WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 2014

08:30 MUSIC

08:45 Dewayne plays his 3 minute card
Buy a BRCK! http://shop.brck.com/brcks/brck-v1.html

08:49 Report back from last nights breakout

Weinberger's article on echochambers: 
http://www.salon.com/2004/02/21/echo_chamber/
(David started thinking about this while working in support of the Howard Dean campaign.)
"While most of us had assumed that the Internet would increase the diversity of opinion, the echo chamber meme says the Net encourages groups to form that increase the homogeneity of belief. "
 
 The "filter bubble" concept that Eli Pariser wrote about is a similar/related concern: http://www.thefilterbubble.com/
 
 Liquid democracy AKA delegative democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy
 "a form of democratic control whereby voting power is vested in delegates, rather than representatives."
 
 Emergent democracy may also be relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_democracy
 http://joi.ito.com/static/emergentdemocracy.html
 
 "We must influence the development and use of these tools and technologies to support democracy, or they will be turned against us by corporations, totalitarian regimes and terrorists. To do so, we must begin to understand the process and implications necessary for an Emergent Democracy. This new political model must support the basic characteristics of democracy and reverse the erosion of democratic principles that has occurred with the concentration of power within corporations and governments. New technologies can enable the emergence of a functional, more direct democratic system which can effectively manage complex issues. Viable technologies for direct democracy will support, change or replace existing representative democracies. By direct democracy, we don’t mean simple majority rule, but a system that evolves away from the broadcast style of managed consensus to a democratic style of collective consensus derived from 'many-to-many' conversations."
 
 Marleen: "We don't live in democracy, we live in a financial-industrial system."
 
 "We need to be careful about people looking at how to extract value from the bottom to the top"
 
Doc: "The tipping point may be lower than we think it is." (E.g. 10% who have the sympathy of a less vocal 50%)

09:24 Report on identifying "the best network"

Discussion includes "going across generational lines"

Part of the "generational thing" is the idea that the younger generation is going to be affected more by the big problems facing us. They are stuck with them more than those who are older.

Ella: A process that supports peer relationship and trust come first, e.g. stacks to manage conversation.

Brewster: General Assembly process as a possible model worth considering. 

Nadia: "I don't trust a lot of the people in the room." Are we all committed? Are we taking the conversation seriously? "We have 20 years, then a lot of people are going to die."

David: "If anybody doesn't think this is a matter of life or death, remember Aaron, who used to be in this room."
http://www.aaronsw.com/

09:37 What was learned in the room last night?

People inside institutions need us to help them learn how to change.

What we are lacking is people who understand how capital works

Bill:" I apprecate the differences in everybody. That is our strength. Everybody can contribute something that can add to the aggregate."

Bill talks about some of the things he's doing, like working with EFF and suing the gov't. Trying to get information to legislators, e.g. what they're signing up for when they vote for these (intelligence) bills. 

Bill was engaged in focused work to identify people (groups) who were doing something either illegal, criminal, or threatening.

Start doing the "American Spring" (ala Arab Spring)

Idea: Use the release of the Movie as something to gather other activities (salon, etc.) around it. And organize pre-discussion groups to lay the groundwork for an understanding of the movie when it's released.

One strategy is to make it unthinkable for a smart individual for them to join the NSA in its present form. The people who are now the smartest youth have the largest (student) debt -- and they need to work for one of these large entities to service that debt.

As Lessig has said -- we need to strike at the root (power, power is money) not the branches, etc. 

Article 5 (of the US constitution) - A constitutional convention can be called when democracy is not working. Can the technological community play a role in helping make this happen.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html

The conversations in this room are quite similar to what was happening in the 60s and 70s. 

It's difficult for a person to make an impact on a national or international scale. Rather, the question is "what can I do within the sphere that I do have some influence on"

DavidI: "Within the words of the OpenCape agreement is some real wisdom". (applause - something to be mined?)

Another strategy: go inside structures and take your assets with you.

Question: What strategies are available to do the work? Those who know could share these with us.
- History of Sweeden (Tom Freeburg)
- Technologies to liberate (Dewayne)
- Network is SC (Matt)
- Building fiber to leave a better network
- Strategy to infiltrate
Sysadmins of the world, unite transcription
http://wikileaksetc.blogspot.com/2014/01/transcript-30c3-sysadmins-of-world.html

Working Groups / Spaces
- Setup working group to work on film (Alexia)
- Mailing list is hard to follow
- Could use subject lines more effectively

10:07 MUSIC AND BREAK

10:30 BACK IN SESSION - DOORPRIZES(!!)

Elliot 3m Card - Discussing capital

Talking about "don't be evil"

Should *any* corporation earn our trust?

Corporations grow though... It's like starting out with a cute lion cub and then wondering why it keeps eating your pets after it grows up.

Chris Mitchell: public utility model for Inernet access, esp. for educational resources. Tweak e-rate so that a kid at home can leverage the school's bandwidth.  Chris is doing a paper on the related concepts, to be forwarded to the Bighook list.

