issues on the cover, to reviews by women. i don't know what it will do this week, but they started making up as the could. in other places they would be equal or even more women. i don't think it is standardized. also, i could not really answer proportions of male and female writers. it is my view that there are roughly equal. what i do know and i know barbara would confirm this, that women are the majority of the consumers of fiction in this country whether it is by men or women. ..

>> whether the difference of what they're right is discrimination, i don't like the word discrimination so much. i think stereotypes and perceived opinions. i don't think in this day and age -- i think people will feel uncomfortable if they thought they were discriminating, but they are expressing attitudes they have that are very ingrained and very hard to eliminate. and they have to be made aware of that every now and then you'll get a woman writer who will publish under a male pseudonym. that was very common in europe, and i think bruce asked about other traditions. american women writers have very rarely used male pseudonyms whereas in europe, all over europe, this was common to get equal treatment from the critics and from the readers. it happens very rarely here. when it does happen, people are

just confounded. they just can't believe it. i mean, they, they start reading a work that they think is by a man, they react to it in a particular way, and when it's unveiled as being the work of a woman, they don't know what to say about it. they're stunned. and one of the cases that i talk about in jury of her peers and her work is represented in the anthology as well is a wonderful woman named alice shell done who lived in the washington area and wrote with under the name of james tiptry jr. this is quite recent, and she wanted to write science fiction. alice sheldon had been in the army during world war ii. she'd been stationed at a military base. she had a ph.d. in biochemistry, and she had worked for the cia. she was also the daughter of a safari traveler, so she had been all over the world and, you know, hunted wild animals and so on. and when the science fiction started to come out by james

tiptry jr., who is this macho, heroic, wonderful writer? she won -- he or she, james tiptry won all the awards you can get in science fiction. everybody was saying, oh, there is just the best there has ever been, and there was all this speculation this is somebody who, clearly, has been a spy, clearly is a scientist, clearly a military man, clearly a very adventurous man. and then, eventually, james tiptry jr. was outed as a woman. now, when that happened, alice sheldon said, well, that's a relief, i don't have to do that anymore, and she kept writing. nobody wanted to read the work. [laughter] and it's melodramatic to say she eventually committed suicide, which she did, and i don't want to say this is a cause and effect. i don't think it helped. so i think that there is a very persistent attitude about, you know, what kind of work men

produce, and its signature is really what we're talking about here. not creativity, not imagination, not skill, signature. is this a man's name or a woman's name? that's why, you know, a lot -- in europe still, a lot of writers publish under their initials. p.d. james, mystery writers particularly. women writers will publish under initials because they're gender-neutral, and people don't necessarily know whether it's map or a woman -- man or a woman they're reading, and by the time they discern it, it's too late to change their mind. i think all these things make a big difference. >> we've got time for one more quick question. >> nobody has a question, this is my last question. [laughter] if most of the leaders are women, then i don't know whether a poll was conducted, but if you

were to conduct a poll and ask women, okay, are you favorite writers men or women, what do you think the response would be? >> yeah. i don't think it would be very conclusive. because women are very willing to read books by male writers, and i will ask is, you know, the women many this room, i think probably most of you are like me. when you were little girls, did you read books about boys? how many did read books about boys when you were a little girl? you didn't? you didn't? oh, you didn't read the hardy boys or huck finn or anything like that? yeah. and then if you ask the boys, the men in this room how many when you were little boys did you read books about girls? not many. even, you know, the great american girls' book of all time, "little women," which is a book every year somebody will poll and they'll ask the governors, probably even sarah palin has read it -- [laughter] you know, what was your favorite children's book, and all the

women will say little, "little women." it's never been cited by a man. >> [inaudible] >> well, men don't read "little men" either. are there any men in this room who have read "little men"? no way, no way. [laughter] they're not going to do it. and the thing is to read about female experience is feminizing and, therefore, stigmatizing for a man to read about male experience is expanding and positive for a woman. so women will read with happiness work by both men and women. ellie? >> i just was thinking, that's so interesting because she did write under a pseudonym for so many years -- >> yes, right. >> i think it was contraband? the one you've got in here? >> yeah. yeah. >> exactly. some of those are pretty racy. >> they are, and they were read by men. they didn't know.

