I’m interested in more public dialogue, so I only provide my reaction here, and leave the others in that email exchange to speak for themselves and to audiences of their choosing – but as I have something to get off my chest, here I go…

(Wow, well, glad interest has been sparked…) my read is that real (as opposed to who?) people are affected in so many cross-cutting ways by media policies that they can’t even see it (or if and to the extent they do they are seeing so many things at once, and potentially different things from each other, with different languages to interpret or speak about them).

We’re embedded in the results/effects of media policy. Another factor to consider is the manner in which policy obscures itself. To the extent that those shaping policy are often angling for particular perks, obscurity is a strategy and an advantage … to those passing legislation/policy and serving narrow interests. The contrast between narrow interest vs. general interest in any policy (media or other policy) is the big puzzle. We’ve tended to accept the exigency of acceding to the narrow interest to get things done, or to get the uncomfortable questions off the table. We tend to steer away from the real work that would build enduring, generative capacity.

None of this is terribly helpful, I am sure.

Thom Clark makes excellent points in that capacity is policy … i.e. local capacity is both a (variably effective) policy maker and the result of policy. If we are to collectively “grow ours” (in contrast with “get mine”) then we have to invest in meaningful capacity building that seeds the local and builds lateral connections over these localities (not necessarliy spatial/geographic nearness) – in multiple dimensions – capacity in fields of interest, of professions, of other “community” of various stripes.

That is, every sector of life is touched by this.

In our work on Digital Excellence this was perhaps our central point. (We blend the concepts of Digital Literacy and Media Literacy at this point, at a very deep level, so they maybe synonymous or united at a higher level.)

Every sector, every aspect of our individual and collective lives is touched by media/technology processes. It’s important to pair these terms – individual and collective – it’s not just individual lives here, it’s how we live together that is affected, and our own awareness of our role and freedom to shape this. So it’s groups and communities and families, and organizations that have to be part of the story, too. Each of these flavor and shape the quality of my individual life and I have to take time to care for these aspects of my/our selves.

My gut is to flip the question on it’s head… show me any story or any aspect of life not affected by media policy. I recognize that that’s probably not compelling for the audience.

FWIW, (and to state the banal) I’m an individual… I engage in media activism, and media policy, and I buy into the importance of “being the media”. I endeavored to get others to some state of awareness on several interrelated topics (and to build my own awareness and understanding thereby), not to mention awareness of their interrelatedness, and I employ multiple strategies to do so. I have perhaps a very different notion of “policy work” than what may be commonly understood, but there’s the rub — all sorts of work are being re-imagined and restructured. (That’s nothin’ new, but perhaps only more so now..)

“Be the media” as sentiment and strategy is an expression of this transformation of work and life, and a recognition that practice and policy are one. Policy may otherwise be regarded as something that happens above, or elsewhere, or happens to you … but in this model, policy is what we contest and what we make and how we practice. If you’ve the motivation and I haven’t worn out my welcome take a look at the entry for Grassroots Public Policy Development in the Public Sphere Pattern Language project spearheaded by Doug Schuler.

Getting to this practice of “being the media” and being with (and for) each other in community, talking about and reforming our practice and our communities at the same time gives us something fairly exciting to talk about. Trying to be clear: talking about or sharing any of the strategies we’ve employed feels like a success story to me in that we’ve been building community and community capacity.

I’m tempted to enumerate tools, devices, strategies – ranging from the pattern language process itself to open space and other civic focused gatherings to new models of philanthropic or educational/research engagement to positive media to open data commons models – but any list would be partial, and would not honor the plethora of ongoing efforts and approaches to living together in a new way. So many things tied together … we’re enmeshed in good and bad ways. And as the story goes – each interpretation of the moment is subject to revision. Perhaps.

Any of you are welcome to tell your story here – or anywhere. How does media policy affect you, personally, or the things you care about?

Together we can enumerate and provide links to an array of efforts that are disjointed, though worthy. They may have different levels of activity or may be at a relatively inactive state after prior peaks. Enumerating and evaluating these would be a useful task for us, too.

