air-l@aoir.org Cc: mcrobbie@gold.ac.uk,d.morley@gold.ac.uk,n.rose@gold.ac.uk, p.gilroy@gold.ac.uk,s.lash@gold.ac.uk Subject: Witchtrial Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 19:57:05 -0500 Barry, It is true that ad-hoc, learnt and taught techniques of WorldWideWeb search, surveillance and internet investigation have become normalised, but they haven't been normal activities for very long, and they remain normal practises only among a few. Competence in these techniques or practices are unevenly distributed even among those of us 'in the know' of Internet and its cultures, and are uncanny, indeed worse than the uncanny, among those unfamiliar with the technology and its cultures. The fascination of the social geographer for physical, urban, social and human mapping and interrelations is familiar to me - I can be content with a map of a city or a mapping of human interraction for hours - but it might not be familiar to others, and one can forsee how, during a time of 'emergency' where 'public safety' concerns override all other concerns including birth rights, paranoia produced by these uneven distributions could be articulated, opportunely, to advance a particular career, political or personal agenda as a charge in public, a witchtrial, or, worse, imagine the case, imagine the consequence, of rumour, innuendo, defamation and lies, without a 'charge' ever being laid. I hope I have illustrated how. Lachlan Brown -- _______________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup Travelocity.com is giving away two million travel miles. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;3969773;6991039;g?http://svc.travelocity.com/p...