>> right. >> they didn't know, and there are some things in the book that were written -- i put in some early things by women that are quite violent, not at all what you'd expect of 19th century women. as an indication, i mean, they're very interesting, but there's an indication that women could write anything, but they were expected to write in a certain way. and that, you know, the scorn, the contempt of male writers towards their female competitors, which is what they were, well into the 20th century was just extraordinary. i mean, we're talking hawthorne to hemingway. absolute contempt. and that's because often the women were selling better. it's certainly in part. you can never neglect, you know, as they say look for the money. you can't neglect that as a factor, but there are many other factors as well. well, thank you so much, all, for coming.

it's very kind of you to come out on this storm night, and i really appreciate it very much. [applause] >> author elaine showalter discussing her book "the vintage book of american women writers" at politics and prose bookstore here in washington d.c. is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? e-mail us at booktv@cspan.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> well, there's a new online enterprise just starting up, and it is called the washington with independent review of books. david stuart is the president of this organization. mr. stuart, what is your organization? >> well, it's a group of writers and editors and similarly-minded people mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the

shriveling of book review space in sort of the standard media. a lot of book review sections have been folded, they've shrunk, and it's just harder to find information about what's going on in the world of books these days. coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. so we decided to try to do something ourselves. this is really sort of from the old judy garland/mickey rooney movies where they say, let's put on a show. we decided, well, we would create our own book review. and there's about 70 of us have been engaged in it, and we've just launched and had a great response. it's been a lot of fun and very gratifying. >> host: and, now, what kind of books will you be reviewing on this site? >> guest: a wide range. we're going to really review nonfiction and fiction. we suspect for now we're not going to be looking at children's books, and we won't be looking at romance literature. but beyond that we're quite open.

and we'll be reviewing recently-released books. we hope to get our reviews up within the first 30-45 days after publication. so you can come to us for current information about what are the new books out there. >> host: now, can people submit books to be reviewed as well? >> guest: we'd rather not get the books, but they can certainly bring them to our attention because we'll have to decide if we want to review them. and you can get a lot of books that way that you don't, that are hard to deal with. so we certainly invite people to e-mail us, bring their books to our attention, send us their publicity packets so we know in plenty of time that it's coming and we can decide whether it's one we want to take a shot at reviewing. >> host: mr. stew wart, you said a lot of your reviewers and people involved in the washington independent review of weeks have backgrounds in -- books have backgrounds in

writing and publishing, what's your background, and give us a snapshot of some of the people who will be participating. >> guest: well, my background is i was a lawyer for many years, but i'm now an author, i have done a couple of books on american history, one on writing the constitution, the summer of 1787, one on the impeachment trial of andrew johnson, and i have a new one coming out this fall on aaron burr's western conspiracy, it's called "american emperor." the other folks involved come from journalism, there are book writers as well. we've been so lucky in recruiting reviewers. we've got for a book on the eichmann trial in israel we were able to get judge patricia walt who was on the war crimes tribunal for yugoslavia. we've been able to get leading constitutional scholar irwin shim remember sky to look at a first amendment book for us.

it's, we've just had a terrific response from people. just as an example, pauline meyer at mit who's got a wonderful book out about the ratification of the constitution is going to review a new book on the revolution by gordon wood. so we've really been able to get topnotch reviewers, and it's an exciting thing. and, you know, everybody in this operation works for the same amount of money, nobody's paid -- that includes our reviewers -- so it's just wonderful to see people willing to pitch in to create this conversation about the book, the world of books which is really what we are all about. >> host: and there has been a decline in traditional media review of books, but online there is quite a active marketplace of reviewers. what do you bring to the table that's different? >> guest: well, i think we're going to bring the depth and the quality of our reviewers. we also are doing features, we're going to have author interviews and q&as.

we have a couple of radio interviewer partners who will be putting up podcasts. so we'll provide a full range of information, and i think, you know, the other operations that are trying to do the same thing are doing the lord's work as well, and i certainly support what they're up to, but i think there's room for a lot of voices. and that's important recruiting a viewing books, is that there are a lot of voices. so you're not just stuck with one or two reactions to a new book which may be idiosin accuratic in their reactions. >> host: will you be looking at politically instanted books as well and both at books from the left, right and middle? >> guest: of course. you know, we're, you know, predominantly with washington area writers, we have a lot of interest in political and historical topics, and we'll take them all on from every point on the spectrum.