We’ve got an abundance of toolsets and tool providers as well … and so the special challenge to a sustainable effort and a thriving commons becomes more and more probable (it’s not just probable, it’s the situation we have tended towards, and the situation we’re in).

Consider each of these tools and possible community spaces as an attractor. People like us, are seeking community around the practice of community ICT, and if they don’t find it they rightly constitute it for themselves.

A somewhat active space functions as an attractor in these circumstances and from a certain perspective it makes a lot of sense to go with the tool that is present and functioning at some level versus duplicating efforts and dividing the field further.

The issue, as I see it is that the field has multiple attractors none of which are established quite with the field in mind. Someone who finally finds one of these attractors may be quite relieved and may embed themselves in the community (which may or may not satisfy them, or may have fallen into a trough of activity – and there is something valiant in seeking to fulfill the promise of our potential as a wider community in any of these contexts).

But we here, knowing of the many and disparate efforts are a bit weary at maintaining a presence in any number of such sites and communities. Here, even with this conversation we’re making choices where to post, and we have doubts about which is the most effective channel.

We also recognize that as new tools emerge, new community attractors will be constructed by those who either haven’t found the other attractors, or for whom the degree of community there was lacking.

As we make choices based on our history and preferences we’re going to keep fragmenting this field, and reacting to the fragmentation.

Since there are existing sites of community or potential community, which should serve as assets to our movement, we ought to reflect on the perspective of “Movement as Network” (a paper by Gideon Rosenblatt of ONE/NW) – a thought piece for the environmental movement that I read with our field of Community ICT in mind.

What do we do with these assets, these many sites of aggregation, these attractors? Should we establish higher expectations? Should we push them towards collaboration and coordination? Should we disrupt models that don’t align with our own vision of Community ICT? I’ve got my own answer to these, you may all guess.

I’m inviting you to a new mode of practice where we consciously reshape this network of communities and resources. We can take initial steps to get data and information flowing and where it should
not matter which of these sites you come to, you can get the full swath of information you need.

Think for a moment of the WISEREarth Index – could their organizational directory serve as an equivalent of an OpenSocial for the NGO/NPO sector? (Thinking more broadly here than Community ICT – any non-profit monitoring the online world and maintaining any sort of presence there – soon sees a multiple presence effect and has some very partial representation of themselves in many many places, some of their own initiative, and some a result of scraping and some as a result of friends propagating their presence. None of this is sustainable under the current regime of information flow.)

All of this sounds a bit extreme and ambitious … plenty of big ideas litter our sector and have diverted us from more humble work (and some have inspired us to achieve great things, no doubt).

Yet, we can start humbly in this, and we have. Enumerating these spaces, evaluating them and engaging them… starting this conversation is perhaps our own way of moving towards the movement as network attitude. It is for me.

MM

I’ve cleaned up the rough notes of my 3 minutes and I share them here as an “open note” to the transition team led by Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach. Much thanks to Nathaniel James for coordinating the call!

When Chicago was exploring options for vendor driven citywide wifi networks there was a prolonged public debate and discussion (some through hearings coordinated by Aldermen, others through hearings specific to the digital divide committee, and more still in public meetings convened by the Chicago Digital Access Alliance).

Grassroots groups looked closely at what had become a contemporary re-framing of the digital divide – namely, Digital Inclusion.

In Chicago, grassroots and civic leaders determined that Digital Inclusion did not offer a big enough vision and was potentially constraining and divisive. At the most benign level we saw the Digital Inclusion language as a means of obtaining the endorsement of disparate groups by favors rather than involving community in true holistic planning processes or giving community a mechanism for effective oversight of communication infrastructure initiatives. The FCC (and really, all institutions of Govt.) should support a policy agenda that encourages inclusive local planning processes and oversight.

In Chicago, we evolved a conceptual framework around Digital Excellence as a new model for transcending the digital divide.

I will not go into great depth on this, given time, and given the current limited scope of the FCC (and the purpose of this call) but I do wish to underscore our view that Media Literacy and Digital Literacy are deeply connected, and that the FCC should be connected to (and support interagency) efforts addressing this.

