Table Of Contents

The Online Activist - Tools for Organizing in Cyberspace
by Audrie Krause March/April 1997 Issue
It wasn't so long ago that the hand-cranked mimeograph machine was an essential tool for grassroots organizers. Then it was the photocopier, and, more recently, the fax machine. Soon it will be e-mail.
I'm not talking about Web pages, RealAudio, Java applets, or other fancy applications. Ordinary ASCII type and a cheap, reliable Internet service account are all you really need to be an online activist. Whether you're organizing locally or globally, e-mail is a powerful tool for outreach and advocacy.
Consider the experience of Citizens Against Police Brutality, a grassroots human rights group in Montreal, Canada. Last fall, they learned of plans by a Swiss group to stage an International Day Against Police Violence, and decided to help by doing online outreach to other human rights activists. In November they sent out an e-mail alert announcing a global demonstration against police violence, and offering to coordinate an information exchange between grassroots groups who wanted to organize events in their own communities. Over the next few months, the Montreal activists compiled an e-mail list of more than 40 participating organizations and activists from around the world.
The results: The International Day Against Police Violence, held the weekend of March 14 and 15, saw rallies, demonstrations, seminars, fundraisers, and concerts in Spain, Sweden, Croatia, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Palestine. That's an international protest on six of the seven continents, sparked in large part by e-mail from a single desktop in Montreal.
By using e-mail on a global scale, the Montreal group was able to involve people in a dozen nations and gather follow-up reports on events, without the high cost of using telephones or faxes. Even more remarkable: The activist who did most of the group's outreach, Dee Lecomte, had first gone online just two weeks before the effort began, and she didn't use anything beyond basic e-mail. Nor did she need to.
Basic e-mail is an effective outreach tool, whether you're organizing a demonstration or advocating against repressive legislation. Do you want to stop something, or start something? Are you more likely to achieve your goal by picketing, or petitioning? Once you've defined your goal, you'll want to identify your likely allies. Traditionally, this meant consulting your Rolodex. In cyberspace, it means finding the Usenet groups (also called newsgroups) and e-mail discussion lists where your issues are most likely to be addressed.
You can find discussion lists by using widely available Web search engines like AltaVista, or by visiting Web sites which track e-mail discussion lists, such as Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists (PAML). If you want to start your own e-mail discussion list, the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) offers this service for a modest fee.
Since Usenet groups are all topic-oriented, you'll find the relevant ones if you search by keywords that relate to your issue, in the newsreader that comes with your Internet service. You also can find relevant newsgroups by visiting the Usenet Info Center Web site. One of the most relevant: alt.misc.progressive.activism.
Keep in mind that not all Usenet groups will be accessible, since your Internet service provider decides which are included with your service. For example, PeaceNet's newsgroups are available only to people who receive Internet service from IGC, and America Online's are only available to AOL subscribers.
You can also send electronic alerts to Web sites that feature action alerts, although there is no guarantee they will decide to feature yours. In addition to the MoJo Wire, other sites that host action alerts include IGC, Working Assets Long Distance, WebActive, and InterActivism.
The Internet is vast, and any information you send to one Usenet group or discussion list is likely to wind up on dozens of others. So it's not essential that you identify every single list and newsgroup. If you post information to one or two discussion lists, the chances are good that it will wind up being posted to half a dozen others. But the chances are also good that your e-mail alert will circulate in cyberspace for years, so it's important to include an "expiration" date, along with the necessary contact information. (I'm still getting occasional replies to a sign-on letter to President Clinton urging him to oppose the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which became law more than a year ago when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996.)
Organizing in cyberspace is really not much different than organizing anywhere else. E-mail action alerts are the electronic version of the flyers that grassroots organizers hand out on street corners or at rallies. The difference is that e-mail alerts reach people far more people, reach them instantaneously, and cost nothing to distribute.
Audrie Krause is the founder and executive director of NetAction, a national nonprofit group which promotes the use of technology for organizing and advocacy.