>> host: and how often will you be putting up new material? >> guest: we'll have new content up every day. either a new, new interview or a new review. as in the early days, we're trying not to set the bar too high for ourselves, but as time goes on, we expect content to become richer and richer and really looking forward to that. >> host: and, mr. stewart, you say you got your seed money through the ai freedom to write fund. what's that? >> guest: it's a writers' organization here in the d.c. area, and the freedom to write fund is a 501(c)(3) that's affiliated with aiw. and we've done very modest fundraiding and would need to do more, but enough to get us up and running, and it's been a great sponsorship. >> host: david stewart is the

president of the washington independent review of books, washington independent review of books.com is the web site. >> coming up, evgeni moore solve, contributing editor to foreign policy, argues that the internet may do more to maintain dictators and hurt dissidents. the author examines the way governments are using the internet to maintain political power. he discusses the book with susan glasser at the new america foundation in washington d.c. this is an hour. >> thank you so much for that terrific introduction and for giving us a platform tonight to talk about evgeni's book which based on my experience over the last two years is guaranteed to provoke, enrage, disturb and, you know, deeply upset half of the audience. so we'll figure out by the end

which half are the utopian half are the cyber realists. i couldn't be more delighted to congratulate evgeni on the publication of this book which has been interesting, taken shape over the last coupleover years. in many ways we've watched sort of the live action on the internet evolution of evgeni's thinking such that we've gone from the early days where he was sort of out there wondering and thinking and, perhaps, hoping there was something called a twitter revolution occur anything moldova. not only are we here to celebrate the publication of his book, "the net illusion," you know, i'm reminded once again of how circular our conversations are. and, you know, here we have the would-be twitter revolution many

tunisia according to andrew sullivan just this very afternoon. so i think i'm looking forward to sort of jumping right into the middle of the conversation with evgeni about these subjects. but with i i have to ask you, first, about can we ever have a twitter revolution in your, many your estimation, or is it really just we have to give up in order to really become cyber villains, we have to give up all of our utopian and revolutionary fantasies about the liberating power of the internet? >> i think much depends on what exactly we mean by revolutions. if you look at what happened in moldova, the initial premise there was that twitter and social media were actually instrumental in getting people onto the streets. later on some people, myself included, began wondering maybe the actual impact wasn't publicizing what was happening

in moldova and getting it on the front page of "the new york times" which happened, and that happened mostly thanks to twitter. back then it was 2009, and it seemed like a very normal event. you fast forward to know now, and you see the events in tunisia also happening in tunisia. it's very hard to think about -- [inaudible] we have this constantly-changing, you know, definitions. the if you look at iran and the twitter revolution there, the initial premise was that, again, it was instrumental in mobilize ing a direct quote from andrew sullivan who made a lot from those events. he publicized them on his blog

and he was the one who, basically, i think, shaped the coverage of the events to a great extent. later many people fortified their positions saying it still helped to generate headlines that eventually made it to cnn. again, it was 2009, and that novelty factor more or less wore off. there are still people watching the e events in tunisia via twitter, and they're still blogging and tweeting everything they see, but i haven't seen much proof. not that it is available yet. maybe it will emerge later that, you know, twitter or any other technology was, you know, the driver of events in tunisia. it probably helped, and the fact that the government has been constantly hacking into the accounts of activists, they have been hacking into their facebook accounts, into their g mail which is a very surprising tactic, that's probably a test

that social media was playing a role, some role in tunisia. i'm just not sure that it is the driver that many people expect it to be. but there's still, it still mattered. still does. >> so go back in time, then, a little bit. tell us about why you decided to write the book and, you know, your own journey from cyber utopianism was today a much more realistic take on, you know, what the internet can deliver in terms of political freedom. >> sure. well, i was born and raised in belarus -- >> not in chernobyl. [laughter] >> no, but close. about 200 miles maybe in a small mining town, actually. we had our own environmental problem. so i was born and raised there and, of course, you know, the subject of democratization and the subject of democracy was always deer to me in part -- dear to me in part because i always watched very closely western response to what was

happening in belarus. to a large extent, that response was never satisfactory. at least as far as i was concerned. back in, i would say, 2005 when there was a lot of buzz in the world about the role that blogs and new media can play in bringing political change -- and, remember, that was just, you know, a year or so, maybe even less, after, you know, the presidential elections here. everyone was still talking about what was accomplished through social media and there was a lot of hope that social networks would absolutely be instrumental in helping mobilize and get out into the streets. you also have to remember that there was still a lot of enthusiasm about the -- [inaudible] in my part of the world there was still the feeling that social media would help.

