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Two Books on Control of the Internet
FGI volunteer ShinJoung Yeo reviews two books about global political struggles to govern the world's distributed communication infrastructure.
- Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace; Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance, by ShinJoung Yeo, JASIST, Volume 62, Issue 8, pages 1647-1649, August 2011. Article first published online: 9 MAY 2011. [subscription required] A recent series of events--Google's dispute with China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet freedom, the Egyptian government shutting off nearly all Internet services during the 2011 pro-democracy revolution, .xxx domain approval by ICANN after much political controversy--is indicative of the heightening global politics surrounding the Internet. Two books--Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace, edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain, and Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance, by Milton L. Mueller--have drawn attention and provide context to exactly these global political struggles to govern the world's distributed communication infrastructure, increase governments' efforts to control, and reassert sovereignty rights over cyberspace by nation states. Both books contribute to explicating the complex tensions between nation states and the extraterritorial nature of the Internet. ...If one has not yet been convinced that the Internet is far from value neutral, once again these books corroborate and stress the fact that cyberspace has grown ever more tightly intertwined with global political economy and has become a site of political, economic, and cultural struggle among nation states.
The Internet as Memory
Earlier today I posted a couple of favorite quotes about the role of libraries as institutions that hold in our collective memory things that would otherwise be forgotten. A short article in Scientific American notes the importance of "the internet" as "external memory" or "transactive" memory:
- Piece of Mind: Is the Internet Replacing Our Ability to Remember?, by Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American (July 14, 2011). ...[T]he Internet has become a primary form of external or "transactive" memory ... where information is stored collectively outside the brain. This is not so different from the pre-Internet past, when people relied on books, libraries and one another ... for information. Now, however, besides oral and printed sources of information, a lion's share of our collective and institutional knowledge bases reside online and in data storage.
- Internet Use Affects Memory, Study Finds, By Patricia Cohen, New York Times (July 14, 2011).
NSA wins FOIA battle over request for information on any work with Google
In a recent court decision the National Security Agency acknowledged working "with a broad range of commercial partners and research associates" but it obtained from the court the right to keep secret documents that may, or may not, show a working relationship with Google.
- NSA spooks win fight to keep secret possible ties to Google, by Mike Doyle, Suits & Sentences legal affairs blog, McClatchy Newspapers (July 13, 2011). In a decision made public Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the curious souls at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC sought documents relating to NSA's possible relationship with Google following news of an alleged cyber attack by hackers in China and of a subsequent cooperation agreement between Google and NSA.
- EPIC v. NSA: Agency Can "Neither Confirm Nor Deny" Google Ties, EPIC (July 13, 2011).
It Takes a Village…to Archive the Internet
From the Library of Congress:
- It Takes a Village…to Archive the Internet, guest post by Abbie Grotke, Web Archiving Team Lead at the Library of Congress (posted by Mike Ashenfelder), The Signal, digital preservation blog, Library of Congress (July 14th, 2011). Despite the tremendous amount we’ve preserved, we know we can’t do it alone. We often collaborate to build web archives with other libraries, archives and organizations in the United States and around the globe. We do this when events unfold quickly on the Internet and the Library can’t react as quickly as we’d like for whatever reason, but also when the scope of a collection is so big that we must work with others to ensure that breadth of content is preserved. ...So while each institution has its own collection policies to follow, there is an obvious recognition by web archivists that the Internet is a global place, not neatly wrapped by physical boundaries. Personally, I value these collaborations and know that my colleagues do too. If we work together, we can ensure that more of the Web is preserved, and often we can act more quickly, particularly when the risk of loss of content is so great.
Role of libraries
On a quiet Sunday, here are two quotes that I find both memorable and inspiring when I think of the role and future of libraries. These days we see so much emphasis placed on fast access to current, popular, "must see" information. Although libraries have a role to play in that as well, few if any institutions have the long-term role that libraries have.
We mustn't model the digital library on the day-to-day operation of a single human brain, which quite properly uses-or-loses, keeps uppermost in mind what it needs most often, and does not refresh, and eventually forgets, what it very infrequently considers -- after all, the principal reason groups of rememberers invented writing and printing was to record accurately what they sensed was otherwise likely to be forgotten. -- Nicholson Baker. Double Fold. NY: Random House, 2001. p245. Libraries exist to preserve the thoughts and deeds that no one else has time for anymore, to collect items that might not be used for another ten, fifty, one hundred years -- if ever. It is this last uncertainty that makes libraries the most heroic of human creations. -- Paul Collins. Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World. New York: Picador, 2001. p.285-286.Continue reading
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