@1997 The Foundation for National Progress
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Not in My Newsgroup! by Mark Frauenfelder
7:23 p.m. April 2, 1997 PST
In his 1970 book, Future Shock, Alvin Toffler included a chapter about the subcult explosion. "The techno-societies," he wrote, "far from being drab and homogenized, are honeycombed with ... colorful groupings - hippies and hot-rodders, theosophists and flying saucer fans, skin-divers and sky-divers, homosexuals, computerniks, vegetarians, body-builders and Black Muslims." These groups give people a sense of who they are, Toffler explained. We "search for an identity by attaching ourselves to informal cults, tribes, or groups of various kinds."
For many years, Usenet has served as a communications center for the thousands of Tofflerian techno-society subcults. Each of the newsgroups on Usenet is a gathering place for people with similar interests to swap ideas and make friends. They're pocket universes unto themselves, with their own jargon, customs, and rules, which help bond the members in the group.
But the groovy feeling of being within the walls of a special clubhouse gets spoiled when spammers and other off-topic posters crash the party. It's like having an Amway salesman invade a wiccan full-moon ceremony to demonstrate his Cleartrak Carpet Maintenance System.
How do newsgroups deal with intruders? Like the average car owner, most denizens of a newsgroup don't understand what's going on "under the hood" of the Internet, so they can only react to Net-abuse with ineffective flames that further pollute the newsgroup. And the few tech-savvy individuals who can recite TCP/IP standards in their sleep and log on to the Net by making modem sounds with their mouths may know how to fight back against Net-abusers, but they've generally done so in an unorganized, redundant manner, resulting in wasted effort. Recently, however, a few of the more tightly-knit groups of Usenet - such as alt.gothic, alt.binaries.slack, and the various warez newsgroups - have formed their own policing units to keep their groups free of off-topic crap. These newsgroup special forces are like neighborhood watch groups, cruising up and down the street in Chevy Suburbans looking for troublemakers.
David Gerard started the alt.gothic Special Forces after the newsgroup became the target of particularly stupid trolls and spams in 1995. "The thing about alt.gothic is that it's got a real community feel to it," says Gerard. "Lots of people on alt.gothic meet their loved ones there. Me, for example. That sort of thing tends to create a wish to protect one's playground. The idea of alt.gothic Special Forces is to make sure these juvenile disruptive morons get the clue that alt.gothic is not a safe place to disrupt."
S.P.(U.T.U.)M. - the SubGenius http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius/ Police, Usenet Tactical Unit (Mobile) - is dedicated to protecting the alt.binaries.slack religious artwork newsgroup, and actually enjoys going after unsuspecting netbozos who trespass on its hallowed ground. "It gives us much Slack (with a capital S) to give Spammers, MMF-posters, and warez-traders NO slack," states the alt.binaries.slackFAQ. "'Bob' does not mess around. Neither do we. Try us." (Their recent treatment of a spammer named Mike Enlow, as I recently reported in Wired News, provides an example of what happens to those who dare invoke the wrath of these fearsome Yeti-human hybrids.) Likewise, the alt.gothic Special Forces page states: "We will kick your arse and not even smear our eyeliner."
One member of alt.gothic Special Forces, who goes by the name of Grimm, says that the biggest disrupters of newsgroup communities are not the spam-happy imbeciles hopelessly trying to make instant money, but the "trolls": morons who - like a kid stirring up an anthill with a stick - post hot-button messages to newsgroups to start energy-shunting flamewars. "The posters (and readers) of alt.gothic all share common interests. We feel very close to each other. When someone tries to harm the things (or people) that I like, I tend to get passionate. If I'm a fascist netcop for that, then so be it. I would encourage any newsgroup to develop a protective force."
Special Forces agent Gerard doesn't give a tinker's damn if you think he's censoring people on Usenet: "Yeah, we're fascist netcops. Deal." However, unlike the buffoonish and decidedly fascistic CyberAngels (check out their spooky world-domination logo on their Web site) who've come to the Net with an inane and obnoxious outsider's agenda (Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa's quoted mission in cyberspace: To "eliminate sleazoids, freakazoids, and cybersluts."), the knowledgeable, technically-skilled Usenet response teams spring directly from the ranks of the newsgroup members themselves. Both S.P.(U.T.U.)M. and alt.gothic Special Forces stress that any policing should come from within the group ("We frown on requests for assistance at policing other groups," says S.P.(U.T.U.)M. spokesperson Dennis McClain-Furmanski). And like the Swiss Army, every able-brained member within the group should consider themselves a part of the response team. "Being organized is the key to successful anti-spamming and troll hunting," explains Grimm. "Each member of a force should have a task, finding all the information on a single luser, discovering a specific type of information on each abuser, or sending mail to their ISP."
Both groups are especially happy when they are able to get a Net-abuser's account revoked. alt.gothic Special Forces has a Severed Troll Heads page with each icon representing a "letter from sysadmin noting termination of account," and S.P.(U.T.U.)M. has a Wall of Shame with certified "kills" represented by little rotating skulls. Other punishment meted out to offenders includes flames; exposure of the user's true ISP, email address, home address, and phone number; and the filing of reports to news.admin.net-abuse.usenet, the user's ISP, the US Postal Inspectors Service Postal Fraud Hotline, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, FBI National Computer Crime Squad, and the Software Publishers Association.
As the arms race between Net-abusers and the Usenet community continues to escalate, I predict that we're going to see the formation of many more policing units. It's another example of the emergent, bottom-up, evolution that occurs in the absence of top-down government control.

