a bit of "fun" for the cold hours of the east -- re: re:

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: Stanton McCandlish <mech () eff org>
To: cyber-rights () cpsr org, com-priv () psi com, digitaliberty () phantom com,
        telecomreg () relay doit wisc edu
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 18:30:02 -0500 (EST)


Mark Stahlman (via RadioMail) <stahlman () radiomail net> says:


> There's a reason why *both* Gore and Gingrich support the cornerstone of
> the new "technocracy" -- Universal Access.  There's a reason why Gingrich's
> PFF and (Gore's?) EFF/CDT


Gore is in no way connected with EFF (at all, at all) or CDT (that I know
of). There is no EFF/CDT.  They are separate organizations.  And last I
looked, G&G supported universal service, not universal access. There's an
order of magnitude difference here: the former is an entitlements
program, the latter is a requirement that monopoly and semi-monopoly
common carriers with guaranteed profits due to fixed tariffs, provide
services on a non-discriminatory basis until fully competitive and
deregulated, since they have an enormous pool of funding available via
cross subsidizing new endeavors with money from the old monopolized market.
Any other way 1) allows them to use, either openly or in roundabout
manner, money gouged from the public for universal service to fund their
own new playgrounds while providing nothing to the public paying for it,
and 2) threatens unregulated would-be competition who don't have $500
billion to throw around.  Remember that telcos and the like are not
"natural monopolies", but are aberrant monopolies propped up by govt.
regulation, and are both willing and capable of taking over entire new
markets if given leave to do so.  Once they are fully deregulated and
competitive, it's really no one's business whether or not they want to
serve Harlem or rural Montana.  But as long as they are not fully
private enterprises and are paying for new technology investment and
forays into new markets with money from the public for universal
service, its IS everyone's business how that plays out.  We've been over
all of this before, but I hope it is clearer now.  EFF  does not support
any sort of POTS-type universal service program, nor does EFF support an
endless regulatory regime over any media, much less new media. We are
only interested in seeing the monopolies build infrastructure that is
available to all, if they are to build infrastructure at all.  When they
are fully private enterprises in competition, then they should be free
to do their own thing as they see fit. Most of the language I've seen
from G&G, however, does appear to be supportive of an entitlement-type
universal service regime, or has at least been vague enough that one
cannot be certain they are in fact talking about universal service in
anywhere close to the same terms as EFF. This is one of the reasons you
didn't see EFF asking anyone to support  the Senate telecom competition
bill last year.


> are collaborating on "privacy" and "property"
> rights.


EFF has no position on property rights.  Never have. It's simply not one
of the issues we deal with.  See http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/mission.eff
for more details on what we DO work on.  The notion that we are
collaborating on these issues with PFF is absurd.  EFF is studying,
internally, intellectual property issues as they relate to the wellbeing
of the nets, but we do not have any positions on these issues at present,
and they are not even peripherally related to the usual gamut of property
law issues, which most often deal with land owners rights vs.
environmentalists, and so forth - an area completely outside EFF's sphere
or interest.


EFF is not in collaboration with PFF on anything.  Never have been.  The
extent of our handshaking with PFF is having some of our board members
(Dyson, Barlow, Kapor, maybe another, I don't recall) attend one of their
open meetings to see what they are up to and throw in our their views, as
did people from most of the other relevant orgs.  AFAIK, we, and most
everyone else in the world, didn't even know PFF existed until they
started running WIRED ads and invited us to a meeting.  We've hardly been in
some sort of collusion with them.


> There's a reason why both EFF/CDT and PFF have the same funding
> sources.


We do not have the same funding sources.  We have some similarities in
funding, generally speaking, but that's about it.  Considering the nature
of the issues we are working on, it's not particularly surprising that
all three orgs have some hardware, software, and communications corporate
donors.  It would be pretty strange if we didn't.  However, CDT is not a
membership organization.  PFF isn't either to my knowledge.  Lots of
other differences as well (e.g. PFF gets a lot of conservative foundation
funding and EFF does not, last I looked.)  CDT and EFF have a lot of
funding in common, which is also not surprising, since the main funding
go-getter for both CDT to date (e.g. the last 2 months) and EFF until
Dec. 94, was the same person, with the same contacts.


> There's a reason why EFF founder JP Barlow wants to embrace the
> "darkness",


What do you mean by that? This would appear to be meaningless, unless
there's a context I'm missing.  Barlow certainly never mentioned anything
about embracing the "darkness", whatever that is, at the last board meeting,
unless he did it in executive session and I consequently didn't hear it.
Of course in that case, you didn't hear it either, so I'm again left
wonder just what you mean here.


