1984 Network Liberty Alliance
Encyclopedia
1984 Network Liberty Alliance is loose group of software programmers, artists, social activists and radical militants, interested in computers and networks and considering them tools to empower and link the various actors of the social movement around the world. They are part of the hacktivism
movement.
The group was formed in November 1984, during a "debriefing" workshop of the European Peace Marches
on the Hartmannswillerkopf
in Alsace
, France, following the struggle against the installation of Pershing II and SS-20 nuclear missiles in Germany (Mutlangen
). From 1978 to 1985, this European-wide peace movement had mobilized millions of citizens, protesting the arms race, the growth of military spending and joining in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
.
In reference to George Orwell
's novel 1984
and to the Rebel Alliance
of the movie Star Wars
, the group chose the (ironic) name 1984 Network Liberty Alliance. Founders are André Gorz
, French philosopher, Dov Lerner, MIT computer graduate and disciple of Saul Alinsky
, as well as Gregoire Seither
, free radio activist, Frauke Hahn who had led the woman's resistance ('Commons Women') at Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
, David Szwarc from the Israeli Peace movement
and Adama Drasiweni, computer graduate from the University of London
, future founder of N'DA, Africa's first independent telecom company.
Other members, like Australian co-founder of Indymedia Matthew Arnison, south-African anti-apartheid militant Peter Makema and Israeli peace activists Uri Avnery
and Michel Warchawsky, joined later on. All were active in various social movements and peace initiatives in Europe and the USA.
When Richard Stallman
published the GNU Manifesto
in March 1985 and called for participation and support, Dov Lerner and Gregor Seither started organizing regular meetings and workshops in order to train activists in the use of information technology
and gather support for the Free Software
movement. Adama Drasiweni, owner of a computer business in London, set up similar workshops in Kibera
, a giant slum outside of Nairobi
, Kenya
.
In France, the Alliance used the network of the Maisons de l'Informatique that had been set up under the presidency of François Mitterrand
as well as the computer labs of Paris University, who access to academic networks and Billboard Systems. The group ran a number of BBS, among them 'Pom-Pom', devoted to the Apple Macintosh and 'PeaceNet', an "electronic pow-wow" to help social activists and community organizers exchange information around the world, offering free mail accounts and file hosting services.
Very soon the issues of free speech, software patents, civil rights and surveillance became some of the major topics addressed by the Alliance, the group being accused of hacking
and fork
software. One of the BBS run by the group [telnet://gaia.rebelalliance.net:1800 'Gaia rising'], was accused by the German government of being a meeting point for radical environmental activists as well as anarchists.
The Liberty Alliance was particularly active in the popular worldwide resistance to Multilateral Agreement on Investment
s (MAI) in the mid 1990s, networking multiple groups and providing "open cyberspaces" for activists to share information and experience.
In the summer of 1998 the first alternative media centre was set up in a bus in Birmingham
, United Kingdom during the Global Street Party, an international day of protest and festive actions coinciding with the 24th G8 Summit. The alternative media centres also provided interpretation and language services to international militant meetings, like during the July 1999 Global Carnival against Capitalism
, or J18 London, a giant rally and party in the heart of the London City, meant as a counter-summit to the 25th G8 Summit in Köln, Germany.
Members of the team travelled to the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999
in Seattle to set up an alternative media centre during the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity
. The project joined with that of other media activists and, out of the necessity to bypass the corporate media and report on a WTO conference but also to show how one could bypass corporate software (Windows), the independent media agency Indymedia was born.
Language diversity and the lack of interpreters led a number of activists to start thinking about a way to help militants from around the world to bridge the language barrier. Three years later, during the 27th G8 summit
in Genoa, Italy, this would lead to the creation of the Babels
network of volunteer interpreters and translators for linguistic diversity and social change.
Members of the Network Liberty Alliance have worked on social IT projects in North America (San Francisco Free Software movement, Chicago community cybercenter), South America (Nicaragua
, Guatemala
, Panama
), the Middle-East (Egypt
, Occupied Palestine) as well as in the Asia Pacific region (Indonesia
, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Australia, Papua Niugini) and Africa (Malawi
, Mali
, Cameroon
).
When the Berlin Wall
fell in 1989, another member of the Alliance, Stefan Ostrowsky, transferred "NET(te) Bude" (a play on the word NET like network, and 'Nette Bude', nice crashpad in German), a community IT training centre to East-Berlin, thus becoming the first 'Cybercafe' behind the iron curtain.
Hacktivism
Hacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1994 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective named Omega...
movement.
The group was formed in November 1984, during a "debriefing" workshop of the European Peace Marches
European Peace Marches
From 1978 to 1992, this European-wide network of initiatives within the Peace Movement had mobilized millions of citizens, protesting the arms race, the growth of military spending and joining in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It had many ties to the peace groups in the former German...
on the Hartmannswillerkopf
Hartmannswillerkopf
Hartmannswillerkopf, also known as the Vieil Armand or Hartmannsweilerkopf is a pyramidal rocky spur in the Vosges mountains of Alsace. The peak stands at overlooking the Rhine valley. At Hartmannswillerkopf stands a national monument of World War I for the fighting which took place in the...
in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, France, following the struggle against the installation of Pershing II and SS-20 nuclear missiles in Germany (Mutlangen
Mutlangen
Mutlangen is a town in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, in Ostalbkreis district. As of 1 August 2007, Mutlangen has 6,548 inhabitants....
). From 1978 to 1985, this European-wide peace movement had mobilized millions of citizens, protesting the arms race, the growth of military spending and joining in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
.
