Kurt Eisner and Aaron Swartz and the Freedom of Information

There's a famous bit of history from 1914. It's called "the blank cheque telegram," and it was sent by the German Imperial Chancellor,  Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to the Austrian ambassador in Berlin on the sixth of July.

"Finally, as far as concerns Serbia, His Majesty, of course, cannot interfere in the dispute now going on between Austria-Hungary and that country, as it is a matter not within his competence.

"The Emperor Francis Joseph may, however, rest assured that His Majesty will faithfully stand by Austria-Hungary, as is required by the obligations of his alliance and of his ancient friendship. - Bethmann-Hollweg

Historians suggest this communication allowed the Austro-Hungarian Empire to begin the Great War (World War I). And this telegram did much to "establish" - in British, French, and American eyes, the "German War Guilt" which would explain the massive reparations Germany was asked to pay in order to have peace.

This telegram was in public hands in 1919 because of an obscure political leader, Kurt Eisner, briefly, in 1918-1919, Minister-President of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. Minister-President Eisner believed in many freedoms, including the freedom of information and the call by the American President Woodrow Wilson that, "there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view." And believing thusly, he dumped the entirety of files of the Bavarian Foreign Office into public view.

Though Bavaria was part of the German Empire, and would be part of the German Republic, it functioned in many ways as the separate kingdom it had been before 1870. It had its own army, its own post office, and though it did not act separately from Germany, its own foreign office. All of Germany's diplomatic correspondence had thus been copied to Bavaria, and thus this Berlin telegram was there...

Eisner is kind of a hero of mine. He believed in democracy deeply, including democracy of the arts and education (he thought new and more diverse playwrites, composers, artists, and authors deserved more exposure), and he believed in a world of open communication.

In the end he was shot, murdered in the street. Diplomacy went back into secrecy.

Ah well.

Here we are in the "now," in the period of Bradley Manning and Aaron Swartz. Of pay walls and locked down internet sites and government prosecutions and the classic midwestern mother bankrupted by the RIAA.

Eisner may have gotten off easy.

In this week after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, about to be tried for freeing publicly-funded research from behind pay walls maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we all need to wonder where we stand, and perhaps we need to take action.

'"Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT," [Leo Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] wrote. "I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took."
"Rief added that he will share the report publicly once it has been completed."

Aaron Swartz

Swartz was facing, "a sentence of up to 35 years in jail and $1 million in fines." Which is far more than many killers get, and incredibly severe considering no one from Wall Street in 2008 even was put on trial. Yup. 

Tweet from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web:
Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep.

Swartz may not be the "inventor of the internet" that CNN called him, "but he was a factor in fashioning some of the Web's upper floors. With his contributions to RSS coding and the Web application framework, Swartz made some of today's more expansive Internet possible. But what Swartz also helped create was a philosophy of the Internet, one that remains the subject of great controversy almost 20 years into its life: the libertarian idea that information wants to be free."

Bradley Manning

Meanwhile, Bradley Manning remains under prison conditions close to torture for, like Kurt Eisner, following Woodrow Wilson's advice.  Because in this country it is the legacy of Michael Eisner, not Kurt, which rules. The Michael Eisner legacy is simple: If you are powerful, you get to profit from the work of others for all time. If you are not, life sucks. Eisner built the Disney empire (ABC, ESPN, etc) by leveraging the copyrights on the work of the long-dead Walt Disney.

"Invent a drug that's a cure for cancer," I tell kids who wonder about copyright law, "and the government will let you own it for a dozen years. Draw a mouse and you've got protection for more than a century."

It's not a system written to encourage the development of intellectual property, and its not a law designed to serve our nation or or world. It is a law written by greedy slobs who've never invented anything, but want to live well in perpetuity off the labors of others.

In the Manning and Swartz cases the issues are particularly absurd. Bradley Manning blew the whistle on horrific military and diplomatic practices. Aaron Swartz freed intellectual content, not from the author/researchers, but from companies like Elsevier who profit simply because moronic university tenure committees prefer pay-walled journals to open sourced journals and blogs.

There is plenty of blame to go around. The United States Justice Department, United States Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama, the administration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Disney Corporation (ABC/ESPN/Miramax/et al), The RIAA, Elsevier and other journal publishers, the members of the Authors' Guild of America, and many more people and organizations who should be held accountable. This group includes the faculties of our research universities who encourage paywalled publishing which benefits only the egos of those who grant PhDs and faculty tenure.

