DISADVANTAGES – CONSUMER/INTERNET – KILLS THE INTERNET 429

DISADVANTAGES — CONSUMER/INTERNET — KILLS THE INTERNET 429

IMPACT: DEMOCRACY

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET ALSO HOLDS THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY

PAUL STARR, The American Prospect, March 27, 2000 - April 10, 2000; Pg. 30 TITLE: The Electronic Commons; THE PROMISE OF THE NEW PUBLIC DOMAIN // acs-VT2001

That is, in a sense, the whole story of the Internet. What started out as a technical curiosity has become vital to the future of liberal democracy. If we want to have an "open society," to use Karl Popper's phrase, we need to conceive of it in terms that are appropriate to the new technological framework of society. We need to make the most of the possibilities for public as well as private enrichment that the Internet lays before us.

WHILE NOT A CURE ALL, THE INTERNET IS A VERY POSITIVE FORCE FOR SPREADING DEMOCRACY

PAUL STARR, The American Prospect, March 27, 2000 - April 10, 2000; Pg. 30 TITLE: The Electronic Commons; THE PROMISE OF THE NEW PUBLIC DOMAIN // acs-VT2001

This transformed public domain should not be expected to solve the deepest problems of democratic politics. There is no sign that the Internet will engage the disaffected in public life, give voice to the powerless, or raise the standards of debate. Those who have hoped to use the Net to improve elections and the responsiveness of elected leaders have, at least thus far, typically had disappointing results. But it is, nonetheless, good for democracy that the Internet facilitates the production and global dissemination of public goods -- public information services, public intellectual technologies, public mechanisms for connecting people and building civil society.

PRIVACY REGULATIONS CAN THREATEN THE ECONOMY AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY OF GOVERNMENT

Conrad deFiebre; Star Tribune Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) January 9, 2000, SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A // acs-EE2001

Now business-oriented interests fear the impact of 21st-century privacy legislation on economic competitiveness and a level playing field in the marketplace. And free-speech advocates worry about a potential loss of public accountability.

Mark Anfinson, lawyer and lobbyist for the Minnesota Newspaper Association, notes: "There's a lot of citizens who do good things by accessing public records who aren't journalists. They have rights, too."

He added: "We're watching these proposals very closely. Once it becomes politicized, there's potential for bad legislation."

CYBERSPACE INDEPENDENCE FROM GOVERNMENT REGULATION IS KEY TO RESTRUCTURING OUT POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

Neil Weinstock Netanel, Arnold, White & Durkee Centennial Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law, March 2000; California Law Review, "Cyberspace Self-Governance: A Skeptical View from Liberal Democratic Theory," EE2001-hxm lxnx

As cyberspace grows to encompass ever-increasing areas of human thought, interaction, and commerce, it regularly comingles with the sorts of "real world" activity, ranging from product sales to criminal conspiracy, commonly subject to state regulation. As a result, courts and legislators have increasingly applied real world, state-promulgated law to cyberspace activity, steadily constricting the domain of semiautonomous cyberspace rule making. n13 But despite these incursions, supporters of cyberspace [*401] self-governance (I will call them "cyberians") insist that cyberspace rule making is far more than a set of isolated local arrangements. For them, cyberspace is partly a model and partly a metaphor for a fundamental restructuring of our political institutions. Cyberians view cyberspace as a realm in which "bottom-up private ordering" can and, indeed, should supplant rule by the distant, sluggish, and unresponsive bureaucratic state. n14 By its very architecture and global reach, they contend, cyberspace will ultimately elude the strictures of state-created law, challenging the efficacy and theoretical underpinnings of the territorial sovereign state. n15

UNREGULATED CYBERSPACE IS KEY TO RECOGNIZING LIBERAL IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY AND EQUALITY

The cyberian claims of liberal perfection and community autonomy pose an intriguing challenge to traditional liberal democratic theory. But I believe that challenge ultimately fails. I will argue that an untrammeled cyberspace would prove inimical to the ideals of liberal democracy and indeed that selective state regulation of cyberspace is warranted to protect and promote those ideals. I will also propose that in the absence of regulation by a democratic state, cyberians would be forced to invent a quasi-state institution to legislate and enforce liberal democratic metanorms governing critical aspects of cyberspace organization and operation. Even if cyberians were successfully to establish such an institution, it would, at best, suffer from much the same democratic deficit that, according to cyberians, characterizes nation-state representative democracy.

UNREGULATED CHAT ROOMS ARE KEY TO RECOGNIZING LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC GOALS

What I refer to as the "cybersyndicalist" claim sees the multifarious virtual communities developed through online discussion groups as the principal sites for the realization of liberal democracy. Through ongoing interaction and discussion, cybersyndicalists maintain, each discussion group generates a unique set of social norms reflecting the values and preferences of its participants. Expanding upon recent literature touting the purported efficiency benefits of the "bottom-up" generation of social norms, n23 cybersyndicalists portray virtual communities as the paradigms of consensual self-governance.