well, not social media, but, you know, the protest, the people power sort of was on the rise and that, you know, it happened in serbia, in georgia, in ukraine, people in 2006 expected the same thing to happen in belarus. something happened in kyrgyzstan, so the rising power of social media in this very bright future off the freedom agenda, and you end up with a really solid, it would seem to me, assumption that social media and, you know, new media as such will actually play a huge role in democratizing the world. so my first gig after college was actually working with an ngo based in prague, one, using new media and to promote media change but also promoting democratic reform. eventually i became the directer

of new media. so my job was actually traveling around the region meeting with activists, journalists where mostly, you know,. [inaudible] and talking to them about media, how they can use blogs, how they can use social networks to mobilize people. you know, it was a very optimistic kind of ngoish take on how you can actually put the internet to good use. not necessarily for protests, but also small things like publicizing corruption, blogging about the environment, different from cup to country. and i spent -- country to country. and i spent roughly three years, two and a half years doing that, getting to know very closely a lot of the founders working in this space. i got to know people through the

open society institute, i got to know a lot of people who back then were making assumptions about the power of the internet that i myself found reasonable. and, you know, i spent three years doing that. by the end of my, you know, stint, i started seeing that not only where some of our projects not having the desired outcome, many of them, actually, were making things worse in part because, you know, i think there was very little thought put into the right development morals that you need for creating successful media projects. what happened is that most the post-soviet countries had bloggers and entrepreneurs who were already innovating on their own. then you had all of those u.s. agencies coming in with a lot of money and distorting the

incentives up to a point where they would stop innovating until they got another grant. and they would be be innovating at slightly different speeds knowing they can get another grant if they fail in the first place. so i started having a lot of second thoughts about the viability of the model which many of the ngos and many of those countries were introduce today the department of social media. so that was kind of the first alarm. but then i also started looking a little bit closely at how the governments themselves were responding to the internet. and if at the very beginning it was very boring standard response of censorship, all they were doing was banning pages and banning certain murals, you know, banning certain urls, keywords, you know, over the three years i spent doing this work, i realized the response was becoming much more sophisticated. and now within the role of cyber attacks on the web sites of

their opponents, it involved hiring and paying new entrepreneurs and bloggers to create their own projects. it involved buying technology from the west to engage in online surveillance of many of those activists and bloggers, you know? in the case of russia, for example, you actually have an oligarch very close to the kremlin, live journal company which was the leading faction and still is in russia which came as a shock. it was a lot of american and foreign users, and suddenly that happened, and many people, i think rightly so, began to expect that there would be a lot of negative changes with new ownership in -- >> and nobody was chronicling any of this? >> very little of that was chronicled. i mean, the harder side of the depression was chronicled, so we began to see more studies about internet filtering, censorship,

those more sophisticated ways were covered somewhat, but i don't think that there was any systematic overview of what was happening. no one was examining them on a case by case basis. and this is more or less how i came to this, you know, summit and this new -- subject, and this new set of assumptions because i realized there was something fundamentally wrong which, you know, many people many this town were making decisions about the power of new media, but also in terms of assumptions that they make about the government's response to the internet, but also the ways in which, you know, the locals would be using it for what kind of purposes and how it will actually undermine the existing political regimes. so we decided to take more time off and spend more time covering the states as much as i could as a freelancer. but also i started working on this blog, so that's more or

less why i came to -- it was all through, more or less, empirical work of me getting to know many of those problems firsthand as, you know, someone who works through an ngo and eventually transitioning to a more analytical position. >> do you think that it was the green revolution in iran that was sort of the key tipping point for your own views? you know, when you really sort of came to see the consequences of getting it wrong analytically? >> it was definitely a tipping point in terms of understanding that our assumptions about the internet in washington, it was definitely understanding that there is something that i found very politically naive in terms of how the u.s. government viewed. this. but, you know, initial doubts about, you know, the power of the internet much earlier, that would be, you know, 2007, early

