e-Activism. (Indians fight for their lands, Colombia) MARK MEISNER.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2000 Alternatives, Inc.

Environmental activists are using the Internet to organize, spoof and subvert

ON JANUARY 25, 2000, Colombian military troops forcibly removed 250 U'Wa people from their legal and ancestral lands in the cloud forests of the Colombian Andes. In a move that violated the Colombian constitution, the troops were clearing the way for the American multinational Occidental Petroleum to begin drilling for oil on U'Wa lands.

The U'Wa had been peacefully resisting Occidental and the military for two months, but the time had come, yet again, for violent force to be used to support the interests of global capital.

Nevertheless, within a day of the invasion, even though the phone lines had been disabled, word of the military action was out. In another day, the international U'Wa solidarity campaign had mobilized 30 demonstrations around the world. The most notable of these was the occupation of American Vice-President and presidential candidate Al Gore's New Hampshire campaign office. Despite his green mantle, Gore owns a big stake in Occidental.

Patrick Reinsborough is grassroots co-ordinator for the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), [less than]http://www.ran.org/[greater than]>, one of the organizations supporting the U'Wa. He says the coordinated international response wouldn't have happened without the Internet. But, it wasn't the Internet that made it happen.

"Traditional organizing is what makes such mobilizations possible," says Reinsborough, "but the net allows for cheap and fast international communication and helps connect local organizers and magnify their power." A similar approach made the 1999 and 2000 protests in Seattle, Washington, DC and Windsor possible. The Internet is thus an excellent tool to help activists organize on a large scale.

Activists will also tell you that the net is helping to build a global sense of community and solidarity, and not just within the environmental movement, but also with labour, human rights and other activists as well. The net allows them to transcend borders and coordinate local and global issues and actions, as in the case of the U'Wa.

WEBS OF ACTION

Along with using email and mailing lists as communication and organizing tools, activists are turning to Internet sources for quick research, building Web sites to distribute information about their own causes and campaigns, and applying Web skills in innovative attacks on corporations and others judged to be enemies of ecology and democracy.

The World Wide Web is an incredibly powerful tool for finding and distributing all manners of information that would otherwise be difficult to get at and expensive to get out. A trove of useful and informative environmental material is available on the Web--from detailed scientific reports to legal and policy documents, from film footage to socially conscious music - it's all there.

Finding what you need is a different matter. While search engines are improving, the system is still far from being simple or reliable. Chance and serendipity are still too often how we find information on the net. Good research skills are a must.

A more fruitful path than the standard search engines are green portals -- well-known starting points that serve up both information and links to other sites. One of these is EnviroLink [less than]http://www.envirolink.org[greater than], which also acts as a clearinghouse and provider of Internet services for environmental activists.

But portals are not like your local library. Their content expresses the interests of their owners and so they may or may not be representative of what's out there. As one example, Josh Knauer, founder of EnviroLink, acknowledges that "green portals are very US-oriented."

So far, the net is no great equalizer either. Reinsborough suggests that activists have to be aware of the discrepancy in Internet access between the "developed" North where access is widespread, and the comparatively limited access for Southern activists.

Despite its shortcomings, many environmental groups are using the net to educate and agitate. And Web-based e-activism, like its flesh-world counterpart, ranges from the earnest and traditional to the humorous and radical.

Some Web sites simply provide concerned citizens with the ability to enter their email address on a Web page in order to send a prepared letter to a politician. This point-and-click activism requires even less effort, and some say commitment, than writing a real letter, let alone the level of involvement associated with traditional constituency politics. Furthermore, political staffs recognize that such letters are contrivances and regard them as a nuisance rather than genuine support for an issue.

More empowering initiatives provide activists with ammunition and information for local campaigns. The premiere example of this is the Environmental Defense Fund's "Scorecard" [less than]http://www.scorecard.org/[greater than], which lets users locate and learn about major sources of pollution and environmental hazards in their own communities (US only so far).

Scorecard brings together data from over 300 scientific and government databases in a very user-friendly format. Local activists can start using it by either entering a zip code or clicking on a map. Its many uses include researching specific chemicals and polluters, gathering information on how to protect yourself and your community, connecting with other groups working on local issues, and expressing specific concerns to the relevant politicians.

However, tools like this are expensive to produce, making them rare among environmental Internet sites. That's one reason why this year Knauer launched Network for Change [less than]http://www.networkforchange.com/[greater than] to help environmental and other activists make better use of the Web. With Network for Change, which Knauer calls "the next level of on-line communities," activists can use the resources and computing power of Envirolink to automatically generate their own customized geographical and issue-specific Web sites.

