The American Library Association’s

commons-blog

has a nice mention of The Prince George’s

Information Commons.

I see our local work on this experimental "information

commons" as an effort to fill an important gap. The national public interest

groups that work on media issues use a model pioneered around 1970 by Ralph Nader

and John Gardner (founders of Public Citizen and Common Cause). Today, these groups

perform extremely important functions in tracking complex federal policies and

lobbying and litigating on behalf of values that would otherwise be unrepresented

in Washington. However (with the exception of the ALA and a few other groups),

they lack a grassroots base. In part, this is because their issues are so complex

that most people cannot, and will not, keep up. In part, it is because the original

Nader/Gardner model depended on a large population of active citizens who were

prone to join groups, to follow and discuss issues, and to make contributions.

Public Citizen and Common Cause were born at the demographic peak of what Robert

Putnam calls "the long civic generation." Now that people are generally

less likely to follow the news and to join groups, the "public-interest community"

in Washington lacks a base. So our strategy is to start building independent (that

is, non-partisan, non-profit, and non-governmental) groups at the community level—as

places where people can develop social ties and learn to use the complex new media

for public purposes. I believe that we should never try to push these groups to

take any particular political positions. Even after people start using the Internet

for public purposes, they may still not be upset (as I am) about corporate monopolies

or a lack of diversity in the mass media. They may have other concerns. But they

will be active, participatory, experienced, experimental, and independent; and

so they will provide the missing voice.

For people interested in the information commons, here

are two sites worth visiting:

• Lawrence Lessig is circulating a petition

  asking Congress to pass a "Public Domain Enhancement Act. This statute would

  require American copyright owners to pay a very low fee (for example, $1) fifty

  years after a copyrighted work was published. If the owner pays the fee, the copyright

  will continue for whatever duration Congress sets. But if the copyright is not

  worth even $1 to the owner, then we believe the work should pass into the public

  domain."

• The American Library Association has a new "commons-blog,"

  devoted to issues of intellectual property. The ALA is a powerful resource for

  civic work and a supporter of the public domain. Librarians run important civic

  institutions in communities and schools; they are custodians of intellectual property

  that people can use for free; and they promote deliberation. The ALA has what

  the whole public-interest movement most desperately needs: an active, knowledgeable,

  grassroots base. Leaders of the ALA, such as Nancy Kranich, a recent President

  whom I know, are aware of their civic role.

My

good friends at the Center for Media Education

sent me a list of youth-led civic projects that use the Internet. Here

are a few great examples from their list:

• Teen

  Consumer Scrapbook (Sponsored by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office)

• Flint Profiles

  ("By teaching information access and computer technology as tools for change,

  this project aims to empower high school students to succeed as decision makers

  who influence community leaders to respond to their ideas for change. Through

  this project, young activists will learn to put their passion into action.")

• Harlem

  Live (Mission: "To empower a diverse group of youth towards leadership

  using experience and exposure to media and technology. … HarlemLive is award

  winning, critically acclaimed web magazine produced by teens from throughout New

  York City".)

• Street

  Level ("Street-Level Youth Media educates Chicago’s inner-city youth

  in media
  arts and emerging technologies for use in self-expression communication,

  and social change.")

• Wire Tap

  ("WireTap is the independent information source by and for socially conscious

  youth. We showcase investigative news articles, personal essays and opinions,

  artwork and activism resources that challenge stereotypes, inspire creativity,

  foster dialogue and give young people a voice in the media.")

Microsoft is giving away free software to nonprofits, and critics

charge that this is a deliberate plot to undermine open-source alternatives

that were gaining ground in the nonprofit sector. I’ll have to leave it

to economists to decide whether Microsoft’s strategy is good or bad for

nonprofit organizations in strictly economic terms. (Economists might

also ask whether it is a good deal for taxpayers to let Microsoft take

a tax deduction for donating Windows, each copy of which actually costs

the company nothing). Likewise, I’ll have to defer to antitrust lawyers

about whether this strategy violates laws against anti-competitive pricing.

My concern is different from either of these. It may be that open-source

software is good for civil society because it promotes cooperation

in the writing and improving of the code; diversity (since

open-source products can be tailored for various purposes and produced

by many actors); and creativity by a wide range of individuals

and groups. Whether open-source products such as Linux actually have these

effects is an empirical matter than needs to be assessed. I suspect, however,

that nonprofits like to use open-source products for these reasons and

not merely to save money. If that is true, then Microsoft’s donation is

insidious.

I have just published a new

article on "information privacy." "Information

Technology and the Social Construction of Information Privacy: Comment,"

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy Volume 22, Issue 3, May-June

2003, Pages 281-285)

The abstract says:

Privacy is not merely "socially constructed"; it is a good

thing. We should defend privacy because it supports freedom, property

rights, informed consent, personality development, happiness, equality

of power, an appropriate separation of society into multiple zones,

and rights of association, while helping to prevent discrimination and

defamation. Accountants have a professional responsibility to help protect

information privacy.

This short, commissioned piece begins with some comments about the methodology

of another article in the same journal; these remarks are not very interesting

for general readers. I think the main value of my piece (if it is useful

at all) is that it lists the goods and rights that we can enhance by protecting

online privacy. None of the items on my list is original, but they are

all together in one place.