2008 where we began examining the space analytically. but i never had much of a connection to the u.s. government's side of this until, i would say, 2009. and in part because i think there was not actually much on engagement from the u.s. government to the internet. the agent is of course, funding. and, again, you -- [inaudible] others who are of course active from this space since probably year 2000. it was never systematized in any kind of freedom agenda, and i'm not sure there was a strategic big master plan for what's being accomplished. most of those projects that involved new media, my understanding is they fit into the broader kind of political and social projects that were implementing in the countries. so it was just an add on to what they were are doing. but i think with the action of obama and with the kind of, you

know, worship that character sized his campaign, i think there was much more of a push in terms of trying to explore the digital space, you know, more strategically. so in 2009 we began seeing the technology delegations of, you know, american executives going on trips to foreign countries to try to sell american technology to local leaders. and then the first of those who was i think in 2009, could be a bit earlier. then, of course, there was the famous outreach from the state department dealing with protests in iran which i also make a lot of in the book. you know, eventually it all came down to the internet freedom speech of hillary clinton in january 2010 which was just the final point that convinced me that, you know, this book and this project, it had a dimension which is not just examining how

goths respond to the internet -- governments respond to the internet, but how the american government and the american political establishment thinks about the power of the internet, but also think thinks about howe the internet for their own agenda. >> that's right. i think there's a lot of sort of edge to your book when you get around to in its own way, your argument is the internet freedom agenda is as miscast as bush's initial freedom agenda was in the sense of the unintended consequences almost certainly of labeling this as a u.s. government policy, i think that's something that most people aren't familiar with that argument, but once they start to wrap their heads around it and they think, wow, had the obama administration succeeded in politicizing something that up until how sort of -- now sort of all the bad guys around the world, they themselves were seeing this as a tool and not as an instrument of national power projection by the united states. >> sure. >> you know, is that how you

think the bad guys look at google and gmail now in a way they didn't two years ago? >> >> yes. but, actually, i would like to expand more on your remarks because i think you're actually hitting the key issue here. of course we all know that there was a lot of support that the u.s. government was giving to democracy, the treebe freedom -- before it became the freedom agenda. >> before you put a label op it. >> more or less i've just outlined up until now there was already a lot of work that the u.s. agencies were doing in this new media space before the emergence of, you know, digital diplomacy or internet freedom buzz words, you know, right? so what i think happened inadvertently is that the u.s. government just overshot the mark. i mean, they really thought that, you know, probably the state department thought that they do have the means to shape the global debate by sort of of

raising their voice and raising the pitch of their voice also on this issue. i think, however, it was a misguided effort for numerous reasons. and also before i get into that, i think we also have to remember that freedom agenda itself, it was never really expanded to any lengths other than in that speech. and that speech itself is much, you know, there is much more -- [inaudible] than actual framework and policy proposals to that speech. but the problem is that speech eventually -- it is examined in conjunction with all of the other policies of the u.s. government and the state department of which, for example, the technology delegations that i mentioned earlier is one. and, you know, the several or at least one big dinner that hillary clinton host, for example, at the state department

for ceos or silicon valley companies. you know, so there are all of those events which, technically, are not related to freedom agenda. but they get lumped into one once we start looking at it because it's all the same actors involved, you know? it's google which is present in the big sign or attacks in china's story, it's also google's ceo who goes to iraq to digitalize the archives of the national museum. these stories connect in ways i think the government did not foresee. but my bigger problem with the internet freedom, i don't know, ageneral da if you want to call it that, they just didn't succeed in building, you know, any reasonable connections to the rest of the u.s. government's policy on the internet. and, you know, it became obvious during the u.s. government's response to wickly ceex which, you know -- wikileaks which many

people in the world took to be hypocritical. and, again, here i don't want to be unfair to the u.s. government. many of the calls -- amazon servers came from senators and talk shows and what not, they didn't come from someone at state d. but most -- state department. but most people in the world still interpreted it as a very hypocritical speech. and now, you know, i'll track the reaction. many people, actually, for the first time read the speech after wikileaks happened because they realized that it just didn't correspond to the actual actions and the climate of debate in america. so, and it's not the only element. i mean, if you look at other concern. >> just to clarify on wikileaks because i think people will be interested. >> sure. >> okay, so you're saying the internet freedom agenda isn't really compatible with how the

government has responded to wikileaks? what's your open view about wikileaks and whether that represents some disturbing new friend, is it something we should welcome, how does it fit into your analysis? >> you know, it definitely fits into it very nicely from the cyber utopian angle because i think -- and that's where -- [inaudible] it's very hard to discuss wikileaks because it's something that's moving. they do not have an identity. they keep changing. in four years that they've been around, they probably changed the entire con conceptual modelr or five times. so if you look at the initial approach that, i think, was extremely cyber utopian. they like many others in the business community, the political economy, the reason that wikipedia is the guide to success in the modern world.