In tactical contrast, some groups are developing spoof Web sites. These imitate the original target site in appearance, but subvert it in content. For instance, in November 1999 the group [R] [TM]ark [less than]http:// www.rtmark.com/[greater than] spoofed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Web site [less than]http://www.wto.org/[greater than]. The spoof site [less than]http://www.gatt.org/[greater than] uses the WTO's former name, the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), and presents all sorts of information about the problems with the WTO and globalization. The trick is that the Web site looks like the official WTO site -- it's not until you get into it that you realize it's a spoof.

The World Bank has been subjected to a similar -- though not quite as impressive -- Web site spoof [less than]http://www.whirledbank.org/[greater than].

Such spoof sites offer a chance for playful criticism and serious commentary. A sense of humour amidst ecocide may seem odd to some, but it's an essential tonic and engaging tactic. Humour and celebration are defining characteristics of the new eco-activism.

McDonald's, the junk-food giant, has become a particular magnet for playful activism. It's common for activists to refer to the new globalized order as "McWorld." So, it's not surprising that one of the first big e-activism stories was McSpotlight [less than]http://www.mcspotlight.org/[greater than].

In 1995 this Web site grew out of the "McLibel" case in the UK where, in the longest trial of any kind in British history, McDonald's sued two Greenpeace activists for libel for distributing leaflets critical of the company's practices. McSpotlight, established to support the defendants, is now the centrepiece of anti-McDonald's action around the world.

Among many other things, the site offers a complete transcript of the trial. But in a lighter vein, it uses Web browser frames to provide a "guided tour" of the McDonald's Web site. On one side of your screen, the real McDonald's Web site appears. On the other, McSpotlight's critique. This culture jamming technique -- let's call it frame-jacking -- has apparently been widely imitated.

DIRECT E-ACTION

E-activism has a direct action side as well, employing more radical tactics that include such things as electronic civil disobedience (ECD). These are aimed at disrupting their opponents' uses of computers and computer networks, the same systems that serve to erode democracy and ecosystems around the world.

ECD is a nascent form of protest that mirrors flesh-world civil disobedience. As one prominent ECD group, the electrohippies [less than]://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies/[greater than], puts it:

[I]n ECD the tactics of the street protest are applied to the virtual world: virtual Sit-ins, pickets, protests and direct actions. This begins with the concerted effort to bombard email addresses and fax machines with messages of complaint, and ends with virtual direct action to close computers and communications links.

The most contentious of ECD tactics is the client side distributed denial of service (DoS) action, not to be confused with server side distributed DoS attacks such as those launched in February of this year against well-known e-commerce sites. The difference lies in the number of computers needed to make it work.

The client side distributed DoS action involves thousands of individuals using their computers to run JavaScript-enabled Web browsers (such as the commonly used ones from Netscape and Microsloth) to repeatedly reload Web pages from the server under protest. (For technical details see the "occasional paper" available on the electrohippies' Web site). In contrast, a server side distributed DoS attack can be co-ordinated by one person who takes control of several network servers that he or she then uses to go after the target.

For a client side distributed DoS action to work, it requires the voluntary participation of thousands of individual activists simultaneously running the required javaScript in their Web browsers. That widely distributed computing power also means that it is harder for the servers under protest to block the action and to find out who was involved.

Around December 1, 1999, the electrohippies helped co-ordinate one of these client side distributed DoS actions against the WTO. Apparently, during a five-day period, over 450,000 individuals around the world participated in the WTO DoS action!

The electrohippies insist that this type of activism has a strong democratic component to it. "Our method has built within it the guarantee of democratic accountability. If people don't vote with their modems ... the action would be an abject failure.... One or two people do not make a valid demonstration -- 100,000 people do."

These subtleties are, of course, lost on the mainstream media where the pejorative term "hacker" is used to describe anyone doing anything considered improper with a computer. Most journalists just lump together the democratically motivated political actions of groups such as the electrohippies, the pranks of bored teenagers, the electronic break-ins by commercial competitors, and attacks by real terrorists.

Technically speaking, the correct term for those who break into computer systems to alter Web pages and/or destroy or alter data is "crackers". It is conceivable that some crackers have democratic, even environmental, inclinations. But so far, no clearly environmental crackers have emerged, and if Sarah Elton is right, perhaps none will. In a January 2000 article in This Magazine [less than]http://www.thismag.org/[greater than] entitled "Cowboys in Cyberspace," Elton argued that such folks tend to be conservative libertarian right wingers, interested only in keeping government restrictions off the Internet.

Even if there were eco-crackers out there, we probably wouldn't know about it since crackers usually work independently and are necessarily secretive about their activities and identities. Though also a radical method, this approach contrasts with the democratic participatory approach of the electrohippies.

Cracking in its various forms is apparently now such a big problem for governments and industry that they are pouring money into protection and surveillance. And therein lies an important problem for all e-activists. As the electrohippies put it, "the activities of the state to maintain law and order, combined with the increasing power of technology to monitor the activities of the public, may eventually grow to such an extent that all dissent is put down before it starts."

