When Dave Briggs asks ‘how close is local?’ on the Local Democracy blog, he asks a very important question about democracy. If democracy is to be the rule of the the people, asking ‘how close is local?’ is asking the perennial question of democracy: which people? Knowing who is governed is as important as knowing that those people govern themselves.

Our democracy is stratified like a company organisational chart. A simplistic drawing would show Government at the top and parish councils at the bottom and a myriad of other organisations with decision-marking powers over any number of areas of our daily lives arranged on the intervening levels. An upper tier has a more inclusive scope than a lower tier and roles and responsibilities are appropriately distributed according to scale and competence.

Well, that’s the textbook anyway.

Dave’s post to LD highlights the problem with that model and the institutions and relations conditioned in practice. Locality is as fluid as other post-modern political problems such as community and identity. Localities dependency is perspective and there are many perspectives.

So how do we get away from institutions, or ’structures’ as Dave said, that are out of perspective with locality, community and identity? Well, as a good post-structuralist and radical democrat I’m not disappointed by exploring that dependency. A broad and rich body of research exists exploring precisely this area of political geography. Indeed, this theme was central to my papers in ‘Hacking the Networked Society’. ‘Who governs in a networked society’ explored precisely this growing disjuncture between institutions and governmental frameworks in our contemporary networked society.

Many boosters talk up the potential of new media in its self to engender new forms of political communications which will have meaning at any / all different tiers of locality. I’d say that is simply twittering round the edges, a confusion of quantitative changes, i.e. more engagement, and qualitative changes, i.e. new / different modes of engagement.

Dave’s general point about linkages still stands however. Stronger and meaningful relationships between ‘the people’ and ‘the people when they govern’ need to replace those tried and tired tiered relationships of our contemporary democratic settlement.

“The Climate Rush is a group of gallant women and intrepid men who will act now to save the world.” This is anarchism for the middle classes, or at least those that don’t want too much risk when out protesting. This group came to popular attention last year with a take-over of Parliament Square celebrating the centenary of the Suffragette Rush and campaigning in support of three demands: No new coal power stations, an immediate stop to all airport expansion, and 80% reductions in carbon by 2050. With number three ticked off, this group are about to tackle number two with a protest on Monday 12th January 2009, the day that MPs return to parliament.

When the Evening Standard reported this (18th Dec 2008) it was suggested that “the protest could emulate the sit-in at Bangkok airport that led to it being shut for several days.”

One source said today: “If there are only 50 of us I doubt it will stop the airport from running but if there are 500 of us that is a lot of protesters in the check-in area. If we are really successful, we could attract thousands down there and that would stop the airport functioning on the day.”

So, what’s the plan?

“We will arrive in Edwardian dress (under a big coat!) with hampers of food to have our ‘Dinner at Domestic Departures’.”

Not quite the same as the boots and balaclavas of the anti-Stansted expansion special-forces. But the idea is similar. Go to an airport in some kinda costume, make a spectacle for the media and disrupt the normal operations of the airport.

Which will be fun! In the photos of the Parliament Square invasion, everyone looks like the are having a riot! Save the planet and have fun!

This is civil disobedience. “Civil disobedience on grounds of conscience is an honourable tradition in this country, and those who take part in it may well be vindicated by history” Lord Justice Hoffman

On the recent granting of bail to Climate Rush organiser Tamsin Omond, District Judge Michael Snow spoke of the need for ‘proportionality’ in civil disobedience cases, and his reluctance to refuse bail to someone who was “simply exercising her democratic right to protest”.

“The word ‘democratic’ is key here. The idea of democracy is perhaps the key to explaining why middle-class fathers and middle-aged ladies are donning sashes and chanting slogans all of a sudden.”  - Hazel Cullen at Greenvoice

I’m looking forward to this. It’ll be interesting to see how The Climate Rush get on. It’ll also be a great test of the surveillance and policing of the public transport links to London and Manchester’s airports (climate change protesters wouldn’t drive, would they?) Can anti-terror police and airport security spot and intercept a potentially large number of people wearing concealed Edwardian dress and carrying hampers, heading to the airport? Or will 50? 100? 500? 1000? people be able to just walk right up and sit down to a picnic in the domestic departures area of two major airports? Imagine if all of the Campaign against Climate Change marchers, something like 7500, turned up at airports and just sat down…

“BAA is understood to have invited Ms Omond to talks to discuss the protest.” Perhaps BAA do feel threatened! Perhaps they think she’ll call it off if they ask nicely.

Merry Christmas everybody.

