That system is supposed to be designed to help control digital rights management. By its nature it will be great for political rights management, because it's an enormously penetrative surveillance tool, and it makes it hard to do anything anonymously involving a computer. Here is a monopoly in essence, the Wintel monopoly -- Windows/Intel -- which has enormous glob-al power and which no government is willing to stand up to, at least effectively, so far.
The multinationals have reached the point where they are essentially replacing the nation-state. I look at a multinational as an organism. It is not a human being and doesn't have any characteristics of a human being. It is as much unlike a human being as a coral reef is unlike a coral polyp or an anthill unlike an ant.
It is an extremely advanced piece of evolutionary design that is capable of having its way in the world and competing with human beings for the world's resources. From a multinational's standpoint, the best thing that can happen is the best thing that can happen right now. They have to deliver maximum shareholder value today, next quarter, which means that they don't worry about whether there are going to be resources for them to exploit in 10 years.
We need them. We have a deeply symbiotic relationship with large corporations. I wouldn't want to eliminate them, because they are the engines of our economic well being at the moment. But we need something -- and I think it's governmental -- to reregulate the market and make it free, because the multinationals have taken it away.
Reason: What is it you are recommending bohemian libertarians do right now?
Barlow: We have to re-engage in the political process we have. Democracy actually works. You could make the argument that it's working too well in America -- people are really getting exactly the government that they want. That is to say, the people who bother to engage themselves in the really tedious work of being a political activist -- having meetings in church basements and putting signs on people's lawns.
I have grave misgivings about John Kerry, but I certainly don't have misgivings about Kerry that equal the terror I have about another four years of Bush. What he's done to aspects of the Constitution that are there to assure individual rights is breathtakingly bad.
So I'm becoming an active Democrat. I wasn't one until just a few months ago, because I felt there was more room for libertarian thought inside the Republican Party. I never found the Libertarian Party was a credible political institution. It holds a pure line, and I'm glad there's somebody out there defining that point of view, but in terms of actually having power, making a difference....There are libertarian wings in both the Democratic and Republican parties, and in the past I found it most effective to be inside the Republican Party acting as a libertarian. But I've switched.
One of the things going on in my mind when I wrote that note [announcing the decision to embrace political activism over lifestyle libertarianism] was that I'd just been busted for having a really trivial amount of marijuana in a checked bag under a PATRIOT Act search. I was arrested, hauled off in irons, an ugly experience. At San Francisco airport, for, like, three joints' worth of dope.
Before the plane took off, Delta employees came on and said, Mr. Barlow, you have to step off the plane, and bring your personal effects. Then San Francisco cops arrested me. I spent the day in Redwood City in jail. It was a chilling experience. It's happening, and happening a lot. The Transportation Security Administration is now routinely searching checked bags. They are not just looking for explosives. I've taken the government on, subpoenaing their training procedures and search requirements to see whether or not any attention is paid to the Fourth Amendment in these searches.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about national security. The Fourth Amendment is the Fourth Amendment, and they're gonna have to show me that it isn't. Right now they are refusing to answer subpoenas. I'm trying to suppress evidence based on it being an improper search.
Most people in this situation just say whatever, and plead out, but I'm willing to put myself on the line for it. The worst that can happen is they'll be especially nasty if they convict me. It's a misdemeanor anyway. But to just plead out would be abdicating my citizen's responsibility to defend the Constitution. You have to fight for your freedom individually and not say, "Oh well, it's not worth the trouble."
I'm already being a lot pricklier than they expected. They asked for a continuation at the last hearing because they said that the Department of Homeland Security had been unable to come up with a set of guidelines regarding the release of the subpoenaed materials for national security reasons. So our national security depends on whether or not they can get me for carrying marijuana on that airplane.
The ideal thing would be to have charges dismissed with prejudice, and then I sue the shit out of them. I'm merely defending myself right now.
Reason: Would this situation be any different if John Kerry were president?
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