that is.) Nonprofits also have a continual challenge in telling their story and making it sound different from the last time they told their story. Blogging could come in quite handy there too. I don’t think that will be the theme of Scoble and Israel’s next book, however. (Maybe I should write that one myself, but it’s enough of a challenge to keep up with homework.) They’re pretty entrenched in the business world.

Scoble and Israel’s six Pillars of Blogging lend the medium an effectiveness beyond other forms of communication: Publishable, Findable, Social, Viral, Syndicatable and Linkable. Their discussion of Google rankings mirrors a conversation we had in class: Blogging is a better way than a web site to secure a high Google ranking because blogs are continuously updated, gaining more search engine attention. “Every time you post, Google notices and boosts your ratings,” (p. 29) observe the authors. What is more, Google pays attention to links, boosting one’s “Google juice.” Juice is a good thing to have. Taken in that light, the alternative of “Interruption Marketing” (a phrase coined by author Seth Godin,) in which “unanticipated, impersonal, and irrelevant ads” are “repeatedly hurled at involuntary audiences” (p. 32) seems a poor alternative indeed.

Clive Thompson’s article Blogs to Riches offers a look at some blogger success stories while dissecting some of the popularity of the medium. His reference to a “power-law distribution” within the blogosphere suggests that blogging, like other activities, is a kind of pyramid in which a tiny population of blogs occupies 90% of the blog-reading populace’s attention, with a middle group of blogs that are occasionally read and a huge “C-group” of blogs that go virtually ignored. (The same is not only true of movie stars, but of donors to nonprofit organizations. 90% of any given nonprofit’s revenue comes from 10% of its donors.) Which is great if you are at the top of the pyramid and not so great if you’re covered with sand.

Thompson has taken the trouble to map out the links of the 50 most-linked-to blogs, which makes for a redoubtable work of art that would feel right at home in the Guggenheim. I may not have time to investigate all 50, but it’s a great list and worth the read alone. The best analogy I’ve heard all week: “a blog is like a shark: If it stops moving, it dies.” So I guess I’d better post. And quickly.

     I’m a lousy housekeeper, but I get it honestly. My mom was a lousy housekeeper before me and my grandmother before her. I come from a line of women who would rather paint a picture than a bathroom wall, or write a poem instead of do the dishes. I fervently hope my daughter (who is good at math) will prefer doing algorithms to dusting. In my case, I’ll take any excuse not to clear up the clutter, carrying the issue so far as to go to graduate school, so I have homework to do instead of tidying. But now, it appears the clutter has migrated as far as my television screen. It seems there is no escape.

     Last month, an article appeared in The New York Times about how television screens are taking on more of the look of computer screens. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24clutter.html?pagewanted=all .)Networks are cramming promotions, news crawls, and other streams of information both wanted and unwanted into our tv viewing experience. The impression that many viewers are left with is that tv screens are far more “cluttered,” states the author, than they were until recently, and the experience of watching television more closely resembles that of using a computer.

     It is interesting that the clutter is what is related to the computer screen experience. A good computer web page should theoretically not be any more cluttered than a good television screen. But that’s not how the users or apparently the networks that are defining our content see it.

     In the case of someone trying to read subtitles (one example that opens the article), the added clutter can be entirely maddening. Being a pretty hopelessly linear thinker, I personally find subtitled films a little tedious between trying to follow the plot, take in the lighting and other visual film effects and reading the dialogue. But when the words are obscured by some piece of information I am not focused on at the moment, I am not pleased.

     When I watch a program, I do not want to buy the character’s shoes. But that is what snipes are for — to make the most money out of each viewer in this media or the next. An icon will direct viewers of tv shows to places where they can purchase related items.

     Over the years, we’ve all noticed how the show segments have gotten shorter and the commercial segments have become longer. According to Wikipedia, hour-long television shows during the 1960s typically featured 51 minutes of programming with 9 minutes of commercials (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement ). Today, the same program would air for 42 minutes, with 18 minutes of commercials.

     One hopeful note is provided by the emergence of recording services like TiVo that allow shows to be recorded onto a hard drive, which will enable viewers to fast-forward the commercials. Some analysts predict that tv commercials will be eliminated altogether. Now, there’s a technology I can live with. But it still won’t do anything about the visual clutter on my television.

      Screen clutter can be “extremely eye-catching” according to UPENN sociologist David Grazian, despite the research that suggests it can impede comprehension. But that does not deter network moguls who see each iota of screen clutter as money in the bank. So it appears that television screen clutter is here to stay. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go do some vacuuming.