Brough 3m card

Protocols are so powerful, platforms are a little trickier

-- Art G 3m card - Market Basket Story
http://wearemarketbasket.com
http://www.boston.com/business/news/2014/08/27/demoulas-sides-reach-deal/YHVqrKp65XS3DBzJd2PulI/story.html



The way we form a alternative to Internet is to take like-minded small networks and tie them together

Crowdsuing, something new in the Netherlands -- 
http://waag.org/en/news/crowdsuing

Git Tips (???) -- in response to misogyny inside GitHub
http://gittip.com
Git misogyny: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/10702952/Sexism-in-tech-GitHub-female-engineer-Horvaths-shock-exit-Sexist-nerdy-priesthood-regime-is-killing-tech-industry.html

Internet Credit Union was threatened by regulators when they realized it was working with BitCoin

"Regulators line up to crack down on bitcoin." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/regulators-line-up-to-crack-down-on-bitcoin-2014-04-09

Email I received from Barbara Cherry on my question:
    It appears that the core question during lunch discussion was:   what legal recourse is there for a customer claiming discrimination, particularly racial, in service from a provider contacted via AirBnb and Uber?  

In  evaluating that question, I would need to better understand the business models of AirBnb and Uber.  (For example, what is the legal relationship of drivers to Uber - as independent contractors or employees? What obligations are drivers agreeing to take on - perhaps in a contract - with Uber? …)

Answers to the above questions may indicate that the service providers (hotels, drivers) are already offering their services on a common carriage basis under the common law.  Or, there is the possibility of have legislation enacted to impose common carriage obligations (under state and/or federal law, remembering that states have jurisdiction over intrastate commerce and the federal government has jurisdiction over interstate commerce).

However, unless some governmental entity (e.g. agency) has been given jurisdiction, enforcement of common carriage obligations would require the customer to seek recourse in the relevant courts (state or federal).  Keep in mind, that common carriage obligations require "no unreasonable discrimination" -- so some forms of discrimination are permitted (e.g. when costs of serving customers differs).

I'm not an expert in other bodies of law more specifically targeted to address various forms of racial discrimination.  Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion or national origin in hotels, restaurants, and other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce. However, I don't know how broadly "public accommodations" has been interpreted by the courts - and whether it would apply to Uber drivers.  

As a general matter, judicial remedies are expensive and time-consuming to obtain.  And many service providers have clauses in contracts to make judicial remedies unavailable or unattractive (e.g. mandatory arbitration clauses; class action waivers).  This is why some agency enforcement can be beneficial to protect customers.

11:37 Challenge to people to make commitments
- David I. commits to deciding whether to hold F2C within 30 days, (2) help to the best of his ability all the others to make their commitments listed below.
- Robin commits to detour her book to cover the change required to 
- Roxanne commits to provide Bill and Fritz with room and board at Sundance if they get in.
- Jon commits to work w EFF-Austin and Future of Governance (via Austin Future Salon) (1) to build them, make them more effective and to report back. Look for relevance to the conversation, (2) will work w Bill and Fritz to try to get them into this year's SXSW Interactive.
- Elliot  commits to write letters about government takeover of ICANN, to study with Art
- Brewster commits to archiving more Brazilian music, commiting to try to ..., and to show the movie at the Internet archive
- Fritz - make the film, do rollout, hookup with Ben to see how he can get the information out to try to find financing for 3-part TV documentary and to create an online piece to the rollout.
- David B commits to finish his dissertation !!! and to really dissect Nadia's unMonestary and apply it in the rustbelt in the US. 
- Scott commits to teach the course with Ben and make sure that the section on Internet Governance talks about the *real* issues.
- Pepper commits to work with the civil society individual and groups in order to get more participation in the conversation about internet governance . To do this at IETF, ICANN
- Tom F commits to educate Harold about attack on Wifi. Tom will also commit to do everything he can to see that what Wifi does for us to grow. (read the FCC do
- Dewayne commits to provide document that Tom is talked about.
- Harold commits to by the end of 2014 the paper he has been working on since 2005 "How the distributed movement and models of operating in an environment of variable levels of trust".
- Marlene commits to come up the the concept of the NSA-free-cities. To make the big story small. 2 - Hook up the critical journalists in America and Europe, to continue this work. Hook up the great journalists there and ...
- Alexa commits to (1) focusing when back to NY and actually describe on a piece of paper how she is actually going to get the things she is working on done and to ask for help from , (2) To make the Manning court record accessible to the public and work on a student exercise along these lines with Jonathan, comit to being unselfish, 
- Rick commits to (1) bring the film (and Binney) to the Googleplex, (2) work with Robin and others as part of new kitchen cabinet supporting her Peers Inc. work, and (3) be a virus spreading openness and transparency and other virtues within my Access projects at Google, 
-         commits to focus on the people that are doing interesting things and to spread those stories and to highlight real alternatives and to continue to .... Keep us informed have an alternative email solution
- Ella commits to figure out how to keep food in her cupboard and to eat without going back to industry
- Nadia commits to (1) to write a series of articles/posts synthesizing the strands of conversations that we've come into and get an overall view of how these are connected, eg. structural, about understanding personal soverignty and to pick up different pieces (Freedom for Dummies) (2) bring projects and approaches discussed here with with stu, (3) trying to help with the "Good Citizen's Campaign".
- Fumi commits to help bring the film to Google

Robin suggests the following for the next BH theme -- "Transforming our economy to a sustainable economy"

12:06 MUSIC AND CURTAIN CLOSES