This post is part of a series of report-back posts from the 15th annual Allied Media Conference held in Detroit in June.

The title of this post is borrowed from a session at this year’s Allied Media Conference. The workshop was timely when it was conducted on June 21 because Google had just been implicated in the NSA’s spying scandal, known as the PRISM Program. Apparently, Google could not live up to its mandate, “Don’t be evil.” Also taking place that weekend in Detroit was a commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” (MLK gave a version of that speech in Detroit in the summer of 1963 before bringing it to DC for the March on Washington in August.) One wonders what Dr. King would have said about our information freedom fighters today, like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.

So what is the cloud and why should we care?

According to the workshop presenters, the “cloud” simply means your software or data living on another machine. A great example of a cloud service is Gmail. Google keeps your emails on its own machines. That means you can access these files from any computer. Additionally, Gmail is convenient because it gives you a web-based interface (software) that allows you to view, sort, or search your emails.

For activists in the information age, trusting Google to keep our information 100% secure is delusional at best. The company is ultimately accountable to its shareholders and its advertisers, and it does not have the best interests of people (i.e. human beings) in mind. There are already a few alternatives to the services you get through Google (see below), although they might not be as convenient at the moment. However, if we want to envision a future where people are free from information tyrrany, we have to imagine a future where we don’t keep everything on Google Drive or the iCloud. We have to start coming up with our own, more complex networks that will strengthen our internet backbone as a whole, rather than forcing a centralized system.

Freedom in the 21st century means freedom of information. For our information to be free, it must be decentralized, copied, and reproduced from a variety of locations, available for a variety of uses, at a variety of times. Small cloud networks can start with wireless mesh networking. Communities could build their own servers, hosting data for neighbors and friends. A co-operative model might be used to administrate such a cloud. Community cloud computing isn’t really that crazy an idea.

What is crazy is that Verizon, Comcast and a variety of other companies, want to charge us for accessing the internet as individuals. The private sector is poised to make billions off of expanding cloud services. Our collective energy is what makes the web awe-inspiring. Though we might not all be connected directly, our participation in networks, social and technological, makes us part of something bigger than ourselves. Hence, we cannot resist the flow of truth, freedom of information, and transparency. With Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other digital service providers (i.e. Google) as the gatekeepers, it is our responsibility to make sure that we develop alternatives that can keep the web free. As businesses continue to colonize online space, we have to think even more about what freedom really means when so much of our lives are online.

Alternatives to Google

May First/People Link – “May First/People Link is a politically progressive member-run and controlled organization that redefines the concept of “Internet Service Provider” in a collective and collaborative way.”

Electric Embers – “EE is a worker cooperative providing Internet hosting services and support to nonprofits, cooperatives, artists, and others contributing to the common good. We’re here to help you create a more just, sustainable, and beautiful world.”

RiseUp.net – “Riseup provides online communication tools for people and groups working on liberatory social change. We are a project to create democratic alternatives and practice self-determination by controlling our own secure means of communications.”