From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 14:14:14 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Censorial leftists (Was: Interesting article)
In-Reply-To: <v0300780cb0ab2a8bef6c@[204.254.21.129]>
Message-ID: <v03007804b0abdab0e172@[204.254.22.237]>
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Jamie correctly calls my earlier quip about "big government fetishists" a
"shallow" definition of leftist. Obviously it was not meant to be serious;
I didn't think Jamie wanted to explore this issue in any serious way. Based
on his post below, he seems to want to have a reasonable conversation, so I
owe him a reasonable response.

Let me try another take on a few of the issues he raises below.

COPYRIGHT: Clearly not a real left-right split. Rather a battle of
different business interests. There's the content owners, the Hollywood
firms and the software companies, on one side. On the other are companies
like Sony that want you to be able to tape movies and the Baby Bells and
ISPs that don't want to be liable for infringments. Firms like Time-Warner
that own cable companies and content are somewhat split. Lefty/public
interest groups joined by librarians play a role, but the corporations are
the ones driving the debate.

PRIVACY FROM GOVERNMENT: Lefty groups join libertarians and occasionally
some right wing groups (Eagle Forum) here. Their battle is with defense/law
enforcement and (largely) right-wing groups that are ideologically
sympatico. This collection of right-wing groups includes police chiefs,
attys general groups, and columnists like Frank "ban crypto" Gaffney from
the Washington Times. We can be more precise if we break down "privacy from
government" into narrower issues like wiretap, crypto, medical privacy,
etc. Gets more complicated (as you note) when we're talking about balancing
access to gvt info with privacy; journalist groups come down hard for
access.

PRIVACY FROM BUSINESSES: On government regulations designed to "protect
your privacy," you'll see mostly lefties out there crying that the Direct
Marketing Association is the archenemy, and AOL is the demon of cyberspace
because of its privacy policies, etc. Libertarians like CEI and Cato take
free-market position saying that gvt regs do more harm than good. Though
conservative think tanks like Heritage are starting to become more
interested in this. More a battle between lefty/public
interest/privacy/pro-regulatory groups on one side and
businesses/free-market groups on the other.

MICROSOFT: Mostly a battle between business groups: MSFT vs. its
competitors. Libertarians (CEI, Cato) and conservative thinktanks
(Heritage) are opposing antitrust regulations. Lefty/"consumer" groups are
all over this one, of course.

Bottom line: left-right analyses don't give you all the information you
need. A more complex analysis helps; fortunately, some other folks here
have suggested some. Now it's time for me to go to sleep; it's too late to
be writing this stuff. Hope it makes sense.

-Declan


At 22:40 -0500 12/3/97, James Love wrote:
>Lizard,
>
>Don't get me wrong.  I think the right left dichotomy does continues to
>have meaning in some contexts, and when appropriate, it would make sense
>to describe me as left (certainly by some contemporary standards).   I
>just don't think of this is the only way to think about what is going on
>today, and for many issues that I work on day to day, it predicts next
>to nothing, in terms of who supports what.  Here are some examples.  I
>have been working on a very wide range of issues relating to
>intellectual property, since 1990.  I don't really see most of the
>alliances on those issues well defined by a right left dichotomy.  I
>work on a number of privacy issues too.  And I don't think anyone could
>describe the alliances on privacy issues as having much to do with a
>right left dichotomy.  Freedom of Information and right to know issues
>(Ralph Nader was the single most important actor in getting the modern
>FOIA laws) have a very broad constituency.  Access to government
>information over the Internet?  The pro-access coalition is very broad.
>I work on issues relating to pricing of digital telephone services (ISDN
>and various unbundling issues relating to xDSL pricing).  Except for a
>handful of zero government true believers, this doesn't end up being a
>left right issue either.  Should cable be permitted to control DBS
>spectrum?  Not a right left issue.  Should South Africa be permitted to
>import pharmacuetical drugs (parallel imports)?  There are big
>commerical interests lobbying on this, but I don't think of the
>fundemental issues as right left.  I'm certainly on the side of the CATO
>institute on this one.  Is Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive
>practices?  A hot topic, certainly, but the persons who are concerned
>with Microsoft are a pretty broad coalition, in terms of traditional
>ideological labels.
>
>Now, if one sees the burning issue of the day the fight to rid the world
>of government as we know it, maybe right left labels make sense.  By
>defining both the left and the right as groups who advocate increasing
>government control over private actions, you describe what seems most
>important to you.  I found this characterization of "leftists" as
>shallow as Declan's, however.
>
>    Jamie