- CLODO
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Committee for Liquidation and Subversion of Computers (CLODO) (in French: Comité Liquidant ou Détournant les Ordinateurs, 'Clodo' being a slang word for the homeless) was a neo-Luddite French anarchist organization,[1] active during the 1980s, that targeted computer companies. In 1980, after a series of attacks in the Toulouse area, they released a statement to the French media in which they explained their motivations. It read, "We are workers in the field of data processing and consequently well placed to know the current and future dangers of data processing and telecommunications. The computer is the favorite tool of the dominant. It is used to exploit, to put on file, to control, and to repress." Their major attack was in 1983, when they firebombed the Sperry Univac Company, in Toulouse. At the time, French police were convinced that CLODO was simply an outgrowth of Action Directe, a libertarian communist group.
Contents
Underground Testing and Experimentation
Although CLODO is no longer classified as 'active' by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, there has been some debate among technology critics and cultural theorists such as Arthur Kroker and Peter Lamborn Wilson as to whether or not the group still exists in an atomized state. In CLODO's 1983 manifesto disguised as an interview the group reveals that although their future projects are intended to be less spectacular than the firebombing of Sperry-Univac they plan to carry out actions geared towards an impending telecommunications explosion. It has been argued that an anonymous group of Neo-Luddites consisting of academics and scientists from various fields have been conducting experiments focused on the societal effects and potential dangers of new technology.[who?]
Experiments are divided into two dynamically related categories: Saturation and Abstinence. Saturation refers to the process of subjecting human volunteers to higher than normal amounts of technologically generated noise and noting the biological and psychological effects. Abstinence refers to the act of a human volunteer abstaining from the use of an electronic system or object and noting the biological and psychological effects both pre and post-saturation. The data collected in such experiments is quantified and used to ascertain the sociocultural value and potential of technological systems and objects.
See also
References
External links
- CLODO Speaks - interview for the Processed World magazine
- Terrorist organization profile - National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
Categories:- Anarchist organizations in France
- Green anarchism
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