In a new model of participatory governance there should be outreach efforts of governance bodies such as the FCC to educate the public on it’s powers and the channels for citizens and communities to avail themselves of the resources and protections of the particular agency. This would go beyond public hearings convened in recent years by the FCC and would be a mandate for public education on the science and policy guiding the FCC. This would institute a sunshine palliative to past practices and reduce the perception of privileged access to decision makers.

It’s worth restating the basic point made by many: A big vision for dealing with the digital divide under a a new banner of digital excellence would require interagency collaboration and strong integration with citizen led efforts.

Programs like DOC-NTIA TOP (Technology Opportunities Program) – quietly killed several years back – must be revived, along with funding for a new generation of hybrid Community Technology Center/Community Media Center/Community Network (given the new era of convergence on Internet Protocol as media/communications platform). TOP’s successor should be redesigned to leverage the knowledge and experience gained in these social/technology experiments and there should be parallel institutional support for the replication of any powerful community innovations that emerge as opposed to the unfortunate past model of funding limited efforts at innovation then leaving that experience in a database or shelved in reports.

Digital media infuse all aspects of life but historically most investments in digital literacy and access have had very limited goals (and moreover limited success) and tended to segment digital from other dimensions of social and public life. Efforts to redress the digital divide should not be limited to remedial kindergarten concepts of the divide, they should start with a big vision … our vision is a world where the majority of the public are confident in the use of collaborative tools, are able to express themselves in media formats of their choice and that communities are creating new tools that suit their purposes.

That’s close to what I said … there were other points I would have liked to address, but my watch was focused on digital-divide/access sector. I tend to take a very broad view on the scope of “digital” as touching many aspects of our experience as members of the community. It’s something that penetrates every sphere of life and any public program or service needs to consider the digital dimension and social divides that intersect. The digital transformation of our culture and economy is still in process – businesses have more capacity to adapt, as they can pass costs on to their customers, but government and community groups have less freedom in that regard.

Though the US has been cited as being close to 20th in global broadband penetration, I don’t want to see a narrowly conceived national broadband policy emerge without a deeper community oriented, community driven commitment to the higher aspirations of Digital Excellence encapsulated above.

The public at large, communities and municipalities need space for experimentation with new models of dealing with the connectivity issues and the tools that will ride upon the new media infrastructure. We need means of getting to the Internet through channels not owned by major corporations. We need to eliminate the stranglehold on the last mile (better described as the first mile – since they’re our communities). We need to open up the spectrum – we should have seen an equivalent to Moore’s Law in efficient (and expanding) use of Spectrum were it not for a regulatory status quo based on narrow interests and outdated or junk science where spectrum is regarded and held as property rather than as an arbitrarily divisible medium (subject to technical advance). The Internet and the Airwaves should always belong to the public. They must be administered with a long term view informed by science and the public interest. To restate: we need room for experiment in civic technologies and processes – at all layers of the stack.

Information Infrastructure resources for communities, the public and government bodies at all levels of jurisdiction should be supported in a Civic Garden model where anyone anywhere may freely access and interact with resources in the .GOV, .EDU and .ORG top level domains.

The Internet is the new medium for local, national and global civic discourse and such interactions should be privileged under the same principles of civic necessity that justified support of print journalism and the postal service.

Community capacity in the deployment of networks, services, tools is essential to a free and democratic society. I join with Lauren Glenn-Davitian in a call for a rewrite of the 1934 Act that established what is now the FCC in light of the ongoing evolution of technology and our society, and in light of the vision we have for ourselves.

We’re using their platform for several reasons … we’re committed to a civic discourse on an open source, neutral platform, so that no group or person in Chicago would feel “ownership” (or exclusion) except in the sense of a common, collective ownership and responsibility.

We also like the model, generally. The e-democracy project has been going strong for more than a decade, and continues to expand. It’s built on web technologies familiar to everyone: email and browser, yet also allows room for web 2.0 growth with RSS/XML feeds. The e-democracy forums pay a good deal of attention to the social dimensions of online communities, and have established sensible policies and practices for a healthy community. A clear and explicit policy is important.

