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[ PMLA theories and methodologies Electronic Civil Disobedience: Inventing the We see that a certain revolutionary type is not possible, but at the same Future of Online time we comprehend that another revolutionary type becomes possible, not through a certain form of class struggle, but rather through a molecular rev- Agitprop Theater olution, which not only sets in motion social classes and individuals, but also a machinic and semiotic revolution. —Félix Guattari (qtd. in Raunig) #$%&#'( '()$*+,-. We follow the speed of dreams. —Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, !e Speed of Dreams (2007) CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE STAGED THE THEORY OF ELECTRONIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (ECD) AS A GAMBLE AGAINST A FORM OF THE ALL- too- present future of “dead capital,” otherwise known as late capital. In our 1994 book !e Electronic Disturbance, Critical Art Ensemble argued that dead capital was being constituted as an electronic com- modity form in constant !ow (11). Capital had been, was, and would continue to be reensembling itself, as the contemporary elite moved from centralized urban areas to decentralized and deterritorialized cyberspace (13). For Critical Art Ensemble, it was clear that cyber- space, as it was called then, was the next stage of struggle. "e activist reply to this change was to teleport the system of trespass and block- age that was historically anchored to civil disobedience to this new phase of economic !ows in the age of networks: “As in civil disobedi- ence, primary tactics in electronic civil disobedience are trespass and RICARDO DOMINGUEZ is an associate pro- blockage. Exits, entrances, conduits, and other key spaces must be oc- fessor at the University of California, San cupied by the contestational force in order to bring pressure on legiti- Diego, in the visual arts department; a mized institutions engaged in unethical or criminal actions” (Critical Hellman Fellow; and a principal investiga- Art Ensemble, Electronic Civil Disobedience 18). As we imagined it in tor at the California Institute for Telecom- the early 1990s, electronic disturbance was the core gesture that could munications and Information Technology (CALIT2). His recent project on nanotech- initiate a new “performative matrix” (Electronic Disturbance 57). nology, Nanosférica, which he created with However, the conditions for this perfomative matrix came not *particle group*, will be presented in the from digital networks but from Chiapas, the southernmost state of online journal E-misférica in fall 2009. Mexico and the site of the Zapatista uprising on 1 January 1994. "e /012 [ © 3114 56 78- )('-#* 9&*+,&+- &::(%$&7$(* (; &)-#$%& ] /3A.B Ricardo Dominguez ] theories uprising contested the implementation of to send an automated reload request every the North American Free Trade Agreement seven seconds to Zedillo’s page. Reports from (NAFTA), a signature economic structure of participants and our observations con<rmed neoliberal globalization. It also happened to that the more than ten thousand participants and methodologies be the moment when Web- browser technol- in this first FloodNet action intermittently ogy was <rst launched and war analysts such blocked access to the Zedillo site on that day. as David Ronfeldt et al. announced, “Cyber- "e next electronic action was taken against war is Coming!” (15).= "ese events cascaded the Clinton White House Web site on 10 May into one another, and an otherwise invisible 1998. A similar FloodNet device was deployed, rebellion by indigenous groups became the but this time reload requests were sent every <rst postmodern revolution, connecting inter- three seconds. But because <ve mirror sites, national electronic- support networks with the most of which did not have counters on them, struggle on the ground. "e RAND Corpora- were used, we do not have an accurate account tion—the premier research- and- development of the participants’ numbers. And because re- think tank serving the United States armed ports about blockage of the White House Web forces—defined the emergence of the Za- site are lacking and the White House page pre- patistas, digital Zapatismo, and the alter- sumably exists on a much larger server than globalization movement as a “new approach the Zedillo page, it seems that the Clinton Web to social con!ict” and as an important type of site was not e?ectively blocked on 10 May. “social netwar.” Social netwar was a new social FloodNet so@ware created a new mode of formation that did not <t the paradigms “cy- online communication, which amplifies the berwar” and “cyberterrorism” but instead cre- gaps in data (by asking what is missing in the ated a transversal activism that drew “on the databases’ power) and overwhelms a site with power of ‘networks’ and strengthened ‘global requests for information. FloodNet makes visible civil society’ in order to counter balance state what is invisible or without presence in govern- and market actors” (Ronfeldt et al. 15). ment and corporate servers through the Dada- The Zapatistas not only ripped into the ist force of the response “404_<le not found.” electronic fabric of First World networks; more Brett Stalbaum, a cofounder of EDT, frames the important, they created new types of political “404_<le not found” gesture within the arc of subjects and new conditions for agency on a conceptual network- art (net .art) history: global scale. "e online agitprop performance group the Electronic Disturbance Theater FloodNet is an example of conceptual net .art (EDT) created a mass- demonstration ma- that empowers people through activist/ artis- chine (FloodNet) that enabled “virtual sit- ins” tic expression. By the selection of phrases for use in building the “bad” urls, for example that could connect mass actions on the streets using “human_rights” to form the url “http:// to alter- globalization communities online.> www.gb.mx/human_ rights,” the FloodNet is On 22 December 1997 forty- <ve indigenous able to upload messages to server error logs people in Chiapas, in the small community of by intentionally asking for a non- existent url. Acteal, were killed by a paramilitary group; "is causes the server to return messages like it was this massacre that pushed ECD as a “human_ rights not found on this server.” theory to hit the ground as a practice. EDT was created, and on 10 April 1998 FloodNet "e “404_<le not found” gesture is an infor- Tactical Version 1.0 was launched—a three- matic cavity that repeatedly uploads into the hour ECD action against Mexican President infrastructure of power all the people who are Zedillo’s Web site. "e action used a Java ap- missing, disappeared, and killed by the direct plet reload function, the <rst test of FloodNet, or indirect consent of that power and makes Electronic Civil Disobedience: Inventing the Future of Online Agitprop Theater [ PMLA them all visible to that infrastructure as an paradigm that we have established—as trans- over!ow of “not found” con<gurations. "is parent civil acts of disobedience and not as aberrant function of browser- based technol- “cybercrimes.” Rawls expands on the public ogy allowed the weightless dreams of cyber- dimension of civil disobedience: space to reinforce the unbearable weight of all that was absent from the infrastructure of Civil disobedience is a political act in the governance and from the neoliberal drive that sense that it is an act justi<ed by moral princi- ples which de<ne a conception of civil society and methodologies was solidifying a relation between the global market and information in Mexico under and the public good. Civil disobedience is a public act which the dissenter believes to be NAFTA at the time of the Zapatista uprising. justi<ed by the conception of justice and for this reason it may be understood as address- theories Electronic Civil Disobedience and the Law ing the sense of justice of the majority in order to urge reconsideration of the measures pro- In what ways does ECD <t the legal de<nition tested and to warn that in the sincere opinion of civil disobedience? In 1998, online-activist of the dissenters, the conditions of social co- actions were o@en framed as potentially ille- operation are not being honored. (358) gal, as a form of “cybercrime” known as DoS (Denial of Service) or DDoS (Distributed De- "e legal scholar William Karam points out nial of Service): that EDT’s online activism shares two impor- tant features with civil disobedience: deliber- A denial- of- service attack (DoS attack) or ate unlawfulness and accepting responsibility. distributed denial- of- service attack (DDoS He writes that EDT members “have commonly attack) is an attempt to make a computer re- used their real names and openly accepted source unavailable to its intended users. Al- responsibility for their actions. "oreau’s though the means to, motives for, and targets ideas are equally applicable to hacktivism in of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted, malevolent e?orts of a per- the information age.” Similarly, Dr. Dorothy E.