[Air-l] AoIR conference venues

[Maja van der Velden]

Thank you Charlie for presenting this European perspective.

I would like to go even further in history. Because of our experiences 
in World War II, I have learned to suspect all forms of registration 
for profiling purposes, especially when they are situated in a context 
lacking privacy assurances and fair juridical process. As researchers 
and academics we need to discuss this with our American colleagues and 
invite them to conferences in our countries while supporting them in 
their attempts to change these unjust policies in their own country.

The European countries that signed the Schengen accord also have a 
policy that restrict the free movement of people. However, the privacy 
laws and juridical process is very different from that of the US. 
Secondly, none of the US citizens visiting a so-called Schengen country 
will be subjected to fingerprinting and photographing. Nor will their 
name, address, and credit card details be known 15 minutes after they 
board their plane at a US airport (European airlines now turn over 34 
pieces of information about each passenger, within 15 minutes of 
departure. Soon this will change, because of the Cat Stevens/Yusuf 
Islam experience, and they will need this information before we even 
board a plane).

Another concern are our colleagues from Muslim and/or Arab countries. 
If we know that they are not able to attend conferences in the US, and 
we continue to organise international conferences in the US, we accept 
the politics of "us and them". Personally, I am not prepared to do 
that.

I understand that the AoIR conference organisers for 2005 are a bit 
overwhelmed by the reactions on the choice of venue. But things have 
changed. We are not talking about frustrating logistics anymore. The 
new security policies are made possible by the technologies many of us 
are researching. Maybe we have been looking at these technologies in a 
too optimistic framework.

Greetings,

Maja
(Netherlands/Norway)

On Oct 5, 2004, at 4:35 PM, Charlie Breindahl wrote:

> I think that the discussion so far has framed the issue as being 
> aligned
> with the digital divide between internet "have and have-not" countries
> (Mexico possibly excepted). I am not sure this is the case. Many 
> Europeans
> are uncomfortable with current US politics as well.
>
> It has not gone unnoticed that the present US government refers to 
> European
> hesitance towards the US policy in Iraq in less than flattering terms. 
> We
> Europeans sometimes find it hard to understand why the US government 
> would
> expect its friends in Europe to go to war in Iraq for reasons that seem
> somewhat dubious (weapons of mass destruction, etc.) and simultaneously
> tutor us about how to avoid terrorism and further democracy in the 
> world.
>
> Subjects like nationalism, terrorism, fundamentalist beliefs, and
> democracracy versus security have unfortunately been part of the 
> political
> agenda in Europe since the early seventies. Examples include, but are 
> not
> limited to, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque separatist
> organization ETA, the German Baader-Meinhof group, the Italian Red 
> Brigades,
> the November 17 group in Greece, German nationalist skinheads, etc. We 
> have
> - unfortunately - a great deal of experience in treating such 
> problems. The
> present US government acts as if terrorism was a new problem 
> predominantly
> concerning the US.
>
> All this is background and only periferally relevant to the question 
> of AoIR
> conference locations. What really matters is this: I don't feel 
> comfortable
> about going to the US anymore. I feel that my personal security is
> threatened and my dignity is violated in ways that are probably hard to
> understand if you are a US national. Electronic fingerprints that go 
> to vast
> registers, rampant collection of information on foreign travellers, 
> suspects
> held captive for undetermined periods of time, political radicals 
> killed
> with remotely controlled missiles, electronic conversations monitored
> automatically and recorded routinely, credit card transactions traced 
> at a
> whim... it gives me the creeps! It is directly against my beliefs 
> about the
> information age and all that I have taught my students about 
> information
> policy.
>
> I think it is very real and has very little to do with hysterics.
>