The list/forum is open to the public, for the purposes of local civic discourse. Participants are expected to register under their real name, to conduct themselves with civility and generosity of spirit and to focus on issues of pertinence to the Chicago region. We’re all restricted to two posts per day so that no one person can dominate the discourse and so that participants don’t feel overwhelmed by excessive traffic. We’re all busy people, and we respect each other’s time and commitment to improving life in our city.

Feel free to register now… and let me know if you have any problems! We’re still testing some things.

This should take you to a registration page for the Chicago Region Civic Forum on the e-democracy site. Remember, we won’t be live right away, but you will be the first to know when we are!

The e-democracy project offers a model for supporting local civic discourse online. We take it as given that online efforts don’t replace other modes of interaction in civil society – they are meant to support and enhance civic life. We also take it as given that the digital divide and disparities in tech literacy and local Internet connectivity/accessibility remain a problem that should get more serious attention.

In Chicago I have been involved in numerous discussions around using technology to improve our quality of life, our capacity to work together for a better city, and to deal with the pressing issues of our day. I’ve come to learn that many efforts fall short when groups involved fail to remain open and inviting to others and when the impetus to control an initiative or block it if you can’t control it holds sway.

No one person or group can own a movement, nor can they assert themselves as the legitimate venue for public discourse. Others will feel excluded or will sense that if they support the effort they are bolstering someone else’s constituency.

What is needed? Venues and Resources that are truly held in common and over which we feel stewardship and responsibility, not ownership or control. With that in mind, I am working with others towards advancing the e-Democracy model within Chicago area. I invite you to join me in this effort.

This model is the embodiment of a fair amount of wisdom. In the local issues forums certain guidelines and constraints are necessary to safeguard the spirit and intention of civic space. Participants are expected to identify with a real name; everyone is limited to two posts a day; and topics are focused on our lives within the polity, from a local frame. In terms of technology – there is a sensible bridging of modes of online interaction. members can participate through email, through the web forum or they can keep up with the discussion via RSS feeds. None of these technologies are new, but they aren’t exactly going away either. They are widespread in use, and they represent a framework that can be built upon.

I know there is probably temptation for the civic minded tech group to roll your own, or perhaps make use of “groups” tools on well-known sites. I thought a lot about those options myself. It was easier for me to dismiss the latter as not being the best strategy for an effort intending to foster civic discourse. First, there is the issue of whether the public/commercial site will persist over the long haul or whether it’s policies might fundamentally change. Second there is the general issue of “joining” a site and submitting oneself to the terms of use under which your personal data is regarded as an asset they might trade upon, and where you are the object of marketing which relates directly to the third issue I’ll address in relation to this … maintaining the civic discourse in a space free from commercial speech (i.e. advertising).

I haven’t addressed the issues around “rolling your own” civic forum … certainly with the diffusion of open source content management systems such as Drupal, setting up a forum is relatively easy.

Establishing a successful online community isn’t as easy. Earlier I brought up the notion of “ownership” and perceptions of constituency building and branding opportunities that come up when a group launches efforts like this. We bypass those pitfalls in promoting the e-Democracy model. We’re not making a claim of ownership over the initiative – except in broadest sense of collective ownership. The other issue is that you are going to have to make a lot of design choices, and while exploring the technical issues is a topic of interest to me and many in the circles I frequent, it’s going to delay the effort, and the group may drop the project or worse the effort may fork based on ego or conflicting tech-philosophy.

Who’s with me?

If Chicago is a world-class city in a leading region of the nation, what are we waiting for? If we are ready to embrace the information age I don’t know what could make us more globally competitive than to remove the artificial barriers to information exchange in city and county. I hear tell there is a committee on data sharing among departments of Chicago city government. I look forward to hearing what progress they have made thus far and how aggressive they intend to be with regard to unfolding a new era in accountability and transparency. Someone, ping Hardik.