The Treaty With Tripoli
This article first appeared in "Progressive World," December, 1955.
By Sherman D. Wakefield
There frequently appears in the Freethought press, of whatever name, a quotation from or reference to that part of the United States Treaty with Tripoli of 1796-97 to the effect that the United States was not founded on the Christian religion. Generally the so-called quotations are misquotations and the words are attributed to George Washington as author. Since there is no evidence whatever that George Washington wrote the Treaty or any part of it, the most that can be said is that he approved of it. . . . He objected to atheists using this quotation and called it "a most flagrant misquotation for evil purposes." To which it should be stated that the passage in question is genuine and is not used for "evil purposes" unless truth and Americanism are evil purposes. This does not refer to the original text of the treaty now in the Department of State files, with the Arabic text on the right-hand page and the English translation on the left, but to an outline drafted by Joel Barlow in English which he used in negotiating the treaty before it was drawn up and agreed to by both sides. Barlow did not alone draft the treaty as it stands, but he worked it out with the Moslem leaders and then translated it into English.

What are the facts regarding this important treaty? In the first place it was not written by George Washington or anybody else in the United States, but in Algiers and signed at Tripoli on Nov. 4, 1796, and at Algiers on Jan. 3, 1797, by Hassan Bashaw, dey or bey of Algiers, and Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul to Algiers. The original is in Arabic and the English text was translated by Joel Barlow. Both texts were submitted to the U.S. Senate on May 29, 1797, and the treaty was ratified and proclaimed in Philadelphia on June 10, 1797. George Washington was president when the treaty was signed at Tripoli, but by the time it reached the Senate for ratification John Adams was president, and it was the latter who presented it to the Senate. Joel Barlow (1754-1812), as U.S. Consul to Algiers, was co-author with Moslem officials of this treaty and sole author of Article XI which contains the non-Christian statement. He was a well-known poet and diplomat of the time and later was U.S. Minister to France (1811-12). Like the leaders among the Founding Fathers of the United States he was a Deist and non-Christian and well knew that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

The part of this treaty of special interest to Freethinkers is, of course, Article XI, but it is seldom quoted in full by them. The complete Article explains why the first part is mentioned and why the Musselmen or Moslems would make a treaty with a non-Moslem nation. The entire Article Xl in the original treaty reads as follows:

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Musselmen,--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mohammedan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever interrupt the harmony existing between the two countries."

Only since about 1930 has it become clear to scholars that the Arabic parallel to the English Article XI is not the original of the supposed quotation but has no relation to it. There is no Article XI in the original Arabic, and in its place is a crude letter of no importance from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. This discrepancy remains a mystery to this day.

Besides the original Treaty with Tripoli of 1796-97 there is a copy still in existence which has some variations from the original. It is called the Cathcart Copy, named after James Leander Cathcart, who became U.S. Consul to Tripoli in 1798. A third document is a translation of the Arabic into Italian, made for Cathcart which is a better rendering of the Arabic than Barlow's English translation. A fourth document is the 4-page ratification and proclamation of the treaty by President John Adams and the U.S. Senate. In 1930 an annotated English translation of the Arabic text was made by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, a scholar of Leiden, Holland, which can be considered the authoritative translation.

Long before the United States came into existence, the Barbary States of northern Africa had gained their revenue from piracy and the European nations had paid them money and gifts for immunity to their vessels. This practice was adopted by the young American republic, and tribute was part of the treaty of 1796-97. Article X of this treaty with Tripoli states that the money and gifts demanded by the bey had been paid. A "receipt" dated Nov. 21, 1796, and included in the treaty acknowledges the following: 40,000 duros (Spanish dollars), 13 watches, 5 seal rings, 140 ells of cloth, and 4 garments, in lieu of annual tribute to Tripoli. A "note" dated Jan. 3, 1797, also itemizes what the United States still needed to pay. The matter was finally settled by the United States paying the equivalent of $18,000 on Apr. 10, 1799.

