Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

CPSR Newsletters

CPSR's flagship publication is the CPSR Newsletter, a highly regarded quarterly magazine containing in-depth analysis of major issues involving technology along with updates on CPSR activities. CPSR members receive timely notice of the online publication of the now online-only newsletters from CPSR. Most newsletters are now online (older ones mainly in plain text, newer ones in HTML). There is a subject index listing all articles going back to the first issue in 1983 until the late 90's.

Note: Starting with Winter 1999 the CPSR newsletter is being published online only. This saves precious dollars in CPSR's budget. We will still publish the newsletter quarterly and with the same high quality of articles. We know that many of you like getting the newsletter in hard copy, delivered to your door, and we may reconsider paper publication in the future when our income allows it. Encourage friends and colleagues to join CPSR and help us build a strong organization.

Back issues of the newsletter, along with the publications, reports, and books listed on this page, are currently available using our secure online form or from the national office:

CPSR Publications
P.O. Box 717
Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717

(650) 322-3778

PING!

CPSR launched this publication to better inform members, friends, and the press about CPSR news and activities. We have our fingers in many pies, and PING! will help us to understand our complexity and energy. We are looking for contributions of news about CPSR groups and individual members:

Working Groups, Chapters, Board Initiativies, Newsletters, Conferences and Events, Contacts by the Press, and other work and representation of CPSR.

We are planning publications of this postal mailing for July, September, January, and April. Deadlines for submissions of short content, including photos, to be considered will be June 1, August 1, December 1, and March 1. Send text submissions to cpsr@cpsr.org and attachments to cpsr@mindspring.com

We're looking forward to finding out what you are doing, and sharing that with the rest of us.

Publication Headings

• One Planet, One Net: Internet Governance
• DIAC: Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing
• Education
• Elections and Voting
• Computers and the Environment
• Ethics
• Privacy and Civil Liberties
• Reliability and Risk
• Women and Computing
• Computers in the Workplace<, PDC--Particpatory Design
• Miscellaneous

Cyber-Governance

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest editor: Karen Coyle, 16, 4 (Fall 1998), $5.00.

This issue of the CPSR Newsletter highlights and summarizes CPSR's 1998 Annual Conference, devoted to Internet Governance. We ask questions about the relationship of the Internet to government, government to democracy, and democracy to communications.

Cyber-Responsibilities

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest editors: Evelyn Pine and Jeff Johnson, 16, 3 (Summer 1998), $5.00.

Cyber-responsibilities -- For some denizens of cyberspace, the flip side of the cyber-rights issue is quite unnerving. Put simply, the idea of cyber-responsibilities bugs the hell out of some of our best friends and worthy colleagues in the technology-policy public-interest community. In our view, hostility to this topic grows from a heady mix of hacker ethic, free market fever, baby boom protest nostalgia, slacker attitude and generation X rebellion. Talk of cyber-responsibilities strikes some as group think, a call for government control, or blaming individuals for the sins of institutions. As CPSR stalwart, Terry Winograd puts it, "The central division among the CPSR membership concerns the individual's relationship with society. Is it dominated by questions of rights (the 'libertarian' view) or of responsibilities (the 'progressive' view)?"

Internet Governance

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest editor: Harry Hochheiser , 16, 2 (Spring 1998), $5.00.

As businesses and governments tackle questions of control over the Internet, several trends have become distressingly clear. These debates often lack significant discussion of societal issues and the needs of Internet end-users. Furthermore, the issues are often misunderstood and poorly reported. CPSR's "One Planet, One Net" focus is designed to address these concerns. By bringing attention to the issuse and their implications, and providing information that will help non-"techies" fight through the confusion of the 'Net, we hope to raise public awareness and understanding of the issues at stake. This newsletter contains a variety of perspectives on Internet Governance.

Emerging Democratic Communities

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest editor: Erik Nilsson , 16, 1 (Winter 1998), $5.00.

Information-age democracies depend on technology. New, more responsive forms of governance are possible, but we become dependent on election technologies that sometimes fail. For over ten years, CPSR has conducted projects on the use of electoral computing. CPSR members have observed elections, investigated irregularities, contributed to standards documents, and been consultants to election commissions. This issue examines how technology has changed democracy. Four CPSR correspondents report on the changing technological face of democracy, from war-torn Africa to the Internet.

One Planet, One Net

The CPSR Newsletter, 15, 4 (Fall 1997), $5.00.

This issue of the CPSR Newsletter summarizes CPSR's 1997 Annual Conference, and presents CPSR's Principles for the Internet Era,that can ensure that the Net will be used to change the human condition for the better, and can prevent or mitigate its less desirable consequences. For our global community to reach its potential in this networked world, the following principles must be understood and respected as we consider the more detailed daily questions that arise in the administration or governance of the Net.

1.There is only one Net.

2.The Net must be open and available to all.

3.People have the right to communicate.

4.People have the right to privacy.

5.People are the Net's stewards, not its owners.

6.No individuals, organizations, or governments should dominate the Net.

7.The Net should reflect human diversity, not homogenize it.

Community Space and Cyberspace: What's the Connection ?

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest editor: Brennon Martin, 15, 3 (Summer 1997), $5.00.

This issue of the CPSR Newsletter is dedicated to the theme of the March DIAC-97 conference in Seattle. The articles examine various connections between physical community space and cyberspace -- the need to guarantee the existence of public spaces in the new commercial media channels; the use of these public cyberspaces to debate solutions to physical community-space problems; and three projects that use computer networks to address community problems.

