linked autonomous groups and individuals.
11 Their activities broadsided state policy-makers
involved in the negotiation process and by some accounts led to the eventual cessation of
the MAI negotiations. The MAI campaign, in turn, morphed into a broader platform of civic
networking around antiglobalization, most notably characterized by the street demonstrations
of Seattle, Quebec City, Genoa, and elsewhere.
12 Today, this broadly distributed network of
individuals concerned with economic and social justice continues to bristle with Internetbased political activity, although street demonstrations have been mitigated in the post–9/11
security environment.
Another celebrated networking campaign of resistance occurred in support of the Zapatista
liberation movement.
13 The Zapatistas are a revolutionary national liberation group based in
the Mexican province of Chiapas. Beginning in the early 1980s, the Zapatistas formed an
armed independence movement that attracted an international web of support among antiglobalization and other activists. Hacktivists in support of the Zapatista cause developed distributed Denial-of-Service tools that were employed as mechanisms of protest against the
Mexican government, and brought forth one of the first instances of online civil disobedience.
14 The methods of the Zapatista electronic civil disobedience campaign were, in turn,
duplicated in other similar acts directed against perceived injustice and corporate power
throughout the 1990s, with ambiguous but always controversial results.
15 The rise of resistance networks, in turn, drew the attention of state intelligence and law enforcement
worldwide.
16
Over the past several decades, the Internet has provided a technological foundation and
material support for the massive flourishing of advocacy, rights, and justice movements worldwide. These movements have pressed upon traditional structures of political participation in
ways that many believe are contributing to a fundamental change in world order. At the very
least, these network-enabled transnational social movements have altered the operational environment for states, international organizations, and corporations who have been forced to
address civil society stakeholders in all policy arenas. In some cases, such as the so-called
color revolutions of the former Soviet Union, civic and resistance networks have actually
been responsible for the overthrow of long-established authority structures.
Internet Protection and Hacktivism
The importance of the Internet as a material foundation and explosive engine for civic and resistance networks has not gone unnoticed. Within a dynamic, technologically savvy sector of
civil society, a transnational social movement has emerged around what might be called Internet protection—that is, collective securitization whose aim is to uphold the Internet as a forum
of free expression and access to information through advocacy, training, policy development,
and technological research and development.
17 Though coming at the problem from different backgrounds, Internet protection advocates are beginning to network around a shared
Global Civil Society and the Securitization of the Internet
127
11 Their activities broadsided state policy-makers
involved in the negotiation process and by some accounts led to the eventual cessation of
the MAI negotiations. The MAI campaign, in turn, morphed into a broader platform of civic
networking around antiglobalization, most notably characterized by the street demonstrations
of Seattle, Quebec City, Genoa, and elsewhere.
12 Today, this broadly distributed network of
individuals concerned with economic and social justice continues to bristle with Internetbased political activity, although street demonstrations have been mitigated in the post–9/11
security environment.
Another celebrated networking campaign of resistance occurred in support of the Zapatista
liberation movement.
13 The Zapatistas are a revolutionary national liberation group based in
the Mexican province of Chiapas. Beginning in the early 1980s, the Zapatistas formed an
armed independence movement that attracted an international web of support among antiglobalization and other activists. Hacktivists in support of the Zapatista cause developed distributed Denial-of-Service tools that were employed as mechanisms of protest against the
Mexican government, and brought forth one of the first instances of online civil disobedience.
14 The methods of the Zapatista electronic civil disobedience campaign were, in turn,
duplicated in other similar acts directed against perceived injustice and corporate power
throughout the 1990s, with ambiguous but always controversial results.
15 The rise of resistance networks, in turn, drew the attention of state intelligence and law enforcement
worldwide.
16
Over the past several decades, the Internet has provided a technological foundation and
material support for the massive flourishing of advocacy, rights, and justice movements worldwide. These movements have pressed upon traditional structures of political participation in
ways that many believe are contributing to a fundamental change in world order. At the very
least, these network-enabled transnational social movements have altered the operational environment for states, international organizations, and corporations who have been forced to
address civil society stakeholders in all policy arenas. In some cases, such as the so-called
color revolutions of the former Soviet Union, civic and resistance networks have actually
been responsible for the overthrow of long-established authority structures.
Internet Protection and Hacktivism
The importance of the Internet as a material foundation and explosive engine for civic and resistance networks has not gone unnoticed. Within a dynamic, technologically savvy sector of
civil society, a transnational social movement has emerged around what might be called Internet protection—that is, collective securitization whose aim is to uphold the Internet as a forum
of free expression and access to information through advocacy, training, policy development,
and technological research and development.
17 Though coming at the problem from different backgrounds, Internet protection advocates are beginning to network around a shared
Global Civil Society and the Securitization of the Internet
127