Vote the Geeks for a snoop-free New Zealand

By CHRIS BARTON

The place, if any, of genetically modified food in our society is shaping up to be the empowering issue in the upcoming election. It's a debate set to walk over all others - including traditional big-ticket items such as health, education and crime.

Against this backdrop, information technology issues have very little chance of being heard - unless, of course, they are pushed by a minor political party.

Maybe forming a geek party is not such a silly idea. The Greens have shown what can be done in an MMP environment when badly dressed oddballs stand up for their beliefs. Geek Party membership would be ... well, you know the stereotype: misfits with serious earning potential. The manifesto would be kinda neat, a little wacky and have far too many impossible-to-understand acronyms.

The central campaign plank might be protecting e-privacy - playing on fears of Big Brother electronically snooping on our everyday lives. You can see the TV ad already - slick Minority Report/1984-style graphics and sinister X-Files goons doing sneaky things. For a policy slogan, a party could do well with "Snoop-free New Zealand - say no to the panoptic gaze".

Like GM food, electronic surveillance has many of the elements guaranteed to appeal to voters' emotions: no one really understands what it means, most are uneasy about it, and it's a debate with plenty of misinformation.

Would it work? Political parties might be surprised to find there are quite a lot of paranoid people out there. Stranger things have happened in an MMP New Zealand. Remember New Zealand First and Tuku's underpants?

But if geeks did ever become a political force, what would they demand in the horse-trading that precedes the formation of a coalition government? For a start, they would need plenty of pizza and Jolt Cola and then there would be some very disruptive issues on the table. Maybe something like this:

Copyright is left

Real geeks see the internet as the most democratising influence of all time. Part of its power is its potential to redistribute wealth. So when geeks buy a CD and make its tracks available on the internet as MP3 files, they are genuinely sharing that music with their friends - the millions of other geeks that comprise their worldwide extended family - who they hope will someday return the favour. Ditto for photographs, art, video, movies, books and articles. What about the authors, the artists, the musicians, the movie stars, not to mention the industries, that support them - how do they get paid? They'll still get paid something, say the geeks, just not as much. And it's really not our problem - welcome to the internet age, where entertainment and knowledge is almost free.

Bandwidth for all

If computers and communications devices are the tools of the geek's trade, then bandwidth is their lifeblood. Geeks demand bandwidth and lots of it. They don't particularly care who provides it, but it must be cheap - a necessity of a civilised life like electricity, water and sewage reticulation and roads. As an essential service, it must be subject to either price controls or true open competition so no one provider can corner the market.

There cannot be only one

Real geeks believe with a passion that the essence of the internet is a network of the multitude, by the multitude, for the multitude. As such, they don't want any one company or organisation controlling it. While Bill Gates is the archetypal geek hero, real geeks know he long ago crossed over to the dark side and is now its Darth Vader. To protect truth, democracy and the internet way, geeks will lay down their lives to fight the spread of his influence. Software, like everything else on the net, must be shared for the greater good. That means Open Source - where copyright is left for others to use and improve upon - is the way, the truth and the light.

Hacking is art

For geeks, the ability to hack is a gift only the very few can do well. White-hat hackers are the high priests of their order - and, yes, there are black-hat hackers. But to geeks, hacking is not a crime. It is a legitimate and necessary self-policing activity to ensure security in the internet age. Most would agree that those who damage other computers, steal or cause mayhem should be punished. But just looking is OK. For geeks, the only real e-crime is spam, the scourge of the internet, which must be hunted down and stomped out.

The wails of protest from other political parties, businesses and non-geeks will be long and loud. But geeks know, as their numbers swell by the day, that their time will come - for they shall inherit the earth.

* Email Chris Barton