E-democracy: an urban legend?
February 5, 2009
My last few posts have only really discussed E-government in a positive light; However there are many people out there that would argue that putting government online isn’t democracy at all. There are some that would even consider it a hoax, our very own 21st century loch-ness monster.
The world bank and amnesty international define Democracy as a collection of civil, human and market rights. Yet through out the world we have laws that take them away. The Patriot act in the United States allows for surveillance of all internet usage in the name of terrorism, could that possibly mean that one day a terrorist will mean someone that disagrees with the government they thought they could complain to? China made deals with Yahoo to limit its citizens access to information…couldnt western societies potentially do something similar? We can communicate much more efficiently over the web, however we can also be much more easily monitored. Everything is faster and more direct, but at what cost? Will we come to a day where we have tax subsidized e-mail accounts? With all of these “what if’s” will we ever find democracy on the web? or is it something we hope to achieve…like finding the holy grail perhaps?