I’ve got my decks out and spun round a few new tunes for a merry mixxmas session 2008. It’s all about playing track 10. Seriously. You’ll understand when it drops (about 40mins in…)

Tracklisting:

1. Plump Night Out ‘Elektonaughts Bumper RMX’
2. Brothers Bud ‘Remedy’
3. Plump Night Out ‘Pucker Up! Pucker Up! RMX’
4. Brothers Bud ‘The Sting’
5. Beat Assassins ‘vs’ Ludacris ‘Stand Up’
6. DJ DefKline and Red Polo ‘Can I Dance’ (The Like A Bear Mix) - Ghetto Style Guaranteed
7. Crisp Biscuit ‘Brooklyn Banger’#18
8. Dreadzone ‘Once Upon A Time [In Jamaica]’ (Brothers Bud Mix)
9. 3DB ‘Baader’ (Dreadzone Mix)
10. Bassbin Twins ‘Woppa’ [Cool And Deadly]
11. Son Of Kick ‘Bad Groove’
12. Twin Motion ‘Scream!’
13. JDS ‘Scorpion’
14. Beat Assassins ft Ragga Twins & Yolanda ‘The Hotness’

Enjoy.

Earlier this week 50 or so Plane Stupid activists managed to breach Stansted Airport’s perimeter security fence. Idiots. If someone really wanted to shutdown an airport and cause over a week of disruption, all they would have to do is get enough people to sit down.

Last month anti-government protesters in Thailand where able to close the country’s major international airport for over a week. Hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of flights were disrupted and rerouted where possible. The world’s attention was focused on the protest, shining a light onto the political problems in the country. Most amazing was the peaceful passing off of the protests. I doubt that within a few days the mass sit-in will fade, becoming just a surreal memory. This protest was a success, internally and internationally.

The Beeb asks a few questions, some of which are pertinent to the Plane Stupid protesters:

• How could a country as advanced and as dependent on exports and tourism as Thailand allow such a vital transport hub to be stormed by a mob that never numbered more than a few thousand?
• What is the PAD, and what gives the movement the confidence to commit its dramatic acts of economic sabotage without fearing any legal sanction?

No more than a few thousand people halted a major international airport for over a week. This large group took action with impunity; Thai police could not or perhaps would not use force against these protesters.

Now, how does all this relate to the old-school black-ops methods of Plane Stupid this last week? To my mind the protest which closed Stansted was a flash in the pan, a stunt. The airport authorities and police responded with force, treating this militaristic assault on key infrastructure as a terrorist attack. Rightly so! What if these were not Plane Stupid protesters but rather stupid hi-jackers?

Environmental protesters like Plane Stupid should take notice of Flash-mobbing, silent raves and other network-powered interventions in the public space. Organise a flash-mob of an airport, all the airports! Just get a lot of people to head to their nearest airport and just sit down….

Here are a few steps to taking over every airport in the country on one day…

1. Pick a day, any day and a time… just make sure its far enough in the future to allow your network of activists to…
2. …Buy up tickets on the cheap flights (this is the important part) on that day all around the same time.
3. On the scheduled day, set off with a packed bag, a passport and a ticket to local airport - this is the black-ops part, when the radical environmentalists disguise themselves as people going off for the weekend on a cheap flight.
4. Wait for the agreed time and sit down.

If Plane Stupid or another similar group were to co-ordinate such an action this would be a flashmob of epic proportions causing much more serious and significant disruption to air travel infrastructure.

Yet the real beauty of this networked direct action is that the Plane Stupid protesters would most likely be able to close every airport in the country even without having to turn up on the day. The very threat of this direct action and very fact that of it being discussed openly, perhaps via Facebook or a custom social network site hosted on Ning, would probably be sufficient for the authorities to seriously reconsider opening airports on the appointed day.

Some may call this weeks action by Plane Stupid terrorism, others may call it civil disobedience. What I’m proposing here combines direct action and electronic civil disobedience backed up with the threat of real people turning up and paralysing infrastructure in a very public way. For the cost of a place ticket on, say, the 1st April 2009 (which is cheap if booked now) Plane Stupid could close every airport in the country…..

Just a thought.

So, some digital information has leaked from its home. Its been played with by an excel monkey and plotted on maps. It shouldn’t have happened, but it has. Doh! doesn’t quite cover it when I think of the stupidity of some people.

While there are many political uses of the information, the lists of names of membership of any organisation should be kept private. Lists of names, as Tom Steinberg (MySociety) said, start us down a path best not begun. There are lots of lists of names missing or lost about the place, perhaps they shouldn’t be seeded as torrents or publicly searchable. Just because there are techniques to mash this data and present it in interesting ways (against ethnicity data, or social deprivation indexes, or just against voter turnout) does not mean that anyone should.

From an Information Governance and Information Security perspective, these BNP kids are going to have to get their act together. The Information Commissioner is going to want to have words with them. Perhaps there will be court proceedings for breech of human rights act and data protection legislation; although perhaps in not quite the way that Nick Griffin expects, with claims against the BNP for negligence.