Good data is about feedback. Feedback regulates an organism or process. Here it would inform individual choice and guide regional planning. We all know the Mayor loves to have city services on the ball when it comes to potholes and attention to the visible amenities. These eight principles would allow Chicago to set new benchmarks for service delivery and quality of life. You don’t have to be an XML geek to grok this.

Open Government Data Principles

Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:

1. Complete
All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.

2. Primary
Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.

3. Timely
Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.

4. Accessible
Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.

5. Machine processable
Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.

6. Non-discriminatory
Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.

7. Non-proprietary
Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.

8. License-free
Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.

Compliance must be reviewable.

Subscribe to GIO-Talk

Email:

Visit this group

There is also a more Chicago-centric mailing list, here:

Subscribe to GIO-Chicago

Email:

Visit this group

I’m taking a course on storytelling. Although I have been involved in community informatics for several years as an activist and organizer on digital divide/digital excellence and community networking, I found this work to involve the telling of stories and general reframing community and what we are about, or what is possible for us.

I was watching a video from the TED conference where Isabel Allende offered the old adage: What is truer than truth? The story. (Variants on this answer may be a matter of translation: Legend, Myth, Story, Narrative.)

I grew up on Grimm, and many mythologies… great preparation for an early encounter with Joseph Campbell via the Power of Myth (where Bill Moyers, another hero, interviewed him). I later made extensive study of semiotics and have an enduring interest in narrative, and the importance of story and discourse.

In recent years Italo Calvino brought me back to the play of stories/storytelling in the work of the OuLiPo — where art is craft that you work at each day, and good art or literature arises from finding the right combination of signs through experiment and experienced judgment.

Campbell’s work on myth and ritual, the idea of the story opening a path to greater truth than mere facts, or perhaps a greater truth in discourse around a story than in any particular telling or offering of an account, and the idea in Calvino that folktale is not myth degenerated but that myth arises out of folktale when the right combination his hit upon, these are all connected.

Storytelling is part of the natural and necessary repertoire of human behavior… it helps us cope and adapt as well as honor and remember. Though stories can be used to divide, their healing potential is critical in this moment. Our creative play can reconfigure our individuality and our collective life.

There are no tangents in holistic approaches to technology and community, so please bear with me as I tug that thread metaphor in another important direction.

Robust networks/redundancy; generosity/capacity.

Consider this image (evoked by Breitbart’s commentary on the as-yet missing (but promised) invisible thread): Sidney J. Mussberger (the character in the Hudsucker Proxy played by Paul Newman) dangling upside down at the ledge of a skyscraper reflecting on the need for the robust redundancy of a double stitch as the seam at his waist begins to give.

Mussberger (Newman) reflects on his (stingy/cynical) scoffing at his tailor’s suggestion of the double-stitch for his hand-tailored trousers. When a single-stitch will do, why spend more? He regards the tailor’s suggestion as an unnecessary expense and worse, an attempt to rip him off.

(Warning: Minor spoiler!) Mussberger’s pants don’t give way at the moment he needs them to hold together most. The Tailor generously gave him the double-stitch anyway.

What lessons to draw?

Along with tying our communities together in many horizontal relations (Neff and Philadephia’s “invisible thread”), and assurances of digital inclusion and economic development benefits there are public safety needs related to these networks. (We should explore how horizontality in planning and design would strengthen those purposes.) Robust, redundant networks are critical to public safety. Or, consider the demonstrated value of a small cadre of community wireless networkers post Katrina. (The lesson there being, volunteer knowledge and technical capacity, and the freedom to act in the deployment of networks is just as critical.)

We are being promised a lot of things in the selling of broadband and wireless networks. We had best make sure we are getting what we pay for and that we are prepared to pay enough. I wouldn’t bank my hopes on the generosity of the network vendors. Get what you need and get it in writing, then get it verified. You don’t want to be left in regret or wonder when hanging by a thread.

(Minneapolis) Digital Inclusion Fund RFP

1. the ownership and business model,
2. the state of the technology (physics/network/system considerations), and
3. the purpose (or purposes).

Of course these aspects are interwoven, but each heading stands on its own, and we can determine a logical flow for project planning. We’ll need clarity on each, and anything less would be irresponsible.

