NetWorking
Censorship of
"terrorist" and
guerilla websites
The recent kidnapping and assassination of Spanish politician Miguel Angel Blanco by the Basque separatist group ETA has ignited a backlash of cyberspace censorship in the United States
In early July, the Spanish government requested last week that the Cable News Network (CNN) remove its link to the group's website. CNN refused, saying that it was standard practice to provide links that relate to the subject matter of current affairs stories.
Several days later, the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), a nonprofit Internet service provider for activist groups, had its system crippled by a deluge of mail bomb attacks against a site maintained by the New York-based Euskal Herria Journal (EHJ). A flood of mail with bogus or no return addresses from anonymous automated mail relay systems swamped the IGC's servers On 20 July IGC reluctantly suspended the EHJ site. "This destructive campaign has overwhelmed our ability to keep our system running and we have made the difficult decision to suspend the Euskal Herria Journal Web site - under protest - so that we can continue to serve the organisations who depend on our services," IGC said in a press release.
"If a non-profit Internet provider like us can't keep up a controversial site, I don't know who can," said Maureen Mason, programme co-ordinator for IGC
In fact, IGC is not the only group under fire for its links to guerrilla group web sites. Along with the ETA, rebel groups such as the MRTA, FARC-EP and Zapatistas have joined the burgeoning ranks of political groups that are bringing their message to the Internet. Some are finding cyberspace allies on American university servers, raising a heated debate on First Amendment
In early May, officials at the State University of New York at Binghamton shut down a student-operated site for the Colombia (FARC-EP), Latin America's largest guerrilla group.
"For us, it was not an issue of academic freedom," said Anita Doll, director of communications at Binghamton. "It was an issue of the appropriate use of university resources."
Not all universities agree. Officials at the University of California at San Diego, took no action when, shortly after the 36 International Viewpoint
Peruvian rebel hostage crisis began at the Japanese embassy in December, Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement sympathisers posted an MRTA web site, the Solidarity Page, on the school's
"We're proud that our students are part of that communications network. We don't see any reason to get rid of it because it's controversial." Hallin, chairman of the Communications Department at UCSD.
This outraged right wing groups like the Heritage Foundation. "It is outrageous that groups who have attacked Americans repeatedly in the past were allowed to worm their way into a situation where American taxpayers subsidised their propaganda on the Internet," insists Jim Phillips, terrorism specialist at Heritage. "I think that UCSD has a hard time explaining why they are subsidising terrorists."
In fact, by closing down its FARC-EP site, SUNY-Binghamton may have violated America's First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech. "The question turns on whether the university is censoring students' sites based on content or whether the university has a neutral, non-content-based rule," said James Dempsey, senior staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit Internet civil liberties group "If it looks like the government singled out this one site because of its content, then it's impermissible under the First Amendment."
On a similar note, Carl Kadie, president of Computers in Academic Freedom, said that SUNY-Binghamton was reinventing an old censorship trick that universities used to restrict unpopular speakers from off-campus. In 1958, for example, the University of Illinois decreed that "no employee of the university shall allow any subversive, seditious and un-American organisation the use of university facilities for publicising the activities of that organisation." Kadie said that in the 1950s, the University of Illinois was more the norm than the exception. Many state universities maintained similar policies. * JD] Source: The Real Revolution: Net Guerrillas, Elizabeth Frantz, Time-Warner's Pathfinder web site, July 21, 1997 newsletter
After a six-week break, Mexican Labor News and Analysis has resumed publication. Editor Dan La Botz has returned to the US, supported by a number of volunteer correspondents in Mexico
The electronic newsletter is produced in collaboration with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo - FAT) of Mexico and with the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States. It is published the 2nd and 16th of every
</www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/> Contact editor Dan La Botz at 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA. © (+1 513) 961 8722
<103144.2651@compuserve.com> The People's Summit on APEC '97
Information about the forthcomming counter-summit is available at A window on Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Voice of Democracy site "chronicles the activities of the grass-roots democracy movement of Hong Kong and the political climate in which it operates through the period of transition and beyond. Indications are that freedom of the press, whether by self-censorship or by direct government intervention, is under imminent threat. This endeavour seems the only way to continue the free discussion of the performance of Hong Kong's government in safeguarding the fundamental rights of
April Fifth Action members.hknet.com/~tllau/default.html Australian Militant
Australia's other left newspaper www.ausom.net.au/-mil Berlin Squatters
Following the 29 July eviction of three squats in East Berlin, there are now almost no squats in Berlin anymore Whatever happens next can be read
"HaeuserMob" website. Most information is in German.
www.hou.net/hmob International Viewpoint
Our own website was "down" for a few days in the middle of September, but is again workin. It now includes 60+ pages: articles from our special issue on Europe • Report from The Fourth International Youthcamp • More than 40 other articles from previous issues www.internationalen.se/sp/ivp.htm
Our English listserv provides the full contents of this magazine, and articles from our associated publications. We also have lists for French, Spanish/ Portuguese and German materials from our sister publications. International_Viewpoint@compuserve.com