> takes personal responsibility for vetting the FBI's wiretap
> bill


Re-read his statements on the matter.  This is all old rehash.  Barlow
posted on the WELL, to a support group sort of forum that he'd *felt*
responsible, had *felt* like he could stop the bill, and this was a
source of stress.  He's also said he knew that this feeling was not
practical or realistic.  (I imagine it was something like the irrational
guilt or responsibility one sometimes feels after the death of someone
close to you, or any other "heavy" event, a feeling that one should have
or could have done more; c.f. the ending of _Schindler's_List_ for a
pretty vivid example).  At any rate, JPB's messages on the WELL were,
against WELL policy, redistributed out of context and filled with
Gordon's Cooks' personal (and in this case mistaken) interpretations.
Cook would have done better to read the posts, summarize his impressions
for himself, then contact Barlow and the rest of the EFF board, as well
as other organizations, rather than presuming the perhaps appealing but
quite fanciful notion that a retired Wyoming cattle rancher has absolute
power over whether a bill passes or not.  He failed to do investigative
journalism, and instead produced lousy journalism (this is not meant as
an attack on Cook, who's technical articles I rather enjoy and have yet
to find serious fault with, just an honest observation).


> and why he and Kapor were on the panel at PFF's big confab in DC last
> month.


There is indeed a reason for this:  They were invited to do so, and so
they did.  EFF has a speaker at any number of public and private events
all over the world every year, including everything from law school
seminars to Computers Freedom and Privacy to Senate hearings, for one
reason or another. Expect the number of these appearances to increase.
We'll probably also be hosting a series of new conferences over the next
1-2 years as well.  I'm not sure why you find something to fingerpoint
about here.  This is just business as usual - most speaking opportunities
we have, that won't cost us an arm and a leg (this is a non-profit org,
remember) we accept.


> They're all cut from the same cloth.  One's plaid and the other's
> crazy-quilt but it's the same fabric.


What's that supposed to mean?


> Tell you what.
>
> You do your research and I'll do mine.  Let's both report on what we find
> and then compare the results with reality.


That's a logically broken statement.  If your research is not based on
reality, what's it based on?  How do you do your reasearch and then
compare it with reality?  Isn't comparing with reality a prerequisite for
doing research in the first place?  That is, if your research does not
square with that of someone else, what would be accomplished by comparing
this research with reality, when that research is, by definition, the
distilation of your reading of the relevant reality? Whatever...
If the research on either side is good, it will not be incompatible with
good reasearch on the other side.  This is why chemistry works and alchemy
doesn't.


[Toffler/PFF stuff elided - I don't have any comment on them at present.]


> These guys are all professional social engineers and brainwashers.  They


Along with the Bilderbergers and the Tri-Lateral Commission? What about
the Illuminati?


> are using the "future shock" of new technologies to herd a stupified
> Washington DC into their newly constructed (but with an old blueprint)
> stockpens.  When Gore was on top it was EFF's "Technolologies of
> Liberation" (from MIT brainwasher Itheil de Sola Pool) and now that


Try "Technologies of Freedom", Ithiel de Sola Pool, and please show me
the document where EFF uses this term as a description of our position.


> Gingrich has the ball it's Toffler's "Third Wave."  And, everyone who's
> promoting increased government control over *new* technologies is helping
> them out -- whether they know it or not.


Ever notice EFF supports telecom deregulation, increased
cross-competition between cable and telephony markets, opposed the FBI
Digital Telephony proposal from day one until ground zero (either by
trying to stop the bill outright, or when that failed by excising as much
FBI language from the bill as possible and replacing it with new privacy
protections - I invite you to compare the versions of the bill at
http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Surveillance/Old/ if you are skeptical),
opposed and still opposes the Exon bill (formerly the Exon amendment to
last year's telecom bill), refused to sign on with the 90-something
non-profits calling for freebie bandwidth for charities and schools.  Need I
continue?


> Did you ever wonder why the "Third Wave" is positioned *against* the very


This is probably obvious, but I'll say it anyway, Toffler, PFF and their
"3rd wave" stuff have nothing whatsoever to do with EFF.


[more Toffler/PFF stuff elided.]


> They've been trying to tell you it's not a left/right thing anymore.
> It's a non-ideological "technocrat" futures-lib social control thing.
> Listen up!


This is non-news.  Phil Agre already did the investigative reporting that
brought PFF's somewhat less than "non-ideological" ties to the light,
weeks ago, and widely posted it.


EFF on the other hand is not funded by, nor  was it founded in cahoots
with, nor is it steered by any political party or elected official. You
can expect that to remain true indefinitely.  We accept no govt funding
of any kind either.


I'm sorry to be getting involved in an argument with you again Mark, esp.
after so much time without having to do so, but I must point out that you
can't do "research" on an organization without contacting that organization
and learning about it from the inside.  Your entire analysis of EFF is
based on outside impressions.  You don't interview Drew Taubman or David
Johnson. You don't contact us for clarification when something in a press
release doesn't sound right to you.  You don't talk to any of the staff
or board about what we are doing at one event or another, but just
make assumptions, and then pontificate upon those assumptions as if
there were iron-clad fact. This is perhaps why Brock Meeks
consistently does better investigation of EFF than you do (and I don't
mean this as an insult, just an observation [and I find even brutal
honesty to be better than prevarication]).





--
http://www.eff.org/~mech/";>          Stanton McCandlish
mailto:mech () eff org">        mech () eff org

http://www.eff.org/";>         Electronic Frontier Foundation

http://www.eff.org/1.html";>   Online Services Mgr.