Already, state security agencies and private investigators working for corporations are watching environmental and other groups. The pre-emptive arrests of protest organizers in Washington is just one example of the effects of this. Infiltration of radical environmental groups is also an established practice. As was revealed during the McLibel trial, during the early 1990s McDonald's hired private investigators to infiltrate and spy on Greenpeace London.

Activists' reliance on the Internet for communication has made surveillance somewhat easier than it used to be. For both the authorities and motivated investigators, it is a much more straightforward process to locate and read all of someone's email than it is to do the same with their classic mail. And it can be done without the targets ever knowing they are being monitored.

The gut response to this sort of thing is for activists to become paranoid and to increase security, screening and encryption. But that's just the sort of thing that makes the authorities more concerned about security threats.

A different response, the one practised by the electrohippies, is to be completely open about one's intentions and methods. With nothing to hide, activists will be able to function more effectively -- at least they should be in a democratic society.

PUBLIC SPACE OR MARKETPLACE?

But the corporate world is not democratic. The Internet is becoming one big mall and as corporations come to dominate cyberspace (just as they dominate flesh-space), their desire for control and compliance increases. The mall is private property, no demonstrations allowed. And it is not just the content that is being commercialized, but also the backbone infrastructure of the net -- the main data pipes and routers that make it work -- are increasingly owned by large corporations such as GTE, BCE, MCI and Sprint. And Internet service providers such as AOL (Time-Warner) and Earthlink (Sprint) increasingly control access to the net.

To put it simply, the Internet is going from public space to marketplace as fast as you can say "dot corn" and we may never see it become the kind of democratic technology it was once touted to be.

How heavy might the hand of corporate rule on the net become? Well, first, what's to stop corporations from pulling the plug, so to speak, on activists' Web sites, Internet access, email, and so on? Currently, almost nothing. Or, perhaps vested interests will just use more subtle and mysterious forms of electronic intimidation and harassment or disruption. The more environmental activists become e-activists, dependent on technologies they do not control, the more they risk losing their means of action.

Furthermore, the Internet presents several contradictions for environmental activists. Most obviously, their use of the net increasingly removes them from the things they are trying to protect. For some, there is a risk of "fetishizing the technology" says Reinsborough of the Rainforest Action Network. He cautions that activists mustn't think that all action can happen on the net to the neglect of traditional communities.

Another contradiction lies in the fact that the Internet itself is the technology that is greatly facilitating the globalization of capital and industrialism -- the very things that many environmentalists are fighting against. And with greater resources and access, global capitalists will always be able to make heavier use of the net than activists will.

Finally, the Internet does not yet have the power to evoke large-scale image events (the memorable media spectacles of the kind Greenpeace is famous for), which are a staple rhetorical tool of radical environmental activists. Because it is a fragmented medium, narrowcasting to interest groups rather than broadcasting to a mass audience, the Internet is unlikely to allow environmentalists to reach a very broad public. They will be reaching and preaching to the choir, not bringing in new supporters.

Clearly, the Internet is no panacea for environmental activists. Yes, supporters of the U'Wa can rally more quickly. Yes, McDonald's can be subverted and exposed. Yes, the WTO Web site can be spoofed and even temporarily disrupted. Yes, local activists can quickly gather a lot of valuable information from the many environmental Web sites. But that is not enough.

Most things that environmental activists can do on the Internet, their opposition can also do, and with more money and force. It seems logical to recognize that no matter how useful the Internet -- and for that matter all media -- are to activists and advocates of social change, they are, and will always be, more useful to the defenders of current power structures.

But of course if concerned citizens simply fretted about the power of the status quo, no activism would ever get done. History tells us that the world can change suddenly -- witness the Berlin wall. And e-activism, like flesh-activism, is a process of finding cracks in the wall where change can be leveraged creatively with the right tools. The Internet offers many such cracks that, combined with the right digital tools, are already showing promise. There is much to be hopeful about, but realism and awareness of the risks and limitations of these approaches must constantly inform e-activism.

Mark Meisner is an associate editor at Alternatives Journal.

RESUME

LES MILITANTS ECOLOGISTES utilisent l'Internet de maniere creative et subversive. Le courrier electronique et les listes d'envois leur permettent de s'organiser, d'assurer les communications et de susciter la solidarite. Au moyen d'un melange d'information et de satire, les sites Web peuvent etre subversifs. De plus, les tactiques radicales comme la desobeissance civile electronique peuvent avoir des repercussions directes sur les cibles visees. Toutefois, les militants devraient etre attentifs aufait que ce sont les grandes entreprises qu'ils visent qui detiennent de plus en plus le controle de l'acces an reseau Internet et a son contenu. Le militantisme en ligne risque de se voir ravir ses outils. L'Jnternet est interessant et utile mais il n'est pas un substitut aux moyens traditionnels d'organisation.