Consider public communications initiatives such as municipal (or more accurately, city-wide) wireless and broadband networks as have been the focus of many cities and towns across the country, including Chicago.

The inconvenient truth about communications infrastructure (and other public technology) projects is that we’re horribly irresponsible about achieving the clarity needed in these three areas for a good outcome.

Our tendency has been to take the ownership and business model for granted (let industry do it!), to accept the technology on offer by the vendors, and to build a constituency for the network among different interest groups with claims that the network will meet their needs and desires.

We’re doing this bass-ackwards, we’re costing the people, the public, a lot of money (in aggregate, and individually), and we aren’t getting the reliability and functionality we should be getting from these networks.

Network purpose (or purposes) and character should be the logical driver of the process. Purpose should drive technology choice and together these should map out the options for ownership and business model.

We shouldn’t accept any limitation on the ownership/business model options without a deep and clear understanding of the network purpose and the sort of reliability, functionality and accountability that purpose demands. Too much effort is spent in debates and lobbying promulgated by the usual suspects, the purveyors of networks. Unchecked, each vendor’s biased agenda with respect to business model and ready-technology warps public deliberation.

All too often, American cities have closed the doors to viable ownership models as a result of lobbying and tactical rhetoric. To state the case more strongly: they do so at great cost to the public and to the commonweal; they do not serve our interests well, they do not proceed with clarity of public purpose.

What are the ownership models? We can build, buy, or rent. If we take business as our paradigmatic example, big businesses tend to build and buy their own networks whenever they can. Doesn’t it make as much sense for communities and for local governments to do likewise?

I’ve spent a lot of time arguing which of the three aspects should drive the other, and why the business-ownership model should not drive the process. Exploring the technology and the purposes of the network are a lot more work, but that is where we should be directing our attention.

I’ll only briefly mention that the range of technology options is more constrained by a policy regime then it is by the physics and network design.

The definition of network purposes is left as an exercise for your community.

Digital Excellence is both means and end for Chicago as the City of Excellence. The Chicago Digital Access Alliance (CDAA) had a large hand in bringing this vision into the public sphere. We’ll turn a critical eye to the details of the report, as is our duty, but for now we celebrate it’s release and the vision that has been established, and we offer our deepest gratitude to Julia M. Stasch for her service to our city in chairing the Mayor’s Advisory Council and shepherding this visionary and historical document.

Stay tuned for analysis and response.

Dear Colleagues,

Your Illinois libraries are concerned re this filtering legislation. You are probably aware that
internet filters are notorious for not being “smart”. They typically block health and other vital
information, We as librarians believe that filtering is a decision that should be made by a local
school, library, or community, not mandated by the state.

Please join us in unity on May 14th. Let your legislators and all who support free and open
access to the internet and local control know that you oppose this bill.

Thank you all for your support!

Monday, 14 May 2007 Is a Day of Unity for the Illinois Library Community to Demonstrate Our Opposition to House Bill 1727

Public Policy Committee’s Action Plan Regarding Proposed Mandatory Internet Filter Legislation

In response to the Illinois House of Representatives passing House Bill 1727, the Illinois Library Association’s Public Policy Committee met yesterday to determine the library community’s response. ILA requests that libraries communicate and/or demonstrate the negative effects of this legislation. Because the association is a strong promoter of local control, we are recommending that local libraries determine the most appropriate action for their community and act accordingly. The committee did, however, declare:

Monday, 14 May 2007 is a day of unity for the Illinois library community to demonstrate our opposition to House Bill 1727, the mandatory public and school library Internet filter legislation.

On Monday, 14 May, the committee recommends the following possible actions:

* Communicate with your Senator. Write, fax, and call. Please do all three. If you do not know your Senator or don’t know the Senator’s phone or fax numbers please go to: http://tinyurl.com/9m8ok type in your zip code and you will find your Senator’s contact and biographical information.);
* Turn off the Internet. If you proceed with this option, inform the public by posting signs in the library explaining why the Internet is turned off for the day. Possible language for the sign follows:

If HB 1727 becomes law,

Your library will be forced to filter all public computers.

