Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 21:19:52 CST
From: jdavis@well.sf.ca.us
Subject: File 6--Summary of 2nd Conference on Computers, Freedom, Privacy

Source: CPSR/Berkeley Newsletter (Second Quarter, 1992)

    THE 2ND CONFERENCE ON COMPUTERS, FREEDOM AND PRIVACY: A REPORT

By Steve Cisler

[Editors Note: The following are selected excerpts from an online
report. The complete report may be found on the Internet in
ftp.apple.com in the alug directory; or on the Well in the cfp
conference.]

The Second Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, March 18-20,
1992. Washington,D.C.was sponsored by the Association for Computing
Machinery and thirteen co-sponsors including the American Library
Association and a wide variety of advocacy groups.

The diversity of the attendees, the scope of the topics covered, and
the dynamism of the organized and informal sessions brought a
perspective I had lost in endless conferences devoted only to library,
information, and network issues. I can now view the narrower topics of
concern to me as a librarian in new ways, and for that it was one of
the best conferences I have attended. There does exist a danger of
these issues being re-hashed each year with the usual suspects invited
each time to be panelists, so I urge you, the readers, to become
involved and bring your own experiences to the next conference in 1993
in the San Franciso Bay Area.

Keynote: Al Neuharth, The Freedom Forum and founder of USA Today,
speaking on "Freedom in cyberspace: new wine in old flasks." First
amendment freedoms are for everyone. Newspaper publishers should not
relegate anyone to 2d class citizens to the back of the bus.  The
passion for privacy may make our democracy falter. Publishing of
disinformation is the biggest danger, not info-glut. Comments on
American Newspaper Publishers Assn to keep RBOCs out of information
business: Free press clause does not only apply to newspapers. Telcos
have first amendment rights too. "ANPA is spitting into the winds of
change", and some newspaper publishers are not happy with this stance,
so there is a lot of turmoil.  People should get their news when, how
and where they want it: on screen or tossed on the front porch.

Who Logs On?: Al Koeppe of New Jersey Bell outlined the many new
services being rolled out in NJ at the same time they are maintaining
low basic rates. In 1992 there will be narrowband digital service for
low quality video conferencing. 1994 wideband digital service. video
on demand, entertainment libraries and distance learning applications.
He predicted a 99% penetration by 1999.  with  complete fiber by 2010.
This will be a public network not a private one. It will still be a
common carrier. This is a very aggressive and optimistic plan, an
important one for all of us to watch. Lucky said he had never seen a
study that shows video on demand services can be competitive with
video store prices. The big question remains: how does a business
based on low-bandwidth voice services charge for broadband services?
It remains a paradox.  Discussion during Q&A: "A lot of the last hour
has been discussing how to make the services better for the elite, but
it does not seem very democratic. people don't even have touch tone,
let alone computers or ISDN." NREN was characterized as gigabits to
the elite to kilobits to the masses. "Don't expect anything for the
next three years on telecomm issues from Congress."

Computers in the Workplace: Elysium or Panopticon: Because computer
technology provides new opportunities for employee surveillance, what
rights to privacy does the employee have? Alan Westin, Columbia
University, outlined some interesting trends in the 90s where
employers have moved into a new intervention in the activities and
private lives of employees. There is a liability against bad hiring.
Forced adoption of drug testing (with public support). They want to
select employees on the basis of health costs and liability, so there
is a desire to control employees on and off the job.

Who Holds the Keys?: In a sense the cryptography session was one of
the most difficult to follow, yet the outlines of a very large
battlefield came into view by the end of the session. The two sides
are personal privacy and national security. Should the government be
allowed to restrict the use of cryptography? (Only weakened schemes
are allowed to be legally exported.) What legal protections should
exist for enciphered communications?

Public Policy for the 21st Century:  "How will information
technologies alter work, wealth, value, political boundaries?... What
will the world be like in a decade or two?... What public policies now
exist that may pull the opposite direction from the economic momentum
and will lead to social tension and breakage if not addressed
properly?"

Mitchell Kapor: He sees digital media as the printing press of the
21st century.  The WELL and others make us realize we are not
prisoners of geography, so our religious, hobby, or academic interests
can be shared by the enabling technologies of computers.  "Individuals
flourish from mass society with this technology" Openness, freedom,
inclusiveness will help us make a society that will please our
children and grandchildren.

Simon Davies, Privacy International: "There is possibly a good future,
but it's in the hands of greedy men. I see a world with 15 billion
beings scrambling for life, with new frontiers stopping good things.
14 billion [will be] very pissed off, and our wonderful informational
community (the other billion) becomes the beast... If we recognize the
apocalypse now we can work with the forces."

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