Wayne Dickson

Save Democracy by Saving the Internet

The reason it's important to keep the internet democratic is two-fold: First, the right of the American people both to know and to be heard is essential to the preservation of our freedom. The fight for net neutrality should not be framed as a squabble about the profits of mega-corporations. Rather it should be framed as a logical extension of the constitutional right to a free press.

Above the entryway of the original library of the college where I teach is the following inscription: "Knowledge Is Power." The principle is true—but it's a two-edged sword. Remember the old saying that "It ain't what you don't know that's dangerous, but what you do know that just ain't so"? The more that Americans' knowledge is filtered by big media before reaching them, the likely it is that Americans' knowledge is going to be limited, misdirected, and biased. In other words, the more that Americans are going to "know" stuff that just ain't so. This is not mere speculation. The phenomenon was disastrously demonstrated during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

One of the features of the debate about delaying Scooter Libby's incarceration that both amused and appalled me most was Libby's lawyers' asking Judge Walton not to release the letters written to him on Libby's behalf…because bloggers might make fun of those who had written! The amusing part is the suggestion that some of the most powerful men and, presumably, women in the country are afraid of what bloggers might say about them. The appalling part is the implication that a few powerful people should be allowed to try to influence the judge to give special treatment to a man who had been convicted of lying and obstructing justice, that these people should be protected from accountability for what they said, and that ordinary Americans should be excluded from the process.

Any way you look at it, though, Libby's lawyers conceded an essential point: Bloggers and other ordinary Americans are potentially powerful. But their power depends on their having access to knowledge and to their having a chance to make their voices heard. In other words, the power of democracy depends now on the freedom of the internet. Please! Do not take that power away from the people and cede it to a plutocracy. Do not allow our democracy to be purchased by the highest bidder.