Vote Compass: Direct Democracy and WikiLaws

Australia will hold a federal election on Sat 07-Sep-2013. Until then political parties promise what they will do if granted power. The policies and promises come as a package; all from Party A or all from Party B (or Party C). But with modern information and communication technology every voter could have input on every policy; rather than the collective package. This would require replacing representative democracy with direct democracy.

Direct Democracy

The ABC (Australia's national public broadcaster) is currently polling the populace via Vote Compass. To date 887,998 results have been submitted; more than 5% of enrolled voters. In this online poll people can express their views on a number of policies and examine where they stand in the Australian political landscape.

Extending this idea further, the online poll could become THE election. Policies could be voted on directly by all voters throughout the year as required. This would eliminate the need for elected representatives. (Similar to Democratising Football.)

The following diagrams demonstrate the different policy outcomes between representative and direct democracy for the same number of voters. Red, green, and blue represent different political persuasions. The type of democracy employed influences the power of each persuasion.

Representative Democracy

Direct Democracy

Without representatives voters do not need to decide between packages of policies, but can vote on each policy independently. And direct democracy gives each vote equal value. An entire layer of government could be removed, and the technology exists today to compensate for it.

So how would laws be written and passed?

WikiLaws

WikiLaws

Laws are basically a collection of documents which are displayed, evaluated, edited, accepted, and reviewed. A wiki is an excellent method for compiling, editing, and displaying documents. Actually, laws can be considered as a collection of instructions (actions/consequences), and could follow a software development model.

Laws could be:

1. developed in a staging wiki (red)
2. tested by online discussion (orange)
3. accepted by general vote (yellow)
4. and if accepted put into the production wiki (green)

See diagram for data-flow. Click to enlarge.

Someone would still require the authority to enact the laws, and implement policy. The Head of State could continue in this role, with an appropriately selected Executive Council.

Change Management

The technology to implement direct democracy exists. It would need to be ubiquitous, and all voters would need to be informed and aware of how to utilise it.

A much bigger change would the cultural and power shift. Voters would require a knowledge and understanding of the legal framework in which they live, rather than an opinion of a three-word-slogan policy. And they would need to engage enough to consider each policy, evaluate it, and cast a vote.

This amount of change may take generations to implement.

Summary

1. The use of information and communication technology to implement direct democracy could remove the need for several layers of government.
2. Implementing direct democracy would require an educated populace, a neutral broadcast media, and a massive shift in power structures.

How To: Google Chrome and Tor

Tor (The Onion Router) is free software and an open network intended to enable online anonymity. The default browser bundle is the ESR version of Mozilla Firefox, which is good for privacy, but restricts functionality.

Security expert +Steve Gibson describes the benefits and structure of Tor in Security Now 70. The official Overview also outlines Why We Need Tor, and How It Works. And Wikipeida has a good summary or it's history, weaknesses, and legal issues.

The Tor Project strongly encourages the use of the Tor Browser Bundle instead of configuring your own browser. But, if you really want to use Chrome the following steps should help.

1. Installation
1. Follow standard procedure to install Tor
2. Follow standard procedure to install Google Chrome (if you haven't installed already)
2. Setup Tor
1. Find the Vidalia application inside program folder Tor Browser / App
2. Create a desktop or taskbar shortcut for the application (so you can start it easily or on startup; Vidalia is the Tor client GUI)
3. Start Vidalia and ensure it can connect to the Tor network 
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3. Setup Chrome
1. Start Chrome and add the Proxy SwitchySharp extension (or similar Proxy Switching extension; this will allow you to easily enable/disable Tor proxy)

click to enlarge
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2. Go to Proxy SwitchySharp Options and setup a Tor proxy profile using:
• Note: this is where this post differs from some others. You can confirm the settings required by reading Tor's configuration documentation, or by checking either Vidalia (Advanced Settings), or the Tor Browser (Firefox ESR) proxy settings.
4. Operation
1. Start Vidalia (using your shortcut from Step 2b)
2. Start Chrome and enable your Tor Proxy profile (and possibly go Incognito)
3. Check that Google Chrome is using Tor: https://check.torproject.org/

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4. Browse with anonymity (just a bit slower)

If you appreciate or benefit from The Tor Project then maybe consider volunteering or donating. :-)

ADDENDUM

You can configure your Tor client to select which nodes it uses to enter and exit the Tor network. This is useful if you want your IP address to appear to be from a particular country; enabling you to stream content which is restricted to (or excluded from) certain locations. An outline of this configuration process can be found at the official Tor Project FAQ, or for more detail search for "tor exit country".