Your library will be forced to provide a companion over the age of 21 for any minor requiring unfiltered computer use for homework research.

Your library will be required to attest to compliance in writing (and since we know how easily filters can be comprised, we cannot in good conscience attest to this) or lose the state per capita funds and any state grant funds.

Given the requirements of HB 1727, your library may need to remove all public computers due to:

the legal liability incurred by attesting to compliance when we know that filters do not work in all instances;
the costs of filtering software, and installation and maintenance costs for that software; and the cost of the additional staff required for providing supervision of any minor using an unfiltered computer for homework or other research and for the removal of filtering software whenever an adult has a legitimate, lawful need for using an unfiltered site.

This is an unfunded mandate.

* Download and install a demonstration filter. Be prepared to show how this filter blocks legitimate research use; and
* Maximize filtering software usage. If your library uses filters and if this legislation is passed, libraries will need to maximize the filter settings in order to fulfill the legislation’s intent. If on Monday, 14 May, your library maximizes your filters, this will demonstrate to the public both the problems with excessive filtering and the need for local control on establishing reasonable settings for your community.

Each library is encouraged to participate in some way to demonstrate opposition to HB 1727. To share what your library is doing for Day of Unity in Illinois Libraries go the http://illinoislibraryday.info. Use the form to describe how you are participating in the Day of Unity.

Be sure to include your name, library, and phone number.

Amendments

As stated in the previous ILA Update #9, House Bill 1727 was amended several times prior to the final Illinois House of Representatives vote. However, the basic mandated requirement to install filters on all public access computers was not changed. One amendment added a provision requiring loss of all state funding for noncompliance (for example, per capita grants from the state library), but also removed enforcement by civil lawsuits, fines, and perjury prosecutions.

Another amendment allowed unblocking of a computer for a minor, but only if the library makes sure a minor is continuously supervised by someone over twenty-one years old.

Talking Points
* ILA Supports Local Control. Local officials — library trustees, librarians, and other professional library staff — are the most qualified to decide how Internet access should be provided to
their patrons. House Bill 1727 overrules all local decisions and imposes a “one size fits all” approach.
* Filters Don’t Work and Provide a False Sense of Security!
Study after study has demonstrated that filters consistently block important information on science, health, political, and social issues and regularly allow objectionable material to get through.
* Filters are Expensive. Paying for filters diverts scarce resources from limited technology budgets. Money that could go to buying more computers, and paying for more reliable and faster Internet access. Typical network installation is $10,000, plus about $3,000 per year. This is enough to buy twenty computers and pay for Internet access.
* Filters are Inflexible! Filters don’t know if the person using the computer is 5, 21, or 65. This “one size fits all” approach treats adults, even senior citizens, like elementary school children. The user doesn’t even know what they are being prevented from accessing. We can’t expect patrons to ask to unblock computers when they don’t know what that particular filter has blocked.
* Filters are Biased! Private companies and groups with commercial, political, or religious agendas design filters to block what THEY find objectionable, including political candidates, social causes, basic health information, and even information on their own product’s faults.
* Filters Hurt the Poor! Less wealthy communities are the most in need of technology because more of their patrons lack these resources at home. This legislation forces less affluent areas to
choose between filling this need or spending money just to block access.
* This Bill is Ill-conceived with Five Amendments. It is a moving target, and it does not reflect thoughtful or constructive action to address the problems it seeks to solve.
* This is an Unfunded Mandate!