everyone will be cooperating online, people will come together, they all have enough time. they just sit there, and they're just waiting for data and documents to be dumped on them. and if you look at some of the early statements from assange and, you know, now his comments of 2010 describing his views back then, you do feel that he also bought into this, you know, the wiki world of people coming together and cooperating and doing the stuff that newspapers used to do. if you look at it now, it's a different ideology where, you know, all of the cables are published by the mainstream media, i mean, some of them are vetted by journalists and so forth. so they have definitely evolved in terms of their approach to the relationship between, you know, information and change, political and social. and i think that change has been in the right direction. on the other hand, you know, i

still do not fully understand what value wikileaks as an organization brings to, you know, a problem. i mean, they're a core asset which allows people to upload documents enormously and the technology can be duplicated by a newspaper in a matter of days. it wouldn't cost a lot to replicate that technology. if you want to build a secure wikileaks section on a web site, it will be very easy to do. >> great, we'll talk. [laughter] >> so the question is where do they add value? and you can argue that they can make value in which they can contact media and journalists and ngos. and there are probably some global problems on which they can make the argument that they have of superior networks to everyone else. but for local leaks, you know, if you do want to leak something

about corruption in user buy january, the fact that the becauser buy january -- my point is it's clear to me what's the future because i do not see what is the value that wikileaks adds to the process which is about interrupting intermediaries. if you compare them to this emerging model of open leaks, they have -- even though they haven't properly launched yet, their i'd control is we will be able to introduce our data on the web site, and they will play sort of a less prominent role that wikileaks wants to play. to me, again, the future of

wikileaks is not certain. that's why, for example, last week i did a piece for the new republic. i arked that assange should probably, actually, become a leader of a movement for rebuilding the internet infrastructure. and, you know, making -- [inaudible] was that movement is already -- because that movement is already emerging. you do see a lot of projects that want to remake the management system or they want to remake payment systems or they want to remake the hosting system. so many of these new projects that are emerging, all of them are emerging to a great extent because of the reaction of the u.s. government to wikileaks. people have said that it's probably not safe to have the u.s. government be the most powerful country on the internet and have american companies be the most powerful intermediaries because once someone crosses the

u.s. government -- [inaudible] so there are a lot of interesting projects in europe which seek to address that puzzle. so assange, for example, may be to work more on those projects than the leaks themselves. so there are all sorts of options, i think. you know, their usefulness remains to be seen. >> well, that's right. and you actually point out a very interesting consequence we haven't talked that much about. we've talked sort of of about the u.s. piece of this, but what are the consequences of looking at the world of internet activism more through this cyber realist lens that you propose? we're talking about a really sort of renationalization in many ways of the internet, so instead of google as a sort of universal, neutral, you know, player, fine, you've analyzed sort of they remain a u.s. company, they have u.s., you know, values good and bad. but there are some starkly, potentially very negative consequences that come about if you proceed down the road here,

you know? you are the question gets its -- turkey gets its own national e-mail system. what do you see happening as a result of people being newly conscious of this u.s. role in owning the internet spacesome. >> uh-huh. so i think there are two tobacco to haves here -- two factors here. first, as i already discussed, this attempt to embrace the power of silicon valley in terms of promoting freedom and democracy. whether it's through outreach to twitter or facebook, i mean, there is definitely this fear that, you know, twitter is just a cover up for regime change. and, again, i'm simplifying quite a bit, but this is how some governments perceive, you know, american technology at this point. the second aspect here is that -- and this wigs us back to the -- wrings us back to the -- brings us back to the -- it's easier for them to eavesdrop on

conversations and obtain surveillance. you've got the directer of fbi recently touring silicon valley asking the same silicon valley companies as opposed to promoting freedom around the world to build back doors, you know, into the systems. so what you end up with is, you know, government's concerned about the fact that american technology may simply be unreliable and, you know, it may eventually lead to washington, and you, you know, their conversations may actually be, you know, monitored. so as a result, i think what is happening is that there is definitely an effort, and i think it's a trend that i see in places like russia, china and russia where -- and turkey, as you've mentioned -- where there is a lot of talk about trying to replicate some of the key functions. you know, the information society, t e-mail, search --