But the bey of Tripoli still [was] not satisfied. By 1800 he thought he had succeeded in intimidating the Christian nations of Europe and thus thought he could impose new conditions on the United States through U.S. Consul Cathcart at Tripoli. Cathcart refused any more tribute, but on May 4, 1801, the American flag staff was cut down and Cathcart left on May 24. President Jefferson sent out a few frigates to defend American shipping, and in February 1802 was authorized to use all the ships that were necessary including private vessels. The port of Tripoli was blockaded by American ships and bombarded, but not taken. When the bey saw the Americans were too much for him a new treaty with Tripoli was drawn up and signed on June 4, 1805, which called for no further tribute.

The treaty of 1796-97 had been annulled by the war. The treaty of 1805 does not have the passage: "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," but its Article XIV is practically the same as the previous treaty's Article XI with that omission. Like the treaty of 1796-97 however, this later treaty also showed the government of the United States to be impartial in matters of religion--that it had no established religion, and that the question of religion and religious opinions was not to be considered in national affairs. It showed that it was not the policy of the government to compel those within its jurisdiction who are not Christians to act as though they were.

There have been some instances when Article XI of the treaty of 1796-97 helped diplomatic agents of the United States in their dealings with their own or Moslem nations. Mordecai M. Noah (1785-1851), who was special agent to Algiers (1813-15) and helped to secure the release of American prisoners held by the pirates, carried a point in his negotiations by pointing out that the United States government was not Christian. Later, however, he was called home by President Monroe because his Jewish religion was held to be an obstacle to the successful outcome of his work. Noah pleaded that Article XI of the 1796-97 treaty showed that Americans do not need to be Christians, but he had to return nevertheless.

A more important instance of the helpfulness of Article XI involved Oscar S. Straus (1850-1926) who was U.S. Minister to Turkey (1887-89 and 1898-1900) and Ambassador to Turkey (1909-10). In the Spring of 1899, at the beginning of the war with Spain, it was discovered that there were Moslems in the Philippines who might start a Holy War against the United States. Mr. Straus gained an audience with the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, and requested him as Caliph of the Moslem religion to act against this possibility. The Sultan sent a message to the Sulu Moslems of the Philippines forbidding them to fight the Americans as no interference with their religion would be allowed under American rule. The move was successful, and President McKinley sent a personal letter of thanks to Mr. Straus saying he had saved at least 20,000 American troops in the field.
Mr. Straus in his autobiography, Under Four Administrations (1922, p. 147) told how he accomplished this important diplomatic achievement: "In order to be able to take up the matter very fully with the Sultan, I had anticipated all kinds of questions and armed myself with pertinent information. Among them I thought he might seek some assurance as to our Government's attitude toward Mohammedanism, and to reassure him I had come prepared with a translation into Turkish of Article XI of an early treaty between the United States and Tripoli, negotiated by Joel Barlow in 1796 . . . When the Sultan had read this, his face lighted up. It would give him pleasure, he said, to act in accordance with my suggestions, for two reasons: for the sake of humanity, and to be helpful to the United States." It was fortunate indeed that Mr. Straus had the English version of Article XI translated into Turkish for this occasion rather than submit to the Sultan the supposed Arabic version of this Article already in the treaty!

To Representative Hiestand the discrepancy between the Arabic and English texts of Article XI invalidates the authenticity of this Article and what it says about the United States not being founded on the Christian religion. But it should be remembered that it was the Barlow version which was read by President Adams and the Senate and ratified by them. The American government, if not the Tripolitan, agreed that the government of the United States is not founded on the Christian religion.

John Adams, in his proclamation of the treaty, said he had "seen and considered the said Treaty" and "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, had agreed to accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof." And even though the Barlow translation leaves much to be desired, the fact remains that it has been printed in all official and unofficial treaty collections since it appeared in the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress (1797) and in The Laws of the United States, edited by R. Folwell (1799). Article VI of the United States Constitution made this treaty doubly binding by saying: "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Thus Article XI was made valid for the United States, and it should now be treasured as a basic document for the American doctrine of the separation of Church and State. 200th Anniversary of Secular Treaty - June 10, 1997