But there are also plenty of fixes possible. Some require new laws, some require personal efforts:

1. Limit copyright protection to 35 years - or less (sign White House petition here)
2. Require that academic research resulting from any form of public funding be published openly and remain freely available (sign White House petition here). This does not suggest that academics cannot create books which are paid for, simply that their research findings must be available.
3. Limit any court judgment for online copyright "theft" (downloading content) to double the retail cost of that content.
4. Fire US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, the prosecutor of Aaron Swartz (sign White House petition here).
5. If you are an academic, stop citing any article not freely available. This is not only the "right thing to do" on this issue, but it is the only way that allows most people to vet your work.
6. If you are an academic, post everything you've written to free sites.
7. If you are an academic, require open publishing for both hiring and tenure.
8. Refuse to purchase books written by members of the Authors' Guild - singled out for the viciousness of their attacks on even disability access.
9. Consider whether you really want to support musicians whose work is protected by the RIAA.
10. Extend full legal protection to military - and other government - whistle blowers.

This is important. Information wants to be free. And it is up to us to make that so.

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning

- Ira Socol

The Madness of Bradley Manning - or - Where Does Responsibility Lie?

Whatever damage the whole WikiLeaks fiasco did or did not do to US Foreign Policy or Global Security, we can now be absolutely sure that the fault lies with neither PFC Bradley Manning nor Julian Assange. If there is "treason" (a charge leveled by, among others, the diseased mind of Bush U.N. ambassador John Bolton) involved, the crime is surely on the hands of a group of US Army officers.

We can watch the video below with deep sadness and deep regret (and we can be thankful that this century allows the global press to investigate the American government, meaning we are not limited in our information to whatever is decided in secret meetings between New York Times reporters and government officials), but I think that we, in education, need to take more away from this case than frustration with the government and the military...

Guardian Video linked to this story.

Let us forget the Arizona Principal (in the above video) handing out private and protected information from Bradley Manning's school records, and focus instead on what we, as "the adults in the room," need to do to protect those in our charge. A lot of "adults" touched Bradley Manning's life. Parents, teachers, school administrators, neighbors, Army officers and NCOs, psychologists and psychiatrists, and government officials up to and including the United States' Secretary of Defense and President (as both Commander in Chief and political leader) - A lot of adults who either saw a kid in trouble or created and/or oversaw policies which created or exacerbated those troubles.

Did they all do the right things? Did they all do what they needed to do? Did they do what they could do? Did they all act in the best interests of Bradley Manning? Or in the best interests of their organizations and institutions?

Were there toxic school environments? Was there a toxic acceptance of homophobia in America's military? Was there an insufficient commitment to counseling and psychiatry in many places?  Did leaders set up an information security system designed to allow a "catastrophic" failure with private information?

"He was being picked on – that was one part of it. Because you know Bradley – everybody said he was crazy or he was faking and the biggest part of it all was when rumours were getting around that he was chapter 15 – you know, homosexual. They'd call him a faggot or call him a chapter 15 – in the military world, being called a chapter 15 is like a civilian being called a faggot to their face on the street."

"The kid was barely 5ft – he was a runt. And by military standards and compared with everyone who was around there – he was a runt. By military standards, "he's a runt so pick on him", or "he's crazy – pick on him", or "he's a faggot – pick on him." The guy took it from every side. He couldn't please anyone. And he tried. He really did. You know what little interaction I had with him personally – it was like he was seeking approval. And he was really good with me but … there were three guys cornering him up front and calling him a chapter 15 – calling him a faggot. There were guys refusing to go in the showers when he was even in the damn latrine. I mean, it was childish and it was hateful and this guy wasn't big enough to just stand up in your face and say: "Knock it off – quit picking on me", and I'll be damned but he tried. You know, there were several times which everyone called "emotional outbursts and tantrums", but what it was was him saying, "Leave me alone."' (Guardian Transcript of interview with soldiers who were with Manning)

"He was small, he was gay and he was a gay in hiding. You don't get into the military if you are gay. If you are gay and in the military, you lied to the military to get in. The recruiter told you, "Oh, don't say that," or someone coerced you and you ended up hiding that part of yourself. He was already a mess of a child to start with. Then you get him in there and expose him to sleep deprivation. When you are already unstable. When you are already incapable of having that mindset of suck it up and adapt and overcome. A soldier in basic training doesn't know that they are a soldier – they just know they have seen one too many war movies, played one too many war video games or listened to Toby Keith too much.