it's e-mail, search -- [inaudible] social networking, but e-mail and search, for example, now there is definitely a push in some of these countries to cultivate, you know, national champions who would be able to do it all domestically, store all the data in the country and comply with local laws and respond to any demands that would come from the national governments. so instead of -- and, again, some of this we also beginning to see was the kind of problems that, you know, research in motion saying governments want to keep that data at home. they do not want that data to go elsewhere because they want to have access to it before they need. so there is definitely this element of government with rebuilding e-mail systems and search engines. the second trend that i'm seeing is growing, you know, uneasiness

about american software. so you have, for example, the very interesting that, you know, putin in russia, for example, in mid december signed this yearlong executive order ordering, you know, all of the public institutions switched to open source systems by, you know, 2015. some of it is driven by economic considerations, for sure. again, you have to train people, but my understanding is that such efforts are delivered mostly by fears that proprietary software is harder to monitor. it's code if you compare it to open source versions. and be open source versions just, you know, minimize the risks that, you know, the -- [inaudible] leading to america. so now you have the iranian minister of information announcing that they want to build an open source operating

system because they fear for a good reason that, you know, some of their nuclear facilities may be compromised if it depend on proprietary software. and we all know that because they had this problem with their malware last year. and it's not just russia and china, we are beginning -- russia and iran. you know, i see some signs of that happening in china as well. so, i mean, the response is really logical and straightforward. it's trying to maintain information sovereignty, you know? they want to laugh -- [inaudible] hardware and software, but the same thing is happening in america and the european union where governments are reluctant to buy hardware from china because they feel there will be

back doors. but the fact that we also have this additional regime change kind of factor in the freedom agenda, it's an additional fear. >> so just to pull back to sort of the high altitude questions that the book raises, you know, there's an american audience, the book is largely pitched to an american audience. we are, by nature side we're utopians, right? we've been taught for this is, now, our second decade of believing that the internet is transforming our world very largely to the good even if in perplexive and disruptive ways. what do you come -- where do you come down at this point and recognizing you might be evolving to in your views on this, okay, so what's wrong with having an anticorruption web site in azerbaijan or an environmental blog in russia or

mobilizing people in, you know, outside iran to support the protest movement? >> sure. >> this, clearly s a tool for any kind of political expression, organization or activity as we know it here in the united states. so what's wrong with that? i mean, aren't you falling prey, to a certain extent, to the very thing that you're critiquing which is that this is a tool, after all. it can be good, it can be bad. >> uh-huh. well, you know, i should probably make an additional disclaimer, i also am associated with the, on the boards of the information program where all we do grsh. >> so you not against democratization -- >> no, no, no we try to understand how you actually use information and technology to open up many of the countries that, you know, need opening up. so to me there is really no question that they can be used for good and democratization. so many of the initiatives you mentioned, you know,

anti-corruption web sites, everything about what's happening, all of them, you know, in themselves. the question really is from the perspective of someone with limited resources, you know, how do you -- and here i am talking about the u.s. government -- and someone who carries a lot of historical political baggage and then you talk revolution in iran is probably not a good idea when there is an american government person saying that. so my question really is it's not, you know, how do you as someone who has good intentions and some space to work in, how would they maximize the position of the internet while minimizing the impact that your previous

history of foreign policy blunders are likely to have on your strategy. this is why i'm trying to outline this strategy of, you know -- [inaudible] because i think that right now our entire paradigm is wrong because it's just full of assumptions which are no longer tenable. and, you know, most of those assumptions are assumptions about how the internet works in the abstract. yes, it opens up government, it transforms change, but, you know, if you know nothing about a country like azerbaijan or any country that's not in the news every day, if you don't know much about the cultural, religious, political forces that form that country, unlikely you'll understand the impact is to have on it.