In reference to George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's novel 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
and to the Rebel Alliance
Rebel Alliance
The Alliance to Restore the Republic is an interstellar faction of the fictional universe of Star Wars....
of the movie Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
, the group chose the (ironic) name 1984 Network Liberty Alliance. Founders are André Gorz
André Gorz
André Gorz , pen name of Gérard Horst, born Gerhard Hirsch, also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet, was an Austrian and French social philosopher. Also a journalist, he co-founded Le Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964...
, French philosopher, Dov Lerner, MIT computer graduate and disciple of Saul Alinsky
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
, as well as Gregoire Seither
Gregoire Seither
Gregor Seither is a franco-German journalist, graphic designer, interpreter and Internet activist, founding member of the 1984 network liberty alliance, a loose international cyber network of free speech and privacy activists...
, free radio activist, Frauke Hahn who had led the woman's resistance ('Commons Women') at Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a peace camp established to protest at nuclear weapons being sited at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. The camp began in September 1981 after a Welsh group, Women for Life on Earth, arrived at Greenham to protest against the decision of the British...
, David Szwarc from the Israeli Peace movement
Peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...
and Adama Drasiweni, computer graduate from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, future founder of N'DA, Africa's first independent telecom company.
Other members, like Australian co-founder of Indymedia Matthew Arnison, south-African anti-apartheid militant Peter Makema and Israeli peace activists Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement.A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979–81...
and Michel Warchawsky, joined later on. All were active in various social movements and peace initiatives in Europe and the USA.
When Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
published the GNU Manifesto
GNU Manifesto
The GNU Manifesto was written by Richard Stallman and published in March 1985 in Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools as an explanation and definition of the goals of the GNU Project, and to call for participation and support. It is held in high regard within the free software movement as a...
in March 1985 and called for participation and support, Dov Lerner and Gregor Seither started organizing regular meetings and workshops in order to train activists in the use of information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
and gather support for the Free Software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
movement. Adama Drasiweni, owner of a computer business in London, set up similar workshops in Kibera
Kibera
Kibera is a division of Nairobi Area, Kenya, and neighbourhood of the city of Nairobi, located from the city centre. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the second largest urban slum in Africa...
, a giant slum outside of Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
.
In France, the Alliance used the network of the Maisons de l'Informatique that had been set up under the presidency of François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
as well as the computer labs of Paris University, who access to academic networks and Billboard Systems. The group ran a number of BBS, among them 'Pom-Pom', devoted to the Apple Macintosh and 'PeaceNet', an "electronic pow-wow" to help social activists and community organizers exchange information around the world, offering free mail accounts and file hosting services.
Very soon the issues of free speech, software patents, civil rights and surveillance became some of the major topics addressed by the Alliance, the group being accused of hacking
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
and fork
Fork
As a piece of cutlery or kitchenware, a fork is a tool consisting of a handle with several narrow tines on one end. The fork, as an eating utensil, has been a feature primarily of the West, whereas in East Asia chopsticks have been more prevalent...
software. One of the BBS run by the group [telnet://gaia.rebelalliance.net:1800 'Gaia rising'], was accused by the German government of being a meeting point for radical environmental activists as well as anarchists.
The Liberty Alliance was particularly active in the popular worldwide resistance to Multilateral Agreement on Investment
Multilateral Agreement on Investment
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment was a draft agreement negotiated between members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1995–1998. Its ostensible purpose was to develop multilateral rules that would ensure international investment was governed in a more...
s (MAI) in the mid 1990s, networking multiple groups and providing "open cyberspaces" for activists to share information and experience.
In the summer of 1998 the first alternative media centre was set up in a bus in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, United Kingdom during the Global Street Party, an international day of protest and festive actions coinciding with the 24th G8 Summit. The alternative media centres also provided interpretation and language services to international militant meetings, like during the July 1999 Global Carnival against Capitalism
Carnival Against Capitalism
The Global Carnival Against Capital took place on Friday, 18th June, 1999. It was an international day of protest timed to coincide with the 25th G8 Summit in Cologne, Germany. The carnival was inspired by the 1980s Stop the City protests and the Global Street Party, which happened at the same time...
, or J18 London, a giant rally and party in the heart of the London City, meant as a counter-summit to the 25th G8 Summit in Köln, Germany.
Members of the team travelled to the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999
WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999
The WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 was a meeting of the World Trade Organization, convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington, USA, over the course of three days, beginning November 30, 1999. A week before the meeting, delegates admitted failure to agree...
in Seattle to set up an alternative media centre during the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity
WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity
Protest activity surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, which was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations, occurred on November 30, 1999 , when the World Trade Organization convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington,...
. The project joined with that of other media activists and, out of the necessity to bypass the corporate media and report on a WTO conference but also to show how one could bypass corporate software (Windows), the independent media agency Indymedia was born.
Language diversity and the lack of interpreters led a number of activists to start thinking about a way to help militants from around the world to bridge the language barrier. Three years later, during the 27th G8 summit
27th G8 summit
-Overview:The Group of Seven was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition...
in Genoa, Italy, this would lead to the creation of the Babels
Babels
Babels is an international network of volunteer interpreters and translators that was born out of the European Social Forum process and whose main objective is to cover the interpreting needs of the various Social Forums...
network of volunteer interpreters and translators for linguistic diversity and social change.
Members of the Network Liberty Alliance have worked on social IT projects in North America (San Francisco Free Software movement, Chicago community cybercenter), South America (Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
), the Middle-East (Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Occupied Palestine) as well as in the Asia Pacific region (Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Australia, Papua Niugini) and Africa (Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
, Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
).
When the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
fell in 1989, another member of the Alliance, Stefan Ostrowsky, transferred "NET(te) Bude" (a play on the word NET like network, and 'Nette Bude', nice crashpad in German), a community IT training centre to East-Berlin, thus becoming the first 'Cybercafe' behind the iron curtain.