Finally, how appropriate is it that this plan is being unveiled at the US Chamber of Commerce? As reported by ThinkProgress in February, the US Chamber of Commerce communicated with private contractors that provide cybersecurity services to the US government -- HBGary Federal, Palantir, Berico Technologies. It discussed with these cybersecurity service providers how ChamberWatch, the SEIU, MoveOn, ThinkProgress and other groups could be targeted and proposed efforts "to steal private computer information, spy on the families of the Chamber's critics, and plant false documents within organizations opposed to the Chamber's agenda." (These same companies were also discovered to have developed plans to help Bank of America by sabotaging WikiLeaks through similar tactics.)
The US Chamber of Commerce conspired against citizen groups it deemed to be a threat to their operations. It was willing to steal information and destroy the lives of people. Does anyone really think this is an entity that should be behind any government plan to establish "identity ecosystems" to make the Internet more secure? One might ask, secure for whom?
Thus, it should be explicitly established that those behind this plan do not have the same philosophy or understanding of the Internet as American legal scholar Yochai Benkler, who in a recent paper outlined power and freedom in the networked society or economy. They do not view the realignment and change in "organization of production, power, and meaning making in contemporary society" as a good development. They do not celebrate how the Internet has changed power dynamics through democratization or the rise of "libertarian-anarchist cluster of radical individual freedom" from state and corporate power.
Those behind this plan cannot be expected to find acceptable the new freedom, which Benkler describes -- a freedom that makes an entity less susceptible to another entity. And so, citizens of the world should understand, in order to ensure there will be no risks to business operations or bottom line profits, the private sector is likely to fight for an organization of the Internet that does away with users' freedom and power. And, the easiest way to do that is under the guise of homeland or national security.
Photo by Truthout.org
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