so part of my agenda in the book is to transform this debate on the impant of the internet in the abstract to the impact of the internet in particular contexts and environments. so we forget theorizing. that logic will be shaped by what's happening locally, and it's to the local conditions that we need to be much more attentive. and if you come to a country like russia and you think there are good guys who are fighting the government and then there are the bad guys and there is nothing in between. you analyze how it dis'em pars the bad guys. you just mis99% of, you know -- miss 99% of the kind of changes -- [inaudible] so you have to consider how the facts, the role of nationalism versus ethnic minorities in russia. all of those will be transformed

by the internet. i'm actually the guy who's saying -- >> right. it's not all the to the good. >> yes, well, many of those processes are not by themselves, you know, enhancing democratization. so, yes, many of them will be amplified. but before we get to this point where we can -- [inaudible] we fest need to examine the -- first need to examine the social contact that it's supposed to transform. and, of course, since all countries are different, we are bound to end up with different policies which we'll never be able to aggregate them. i mean, to me that seems straight forward. and so the problem is that there are differences and there are institutional and procedural deferences in terms of how you can approach this space. you can get a lot of -- [inaudible] to spend their days thinking

very hard about how technology will transform russia, egypt, you know, tunisia. or you can do the exact opposite, you can get people who know something about those countries to think very hard. i don't think that there is so much complexity in what the internet does, you know? it lowers transaction costs, it makes it easier for people to communicate. i mean, that's it. you just don't know exactly how those factors -- [inaudible] unless you know what the environment is like. >> well, you know, that's almost as good a place as any to bring many your voices as well to hear what you have to say about this because i think it's one of those conversations we're going to be having five years from now and ten years from now -- >> i hope. [laughter] >> well, i'm really stuck in many ways the parallels ofyou

know, the internet facilitates stalin terrorists in russia more than western democracy actors in russia, right? and look at al-qaeda on the internet, i think, is a good example. that fundamentally challenge cans notions here of the internet as a force for good. it also turned out to be an incredibly effective tool. wishes to communicate honestly across continents. and i think we've come to the realization of that over the last few years in a way that probably wasn't immediate obvious in 2003 and 2004. >> uh-uh. >> um, if we can get your questions, we will try to do as many as we can wheel we still have time. we'll start here in the front row and hope to move backward as

quickly as we can. could you give i your name and your organization? >> hi, robert schroeder, international investor. thank you for the talk and the book. just today we saw that there was a report out that our own government has been requesting the twitter records to see those that may have been looking for wikileaks information. >> uh-huh. >> there was also a report mentioned today that a senate subcommittee is upset that, apparently, there has been some cyber attacks, cyber offense directed by some members of our intelligence community against other nations that they were not informed of before these tests

were connected. >> uh-huh. >> so we are, undoubtedly, seeing that our own government is getting involved in this. do you see that there'll be any efforts made to restrain our own government in the future, and how would you say ha this balances out -- that this balances out against what you fear other governments might be doing? >> efforts by whom? you mean the u.s. government, whom do you expect -- the u.s. government? >> well,. [inaudible] in some form. >> i mean, it's a tough one. i mean, there are, definitely, signs that the u.s. government is much more concerned about the impact of the internet to national security than it ever was. up until now in part payoff with wikileaks, in part because now they suddenly discovered that there are a lot of people around the globe who just with the help of their computer can, you know,

launch a cyber ea tack -- cyber attack. and that was just them at first. it's not organize od crime. in europe in and elsewhere they just feel passionate about wikileaks. so there is definitely, i think, the severeness of the threat that the internet poses. i'm just not sure that the is new more, any less, you know, generous if you want to put it in terms about the internet. i mean, you get, you know, the person who actually is extremely, i think, concerned about the internet who has been, you know, calling for an internet kill switch, to have a button to turn it off to, you know, prosecute anyone connected with wikileaks is joe lieberman. so you do get -- i just don't think that this change will come. it will come from conquerors.

they appear or actually much more adepress e here than the government it, and they are the ones who are accusing department of justice for the very wicked reaction to assange. so i think, if anything, the change will come and the pressure will come from some of the gigs who are not yet part of, you know, big companies. there are still a lot of very influential people in silicon valley who are concerned with the direction we should be going. many of them are speaking up. i don't know if the pressure of civil society will be enough, but as lawrence vlasic said, i mean, all it will take for the u.s. to pass a -- [inaudible] b is an i-9 11, and i don't think that's the reason for his -- [inaudible] you know? so my response is, you know, we

have to have as much power to shape that as we have in patching the past -- [inaudible] so i'm not particularly enthusiastic, but i also don't think that there is much pressure that you can expect to come from a -- it's not that russia or china will be speaking up or, you know, the european union is in a war also with american companies when it comings to the privacy policy, but they are asked, supported from the u.s. efforts in cyber war fair. much of what happens on the nato level you should be looking up in the european states. and if you look at a country like's taupe b ya which now -- estonia which has a volunteer army during peacetime who call themselves -- it's an official entity -- ca t