"Here's the reality: basic training is, we build you down then we break you up – or we break you down and we build you up. Manning was not coming back up." (Guardian Transcript of interview with soldiers who were with Manning)

I'm sorry, but I hear these types of stories all the time - from the military and from schools. People know, but people ignore. People know, but supposed leaders think they know better. It is the Elephant in the room when things go wrong.

Gus Van Sant's Elephant

And it is an elephant created by people from the top down and the bottom up. In Manning's case political leadership responding to - or embracing - a psychotic national minority so terrified of their own sexual longings that they build a homophobic nation (if you think homosexuality is a choice, or that people can be "converted" you obviously are struggling not to make that "choice" yourself). And a military and political leadership dedicated to bizarre outmoded visions of masculinity rather than creating an efficient and effective military. And a leadership devoted to knee jerk responses to technological challenges ("we're hiding too much from each other, so we'll share information with everyone"). And a leadership willing to ignore the obvious at every turn ("According to eyewitnesses, the security was so lax that many of the 300 soldiers on the base had access to the computer room where Manning worked, and passwords to access the intelligence computers were stuck on "sticky notes" on the laptop screens").

"Physical doctors and mental health professionals failed on him. Then you have the cadres, the drill sergeants in the DU [Discharge Unit]: they failed on on him. The first sergeant and the company captain at the DU failed him. The judge advocate group that everyone in discharge had to go through, they failed him. That is a lot of people in a lot of offices and this is for a boy who is pissing his pants and curled up in a foetal position on his bunk and constantly screaming or in terror. There are a lot of people and a lot of steps that got missed. That's what I am talking about with the system, or my frustration with the system and how all this happened.

"And yet he was in a DU and the army almost got rid of him. You know, they have no one to blame for everything that's going on except themselves. That's the only reason I'm saying anything. I can't help Bradley out. I tried to help him out then. A few others of us did but I can't do anything to help him. I'm not doing anything to attack the army or the government or the system or anything. I'm just saying a lot of people let him down. He is not the first one they let down and he is not the last one. That shit is going on right now at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It is going on at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and it is going on everywhere there is a training facility. I appreciate you guys taking the time.

"You can't get mad at the bull for wrecking the china shop when you have trapped the bull inside it. Bradley should never have been there. They had the opportunity to get rid of him and they didn't. That was October and November 2007. It is now 2011 and all we are hearing about is Bradley, Wikileaks, and he is the bad guy.

"But the reality is that he should have never have been there. There are a lot of steps and a lot of people who let him down. Me and a few others in the DU tried to help him wherever we could. I'm not doing this because I am lashing out or I'm angry with the government or the system or anything else. I'm disappointed about the fact that no one has said anything to this day about how he was in a DU and that the army was going to fire him, they were going to get rid of him." (Guardian Transcript of interview with soldiers who were with Manning)

When I look at school disciplinary reports I often think of administrators and politicians who begin school too early for adolescents, or subject students to absurdly long bus rides, or who don't give kids time to adjust once they arrive at school. I think of leadership which creates "seat time" rules which force short passing periods in secondary school, which turn the time between classes into cesspools of tension and bullying. I think of teachers who don't let kids stand or move or sit on the floor. I think of national leaders who impose the pressures of standardized tests and the limitations of "common core curricula." I think of classrooms where "my way of doing things" becomes the rule. I think of those who force absurd texts onto kids, of those who strip kids' childhood away via homework. I think of of those adults throughout our community, from parents to Governors, who behave like bullies and think kids won't imitate them. I think of educational leaders who sit back and do "research" while generations of children are destroyed. I think of those who'd rather get rich or get famous than do the right thing for kids.

But mostly I think that we overlook too much. That we ignore our human instincts to often. That we allow things to happen to children despite knowing exactly how wrong it all is.

So when I read the tale of Bradley Manning, I felt sad, but I also felt disappointed in "us." And I think we all need to think about that.

- Ira Socol