Telecommunications Policy Roundtable: Cutting Across Turfs to Change Public Policy

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest editor: Andy Oram, 15, 2 (Spring 1997). $5.00.

Computer scientists have been saying for years that computers and computer networks would merge with telephones and television, the other major media of our age. Now computer/telephone technology and multimedia have raised their heads, not only as a dazzling set of products that benefit end users, but as a complex regulatory and policy arena. Over the past four years, CPSR members have taken on a new field of technology (telecommunications) and mastered its principles enough to have an impact on public thought. This issue of the newsletter offers updates on major debates such as universal service and the effect of mergers on service and competition. We also look at the alliances CPSR has made with organizations and policy-makers to see that the public interest is heard during the battles between multibillion-dollar industries.

Computers, Government, and Access to Electronic Records.

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest Editor: Marsha Woodbury, 13, 2 (Summer 1995). $5.00.

Electronic Democracy.

The CPSR Newsletter, Guest Editor: Steven E. Miller, 14, 2(Summer 1996). $5.00.

A World of Perspectives on the Growing Information Infrastructure.

The CPSR Newsletter, 13, 1 (Winter 1995). $5.00.

Visions of the National Information Infrastructure.

The CPSR Newsletter, 12, 4 (Fall 1994). $5.00.

Developing an Equitable and Open Information Infrastructure, A Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing Symposium: Proceedings from the DIAC '94 conference.

Edited by Hans Klein and Coralee Whitcomb. Spring 1994, 230 pages. $25.00.

(see listing under Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing section for description)

Focus on Computers and the Poor: A Brand New Poverty.

The CPSR Newsletter, 11, 3 (Fall 1993). $5.00.

The National Information Infrastructure: A Public Interest Opportunity

The CPSR Newsletter, 11, 2 (Summer, 1993). $5.00.

Local Civic Computer Networks.

The CPSR Newsletter, 10, 1-2 (Winter-Spring 1992). $5.00.

Serving the Community: A Public Interest Vision of the National Information Infrastructure

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, October 1993, 30 pages.

Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing
Proceedings from the DIAC 2000 conference.

See: http://www.scn.org/cpsr/diac-oo/toc.html

Shaping the Network Society: The Future of the Public Sphere in Cyberspace

Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing
Proceedings from the DIAC '90 conference.

Edited by Douglas Schuler. Softcover, 262 pages. $20.00

Includes papers on community building with voice technology, affectionate technology, computers and education, computer models and public policy, conduct codes, and virtual reality.

Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing
Proceedings from the DIAC '92 conference.

Edited by Douglas Schuler. Softcover, 225 pages. $20.00

Contains articles on intellectual property, designing local civic networks and community communication with computers, and virtual realities.

Developing an Equitable and Open Information Infrastructure, A Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing Symposium: Proceedings from the DIAC '94 conference.

Edited by Hans Klein and Coralee Whitcomb. Softcover, 230 pages. $25.00.

Contains articles on National Information Infrastructure (NII), the proposed next-generation "information superhighway": economics, gender issues, Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs), non-profits, post-modern technology, community cable systems, media regulation, White House activities in electronic democracy, and electronic access for the poor.

Conference videos: available from CPSR Publications P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717. Each $20.

• A0: Who will be heard? Access to the Information Superhighway
• A1: Consitituency Plenary
• A2: Public Access Television / Media Arts Centers: Models for Community Access to the Information Infrastructure.
• H2: PC's Empower individuals with disabillities Informed Participation and the NII
• B3: The Greater Boston Community-Wide Education and Information Services Organizing Project (CWEIS)
• B5: Measuring the NII
• C2: Policy for the Global INformation Infrastructure (I)
• C3: Public Services for the Global Information Infrastructure (II)
• C5: NII: Public or Private? Defining Research Parameters
• D4: Democracy in Cyberspace
• E1: A postmodern View of NII
• E4: The Political Rhetoric of NII
• G1: Intellectual Freedom: Parks, Streets, Sidewalks and Cyberspace? Free Speech in the New Public Square.
• G3: Securing the Information INfrastructure: New Crimes, Criminal Losses, and Liabilities in the Post-Hacker Era.
• H5: Ethics, Education and Entertainment on the NII; What should research priorities be?

Computers, Ethics, and Social Responsibility.

Terry Winograd. The CPSR Newsletter, 10, 3 (Summer 1992). $5.00.

A Conduct Code: An Ethics Code with Bite

by Joel Wolfson. July 1990, 17 pages. $4.00. (Also appears in the DIAC '90 proceedings.)

The greatest obstacle in applying meaningful ethical standards is that few people believe their own actions are unethical. A good conduct code must set clear specific standards for behavior which computer professionals agree are unacceptable, despite attempted rationalization. This paper provides a proposed code of conduct.

The Tavani Bibliography of Computing, Ethics, and Social Responsibility

By Herman Tavani

Also available in print form from CPSR - cpsr @ cpsr.org

FTP archives of older CPSR documents.

A Computer & Information Technologies Platform

by The Peace and Justice Working Group, CPSR/Berkeley

Describes a possible program for research, development, and implementation of computer and information technologies that will move towards resolving our most pressing social needs. October 1992, 30 pages. $4.00.

Reading "All About' Computerization:
Five Common Genres of Social Analyses

by Rob Kling

Examines the popular, professional and scholarly literature which claims to describe the actual nature of computerization. This paper looks at 5 common genres of writing, exploring strengths and limitations of this particular form of social analysis. July 1990, 39 pages. $10.00. (Also appears in the DIAC '90 proceedings.)