1) The Foundation of La Citta' Invisibile (The Invisible City)

La Citta' Invisibile was officialy born on November, 26th 1994. It is an Internet-based grass-roots political and cultural voluntary organization working in the Italian cyberspace. Its members are living all over the world.
The promoters met within Usenet newsgroups (in particular soc.culture.italian), they discovered their political and cultural affinities and, always, within newsgroups they recruited new members for their project. The organization has its own Statute, a legal seat (in Bologna, Italy), but no physical seat: it is not necessary, as activities are discussed and promoted in cyberspace. The organization operates from its own Internet node, physically in Bologna, containing its Web pages (http://www.citinv.it). It does not depend on political parties or any other organization and it is funded by more than a hundred members. Still today many "invisible citizens" have not yet physically met each other, as they could not take part in the "real" meetings recently organized. However, "virtually" they know each other pretty well, as the Net is a powerfool tool for discussion and communication.

2) Purposes of La Citta' Invisibile

La Citta' Invisibile is a voluntary organization which uses the Internet as a means of communication to promote social and political change, to contribute to the process of democratization and modernization of Italy, to enable the Italian civil society to express itself in cyberspace. To pursue these aims, La Citta' Invisibile makes use of the professional and personal abilities of its members.
La Citta' Invisibile is a virtual place of social and political debate where:
__ proposals concerning themes such as telematics rights, freedom of communication and information are discussed and developed;
-- telematics technological innovations are assessed from a technical point of view as well as from the point of view of their social and political significance;
-- various initiatives falling within the statutory aims of the association are taken;
-- initiatives taken by other associations with shared values and/or aims are examined and often also supported.
The activities of the Invisible City originate either within the association or in cooperation with external subjects. The Invisible City makes available for free both its Internet node and the professional abilities of its members to different organizations (voluntary, cultural, environmental, student and political associations, trade unions as well as newspapers and newsletters) with which it shares values and aims. By so doing, the Invisible City provides these actors with visibility on the Internet and therefore acts as a kind of interface between "reality" and Cyberspace.

3) What you can find in La Citta' Invisibile.

First of all, what you can find here is "Information". La Citta' Invisibile realizes (and offers hospitality to) web pages and mailing lists. The latter ones have as their main subjects recent and significant events that are relevant to the construction of a "networked democratic society".

A) Some examples of the activities promoted by this association.
-The interest of La Citta' Invisibile is primarly focused upon networkers' rights. This happens in our Osservatorio Reti (Net Observatory), which amongst other things runs a public mailing list called Connessioni (Connections) (to subscribe simply send an e-mail to listserver@citinv.it with the body SUBSCRIBE CONNESSIONI ). The ongoing debate in CONNESSIONI is about: "Connections between new Network technologies, politics, economics and society". _Osservatorio reti_ leads an important campaign against TUT (Tariffa Urbana a Tempo). TUT is the per-minute charging policy (no matter whether long- or short-distance) of the Italian telephone monopolist company, Telecom Italia, which we believe has no economic justification and which now represents the major obstacle to Internet access in Italy. We hold it to be a right for everyone to have full access to the pieces of information in the Internet.
- The Media Observatory watches over the fairness of mass media. Reports concerning the publication or broadcasting of false, incorrect or distorted information, censorship, violations of freedom of speech or freedom of press are collected and distributed for discussion through a bilingual mailing list (in Italian and English, to subscribe send e-mail to listserver@citinv.it including "SUBSCRIBE MEDIA-ITA " in the body of the message).
- POLEC-ITA is a mailing list for the discussion of economic policy in Italy (to subscribe send e-mail to listserver@citinv.it including "SUBSCRIBE POLEC-ITA " in the body of the message).

B) Cooperation with other Associations and Publications
Thanks to a number of agreements, La Citta' Invisibile makes its technological know-how available at no cost to non-profit associations, newspapers and journals. Members of La Citta' Invisibile offer their time and skills for the Internet edition of various publications, and maintain the Web pages and mailing lists of several associations.

4) The internal structure

La Citta' Invisibile is a laboratory of telematics democracy and its member strongly take part in the decision-making process. It can be thought of as an actual case of telematics democracy. The Invisible City has a major (the president) and a town council (the coordination commitee) both elected by a general assembly in which every citizen (member) takes part.
The general assembly is in permanent session by means of a specific mailing list and the members can express their own opinions on and stop every decision taken by the commitee. They participate to discussions 24 hours a day by sending and receiving electronic mail messages.
The invisible citizens, depending on their abilities or preferences, can collaborate in the specific activities of the association by subscribing the proper mailing list created for each permanent "functional area" or temporary commitee. In these cases as well, communications are via electronic mail.