Media/Internet Resources

Network for Change [less than]http://www.networkforchange.com[greater than] This site was developed by a network of on-line grassroots resource organizations working for social and environmental change. They provide free information and communication tools to people working for change.

Envirolink [less than]http://www.envirolink.org[greater than] This site is a good place to start searching for environmental information. It provides comprehensive environmental resources and free Internet services for environmental and animal rights non-profit groups.

The Electrohippies' Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD) [less than]http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies[greater than] This site uses information and communications technology to effect social change, particularly in the UK. It provides resources to help expand skills and knowledge of electronic activism and electronic civil disobedience.

Alternatives journal Links to Canadian Environmental Organizations [less than]http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/alternativesIlinkcan.htm[greater than] This site provides links to Canadian environmental Web sites.

Making the News: A Guide for Non pro fits and Activists, Jason Salzman, Boulder: Westview Press, 1998.

Communication Skills for Conservation Professionals, Susan K. Jacobson, Washington: Island Press, 1999.

Video Activist Handbook, Thomas Harding (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997) is an exhaustive practical guide on everything from technical considerations to legal issues for activists.

The Web Links, the Web Fragments

Just a decade ago, organizing hundreds of thousands of members with the stroke of a few keys would have sounded as science fiction as "Beam me up, Scotty."

"For those who are prepared, the Internet dramatically changes the equation," says Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders is an American conservation organization that has been working for the protection of all native wild animals and plants, and their natural communities for over 50 years. "Already the Internet can put groups like Defenders in touch with about ten times as many individuals who share our values as we can reasonably reach by mail or phone. With Defenders' new Internet capabilities, we can give our supporters the opportunity to send their law makers a fax with a few clicks of a computer mouse."

Defenders is one of a growing number of conservation groups using the Internet as a key action tool. Through its Defenders' Electronic Network (DEN), the group collects and distributes action alerts to its 300,000 members -- and claims a 30 percent response rate. In 1995 Defenders started GREEN, the Grassroots Environmental Effectiveness Network. Similar in scope to DEN, GREEN organizes its members according to political district. It's a model that will be followed by wildcanada.net, its Canadian, independent counterpart.

"The main project that we're using to spearhead our efforts is the creation of a Web-based database, that will be able to tailor action alerts and information to Canada's 301 political ridings," says Stephen Legault, wildcanada.net's executive director.

The group has collected data on each member of parliament for Canada's 301 ridings. Anyone interested can type in their postal code, and pull up everything they need to know: from where their MP stands on an issue, to how to contact them and grill them on the telephone. Environmental groups from across the country can use the site to meet on-line and organize, sharing common successes and seeking solutions to their stumbling blocks.

"[We are] taking the efforts of an isolated group working in their own backyard, and combining them with the efforts of [other] groups working in [other] backyards," says Legault, "to suddenly create a national issue that will gain predominance in the media; that shows up in the radar screens of every member of parliament, or every member of legislature and provincial parliament across the country."

Not everyone sees the Internet as the best tool for developing activist networks. Gord Perks is a long time activist and staff person of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. "Activists already have plenty of networking tools," he argues. "Networking was never a limiting factor on our success. Our success has been limited by money and power, and the legacy of legal, economic and government structures that developed without reference to ecological limits."

While computers are becoming more accessible to Canadians, they're certainly not available to everyone. According to Perks, this form of activism may only further fragment activist groups. "It's another group of commodities I have to buy," he says. "It's another way of fragmenting society into haves and have-nots, and it's another way of isolating people.

"Phone trees, and envelope stuffing bees build solidarity and community through shared work. In the long term, this function is vastly more important than the alert itself."

The ease of electronic communication also brings other disadvantages. Filtering through the junk mail and the urgent messages can add more hours to already hectic activist schedules. "The ease with which we can generate and send action alerts to thousands of people across the country is both an asset and a detriment," says Legault. "Because eventually people are going to get tired of it. Electronic activism fatigue [will] set in: people will feel overwhelmed."

So groups have had to become more strategic. DEN sends out alerts every other week, and wildcanada.net will start with once a week. Eventually, Legault says, participants will be able to choose how often they want to receive the information

"What we're really trying to do is provide something that hasn't been provided before -- the riding by riding system of organization," he explains. "Technology just happens to be the best tool to use to do that. In terms of building community, there's no substitute for direct communication. Face-to-face or telephone is still preferable to electronic means of communication, but the Internet provides a tool that is handy for specific purposes."

Anicka Quin is the managing editor at Alternatives Journal.