VeriLAN Successfully Interconnects Seven
Carrier Labs Worldwide into One Secure
Private Network for Optical
Internetworking Forum (OIF) Worldwide
Interop Demo at SUPERCOMM 2004

Emergent church

Emergent Architecture

Household Emergent Behavior?

Emergent bl0gging from Iran

Yesterday, Jeff Jarvis introduced us to the Iranian blogger, Pedram Moallemian. Pedram blogs at Iranian.net. He is one of the outspoken Iranians who blogs in English and help us understand what's going on on the incredible number of Persian blogs. He explain that the Persian blogs can be traced to the short explanation written by Hoder at Hoder.com explaining how to use Blogger in Persian. There are now over 100,000 Persian blogs. Most of the blogs are about politics and sex as well as other things like poetry. The suppression of free speech in Iran is one of the explanations for the number of Persian blogs, but the notion that one short page of Persian documentation for Blogger starting this incredible trend is also very important. Many countries and languages probably just need a small seed to create an emergent cascade of blogging adoption.

Jeff writes about an arrested Iranian blogger who was recently freed. Great post with links to other interesting posts about Iranian blogging.

Webl0g: Has Emergent Emerged? -
Christianity Today Magazine

christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/151/21.0.html
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Wikipedia's Emergent People fail to
impress readers

Emergent cheese-sandwich detector
enlisted in War on Terror

FBI's terror trawl and Emergent computer
goofs

Worldwide Internet Security Campaign
Underway A Worldwide Internet Security
Campaign has been organized and la

Democracy Now

weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004 /056mvrqy.asp
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Yay for democracy

Democracy

the democracy of the web

Little d democracy

Digital Democracy

Downloading for Democracy

Diebold for Democracy

About that budding democracy

The Infrastructure of Democracy

I am at this moment co-moderating the Democracy, Terrorism and the Open Internet panel at the Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security with Marko Ahtisaari. We worked all day yesterday drafting a document we are calling "The Infrastructure of Democracy". The draft is currently available on the Global Voices wiki. Please give us some feedback.

Special thanks to Martin Varsavsky for giving us the opportunity and to John Perry Barlow, John Gage, Dan Gillmor, Chris Goggans, Pekka Himanen, David Isenberg, Rebecca MacKinnon, Andrew McLaughlin, Desiree Miloshevic, Jeff Moss, Ejovi Nuwere, Kazuhisa Ogawa, Marc Rotenberg, David Smith, Wendy Seltzer, Gohsuke Takama, Noriko Takiguchi, Paul Vixie, David Weinberger and Ethan Zuckerman who came all the way to Madrid to work on this. Thanks also to the other people in the room who contributed.

UPDATE: Transcript s of IRC discussion with Ethan Zuckerman's transcript of most of the comments. Thanks Ethan!

The official summary of the session is on the conference site.

UPDATE 2: Here is the full text of the recommendation draft:

The Infrastructure of Democracy
Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World
March 11, 2005

I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.

1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all - increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.

II. Decentralized systems - the power of many - can combat decentralized foes.

1. Terrorist networks are highly decentralized and distributed. A centralized effort by itself cannot effectively fight terrorism.
2. Terrorism is everyone's issue. The internet connects everyone. A connected citizenry is the best defense against terrorist propaganda.
3. As we saw in the aftermath of the March 11 bombing, response was spontaneous and rapid because the citizens were able to use the Internet to organize themselves.
4. As we are seeing in the distributed world of weblogs and other kinds of citizen media, truth emerges best in open conversation among people with divergent views.

III. The best response to abuses of openness is more openness.

1. Open, transparent environments are more secure and more stable than closed, opaque ones.
2. While Internet services can be interrupted, the Internet as a global system is ultimately resilient to attacks, even sophisticated and widely distributed ones.
3. The connectedness of the Internet – people talking with people – counters the divisiveness terrorists are trying to create.
4. The openness of the Internet may be exploited by terrorists, but as with democratic governments, openness minimizes the likelihood of terrorist acts and enables effective responses to terrorism.

IV. Well-meaning regulation of the Internet in established democracies could threaten the development of emerging democracies.

1. Terrorism cannot destroy the internet, but over-zealous legislation in response to terrorism could. Governments should consider mandating changes to core Internet functionality only with extraordinary caution.
2. Some government initiatives that look reasonable in fact violate the basic principles that have made the Internet a success.
3. For example, several interests have called for an end to anonymity. This would be highly unlikely to stop determined terrorists, but it would have a chilling effect on political activity and thereby reduce freedom and transparency. Limiting anonymity would have a cascading series of unintended results that would hurt freedom of expression, especially in countries seeking transition to democratic rule.

V. In conclusion we urge those gathered here in Madrid to:

1. Embrace the open Internet as a foundation of 21st Century democracy, and a critical tool in the fight against terrorism.
2. Recognizing the Internet's value as a critical communications infrastructure, invest to strengthen it against attacks and recover quickly from damage.
3. Work to spread access more evenly, aggressively addressing the Digital Divide, and to provide Internet access for all.
4. To protect free speech and association, endorse the availability of anonymous communications for all.
5. Resist attempts at international governance of the Internet: It can introduce processes that have unintended effects and violate the bottom-up democratic nature of the Net.

Spat over democracy

the "democracy" that is Europe

Quantifying democracy

Democracy By Obscurity

Applied democracy

About the Emergent Democracy Worldwide session at the Digital Democracy Teach-In, the Head Lemur says,

This may be the single most important seminar of this conference. Participation in Emergent Democracy requires a computer and an internet connection. This is the bottom line. Where you can go from there is limited only by your desire and participation. While we have this group of folks in the building, let's lower the bar bills and increase the participation in emergent democracy.

Then he adds a suggestion: A computer roadshow. Interesting idea.

"Extreme Democracy"

Another kind of democracy.

Democracy in Iraq

democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/2005/03/2-years.html
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Democracy Through Technology

Democracy Aid 2004

Democracy Is Just Too Expensive

Emergent Democracy Worldwide