Illinois Senate
The bill has now been sent to the Illinois Senate and Senator Randy Hultgren (R-48, Winfield) is the Senate sponsor. All bills are first assigned to the Senate Rules Committee. A bill discharged from the Rules Committee is sent to a substantive committee for a public hearing. If House Bill 1727 is discharged from the Senate Rules Committee, we anticipate that it will be assigned to the Senate
Judiciary Civil Law Committee. The members of that committee are:

• Co-Chairperson: John J. Cullerton (D-6, Chicago)
• Vice-Chairperson: Don Harmon (D-39, Oak Park)
• Member: William R. Haine (D-56, Alton)
• Member: Michael Noland (D-22, Elgin)
• Member: Ira I. Silverstein (D-8, Chicago)
• Member: A. J. Wilhelmi (D-43, Crest Hill)
• Co-Chairperson: Kirk W. Dillard (R-24, Westmont)
• Member: Dan Cronin (R-21, Lombard)
• Member: Randall M. Hultgren (R-48, Winfield)
• Member: Matt Murphy (R-27, Palatine)

Based on the current Senate schedule, if House Bill 1727 is assigned to the Judiciary Civil Law Committee, it would most likely be heard in committee the week of May 14. If approved by the committee, the full Senate would then consider it in the last two weeks of May.

ILA will continue to inform the Illinois library community of any developments regarding this legislation.

The Minneapolis Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) served for us as a starting point in the Chicago campaign (still under way and in need of support) and led to the formation of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance (CDAA). We began by taking a positive but critical look at the Minneapolis model, considering it an evolutionary step in public connectivity.

With each item on the Minneapolis CBA we asked: did they get enough? what does Chicago want? what does Chicago need? These are all preparatory to the wider dialog: what kind of Chicago do we want to be?

Chicago’s a bigger city … in terms of population and geography. Scale matters, and local political culture does too. But aside from those particulars, the principles of the movement for digital excellence and civic engagement allow for a wider dialog between and within communities. Communications policy as an object of public deliberation requires that we step up the discourse to a new level. We’re addressing topics that are multilayered and cross-cutting with all of our social needs and aspirations.

The “Walled Garden” appeared to be one of those concepts that required much further deliberation, not to mention some work on the language and framing.

A “walled garden” has some negative connotations in Internet parlance. A gated community doesn’t truly serve it’s residents well, nor our wider society, but we understand what motivates people to create them. This dissatisfaction with the terminology was not a minor part in desiring something more, something better.

But let’s start with the specifics of the original framing of Minneapolis’ walled garden concept: some community identified content and some city provided content would be freely available to anyone within range of the wireless signal. This ties to the basic questions of ownership of Wireless Internet Real Estate: splash pages and portals. Communities and Cities need a mechanism for local content and local identity and it needs to be front and center. We should view this space from a civic perspective. In Chicago we ask: what is the character of the network we want? Is’nt the splash page… the landing page as you join the network a critical aspect of that? What will the network encourage?

Some city content. Public convenience, utility and necessity. Branding for the city on the network. Lot’s of motivations there. But though we may be citizens and residents of a particular city, are we not also citizens and residents of the state in which we live, and of the nation? In other words, if there is a logic to having public access to city government resources online, in a free “walled garden” area, would this same logic not extend to state government sites, and federal sites? This broke open the concept and the idea of the Civic Garden emerged. Why not make all .gov sites available under these terms? The airwaves belong to the public anyway. We only license them out (or make them available for unlicensed use). Wireless providers need access to the right of way, pole attachments etc., you get the point.

If we accept the premise that leads to “some city content” being made available in this way, all .Gov is a step away.

Now, let us build on this case. Promotion of educational institutions and resources serves the public interest. Let’s make the content of school and higher learning available under this framework. Hence our call to make .edu a part of the Civic Garden. Now, .edu is a shorthand here: we intend this to cover the concept of education broadly.

An interesting aspect of this differentiation of select top level domains (TLDs) is in how the brands allowed themselves to be diluted. A fair number of government sites have been established under .com, with a supposition that people can’t type .gov. The different TLDs have meaning, and this is a means of opening the discourse on the relevance of the public sphere. We have an interest in opening up spaces for the commons.

The third leg of the Civic Garden pertains to community content produced locally, outside of government or government funded institutional channels. The Minneapolis walled garden and support of community portals establishes the basic principle. Communities have a right to create their own identity and to shape the character and flavor of the local network.

I expect the model of the Civic Garden to continue to evolve… word is that Minneapolis is adopting use of the term in association with their effort.