After 10 years of celebrating the human side of technology, merging techno, tattoos, dreadlocks, and Deadheads with a fervently optimistic social purpose, the Digital Be-In has become, in some cyberspace circles, almost as legendary as the original '60s-era Human Be-In.
Today in San Francisco, the 10th annual Digital Be-In will host Aztec dancers, Gandhi tributes, trance music, and activist speakers, and will launch the Declaration of Human Rights in Cyberspace.
"We're carrying the countercultural flame," says Michael Gosney, a founder of the event. "It's an instinctual longing for an inner life, a recognition of our inner-beingness and a celebration of that. With all the stuff we do, the things we buy, the computers we network, we have to remember that being human is the most important thing."
The event started as a digital art party thrown by multimedia publisher Verbum to coincide with Macworld. The original event was humorously dubbed the "Be-In" in reference to the Human Be-In in 1967, where 55,000 peace-lovers gathered in Golden Gate Park to dance, commune, and witness Timothy Leary's exhortation to "turn on, tune in, drop out." These days, the earthy humanistic idealism of the original Be-In has re-emerged, albeit on a smaller, more technology-focused level. Even original Be-In notables like Leary, Allan Cohen, and Grateful Dead members have joined in the party, in the recent past.
This year's bill will include Stephen Kent's didgeridoo playing and George Clinton's funky vibes; numerous spiritual dances; and speeches from VRML advocate Mark Pesce and American Indian activists. Also included will be Greenpeace representatives, multimedia performances, and discussions of the "war on drugs." And, of course, raving until dawn.
Besides just being a feel-good dance party and digital showcase and bazaar of alternative culture, the Digital Be-In will revolve around the theme of "Human Rights in Cyberspace" - tying in with this year's United Nations 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. Notables like UN Declaration committee chair Bill McCarthy, Gloria Lyon of the Holocaust Center, and Cosette Thompson of Amnesty International, will join others to talk about the need to adapt basic human rights principles for use in cyberspace.
A cornerstone of that event will be the introduction of the Declaration of Human Rights in Cyberspace. Put together by Bob Gelman, author of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's upcoming book, Protecting Yourself Online, the document is a work in progress that its creators hope will unify government, institutions, and individuals around the EFF's basic principles of cyberfreedom.
"We're on the frontier, but we all have the opportunity to have a high impact if we agree that there are principles that apply to cyberspace - basic inalienable rights to access information, communicate with whom you want, and not have anyone deny you access," says Gelman. "All I'm looking for is people to recognize that these things exist."
Besides the familiar calls for free expression and equality, the current draft of the declaration includes more geek-centric pronouncements such as, "Without prior agreement, no one should be subjected to unsolicited mass email, server-clogging file-attachments, or invasive applets." And, "Everyone has the right to a basic level of information access via public institutions and service providers."
The declaration will be written over the next year, and Gelman is opening a dialogue on the Be-In Web site about what the document should contain. He also hopes that groups like Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the EFF will assist in writing and promoting it - and, ideally, that it might eventually be adopted as the 31st article to the UN's own declaration.
"The more dependent society is on new technology, the more acute human rights issues will become," says Gosney. Having launched the successful EFF Blue Ribbon campaign at an earlier Be-In, Gosney thinks his group can turn its declaration into a similar high-profile issue. "The Be-In is a kind of outreach mechanism for this community. It's an influential circle, and there's a buzz that's created with these themes."
