BACKGROUND

I attended last year's CPSR annual meeting to carry a message of concern about our NII vision statement. To my dismay, there was only a pro forma discussion of the document. Further, neither my concerns nor those of others present were mentioned in the CPSR Newsletter summary of the meeting.

Based on my experience, which I consider to have been a waste of personal money, I wish that published trip reports were required in cases where CPSR funds are used to pay CPSR officials for travel to a meeting. Further, more time should be allocated at annual meetings for member discussion. Panels can be fun, but they don't justify the cost of a plane ticket and/or lost days at work.

THE BASIC PROBLEM

I worry that we are trying to be all things to all people, and I believe that this could result in our missing many opportunities to really make an observable impact.

I see two basic sources of trouble in our approach: Conflicting Goals and Lack of Focus. Either of these by themselves would be bad enough; taken together they magnify each others' effects.

CONFLICTING GOALS

We must choose goals that do not conflict, or we must be plain about how they conflict and how we would resolve that conflict. If we fail to resolve or at least identify conflicts ourselves, we make it hard to send a clear message. Anyone who doesn't like our agenda and understands that we are sending an unclear message can use that confusion to our disadvantage by pointing out that we don't even agree amongst ourselves.

An example of such conflict I find in our present document is the paradox of "encouraging standards" and "encouraging experimentation. " While these might be resolvable at some detail level, they are not resolvable at the high level we are presently speaking. People wanting to walk away with just a short take-home message are left with a dilemma: are we for having everyone do the same thing, or letting everyone disagree? This hurts our cause by distracting attention from the things we can say that are more clear.

LACK OF FOCUS

With so many recommendations, we blur the "must do now" part of our message from the "ultimate goal" part. We must prioritize better.

I fear that we are shying away from a prioritized message for fear of sending a message that the "ultimate goal'' portions are not important. "Ultimate goals" are very important, but we will never get there if we confuse them with infrastructure.

It's great for CPSR to have members who are committed to "ultimate goals." These people inform our sense of what is a "must do now" item. It's also good for chapters to work actively on these projects under the CPSR name. But saying that CPSR benefits and is benefited by people with vision is different than saying that the message CPSR should be sending is "just do lots of things that show vision." We must think and act strategically if we're to have any real effect.

Members are often called upon to speak for CPSR. If our message is clear and simple so that it is easily and often repeated, it might eventually sink in. Our current message is not clear, not easy to remember, not easy to repeat, and in my opinion will only (and can only) be given lip service in its current form.

RIGHTS VS. GOALS

I once learned a useful way of distinguishing a right from a goal: Rights are things which happen at no cost in an ideal society. Goals are things that require investment. (Sometimes the enforcement of rights requires investment, but the enforcement of a right is a goal, not a right.)

In this view, free speech, privacy, and access to existing information are things that can be rights. Education is an example of something that can only be a goal and never a right by this definition, except insofar as self-education through access to public information facilities like libraries is a right. Libraries, however, are something that can never be a right since they actively require resources to create and maintain.

This distinction is important because violation of a right can be made to be a crime (since anyone can, without cost, respect your rights). Failure to achieve a goal must not be an automatic crime because the best of intentions combined with inadequate resources might not be enough to ensure that a goal is achieved.

PROPOSED FOCUS

I would like to see us re-examine the set of issues that are now active and make a decision to focus in on just a few (at most three) criteria. For discussion purposes, I suggest three such criteria here. Note that each could be made to be a Right as I have defined the term, not just a Goal.

1. Privacy. The NII backbone should ensure completely private communication, just as the present day telephone and mail system. Access to the NII should not require a promise to give up this right. Access to the NII should also not require anyone to give up personal information except that which is necessary to verify the identity of the user; second-hand use of such information should be prohibited.

2. Free Speech Communication on the NII should be regarded as "speech" and all existing rights of free speech should be applied in this new medium.

3. Access. Barriers to new users or service providers should be avoided. There should be no arbitrary limit on the number of individuals or organizations that can directly connect to the NII. Fees should be permissible only when absolutely necessary, only if commensurate with actual costs incurred, and only if distributed such that users with modest needs can participate at correspondingly modest cost. The specification for any protocol or software service necessary to be NII compliant must be made available to anyone that requests it.

REEXAMINING EXISTING RECOMMENDATIONS

In what follows, I'll suggest some ways to reexamine our existing Policy and Design Recommendations with the aim of simplifying our message.

The following should be a non-goal because the organizations we are advising think they are already doing this. It's not that this is a bad sentiment,

it's just that it isn't really likely to help and might even distract from other messages that could help.

¥ Policy: Consider the social impact

The following are effectively just restatements of one or more of the important three goals I have suggested.

¥ Policy: Guarantee equitable and universal access.

¥ Design: Enable users to act as producers and consumers.

¥ Design: Address security and design issues from the beginning.

¥ Design: Develop open and interoperable standards.

The following should be non-goals because they will be naturally tended to by my suggested three goals above and/or by the presence of a free market. Internet experience has shown that the freer the flow of information, the more information and services will arise on their own. The marketplace has already demonstrated that it is economically motivated to consider these, and deserves a chance to operate on its own before we meddle.

¥ Policy: Consider the social impact.

¥ Policy: Promote widespread economic benefits

¥ Policy: Promote diversity in content markets.

¥ Design: Ease of use.

¥ Design: Require high reliability.

The following are interesting goals but our other goals do not depend upon them. They should be deferred until later so as not to dilute our message.

¥ Policy: Provide access to government services and information over the Nll.

¥ Design: Encourage Experimentation and Evolution

The following should be non-goals or secondary goals. While many of us might consider library, snow removal, police, and fire services to be essential, it is possible to find communities that have consciously elected to invest small to non-existent amounts of money in these activities.

¥ Policy: Protect public spaces

¥ Design: Full service to homes, workplaces, and community centers.

SUMMARY

What I want is an initial agenda based on promoting "common sense" and "cost free" needs of the NII. Privacy, Free Speech, and Access. These may seem like small things, but they won't come automatically.

Now is the time to demand them.

Where I would characterize the present-day CPSR/NIT statement as Liberal (in both goals and spending), I would characterize my proposed alternative as Libertarian (in both goals and spending). I have no fundamental objection to the long-term goals people have cited, except insofar as they distract from "must do now" issues.

Whether you agree or disagree with my specific choices, I hope you will agree that we must have a dramatically shorter list of priorities to go after for the near term. When those are achieved, we can go on to the next step. But if we try to do everything at once, our voice will be hopelessly diluted.

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