CFP08
The Yale Information Society Project recently posted its 9.5 Theses for Technology Policy in the Next Administration:
1. Privacy. Protect human dignity, autonomy, and privacy by providing individuals with control over the collection, use, and distribution of their personal information and medical information.
2. Access. Promote high-speed Internet access and increased connectivity for all, through both government and private initiatives, to reduce the digital divide.
3. Network Neutrality. Legislate against unreasonable discrimination by network providers against particular applications or content to maintain the Internet’s role in fostering innovation, economic growth, and democratic communication.
4. Transparency. Preserve accountability and oversight of government functions by strengthening freedom of information and improving electronic access to government deliberations and materials.
5. Innovation. Restore balance to intellectual property rules and explore alternative incentives to better promote innovation, freedom, access to knowledge, and human development.
6. Democracy. Empower individuals to fully participate in government and politics by making electronic voting consistent, reliable, and secure with voter-verifiable paper trails.
7. Education. Expand effective exceptions and limitations to intellectual property for education to ensure that teachers and students have access to innovative digital teaching techniques and educational resources.
8. Culture. Ensure that law and technology promote a free, vibrant and democratic culture, fair exchanges between different cultures, and individual rights to create and participate in culture.
9. Diversity. Limit media concentration and expand media ownership to ensure a diverse marketplace of ideas.
9.5 Openness. Support innovation and fair competition by stimulating openness in software, technological standards, Internet governance, and content licensing.
As Michael Zimmer says, the idea was to post some “guiding principles from which specific tactics can be formulated.” And to get people talking in advance of CFP2008, which will be held May 20-23 in New Haven, Conn.
Comments
3 Responses to “CFP08”
Got something to say?
That is a very good list. However, I would suggest one alteration to point 2. Access encompasses more than access to the Internet. What benefit is there to have access to a resource without the devices to take advantage or knowledge to understand and use the resource?
Quite rhetorical, but the digital divide is not only manifested in a lack of access to the Internet. If my memory serves, ‘digital divide’ was initially used to name the lack of Internet access among certain demographics. However, the point is mute if people on the other side of the divide do not have access to the devices and knowledge of the devices to benefit from access to the Internet.
Cheers
[…] Susan Crawford points out that the Yale Information Society Project recently posted its “9.5 Theses for Technology Policy in the Next Administration.” It’s apparently also the theme for the 18th Annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference (CFP). […]
It’s interesting that while the organizers of the CFP conference claim to value transparency, innovation, and openness, they do not practice what they preach. In fact, it appears that control of the program of the CFP conference has fallen into the hands of ideologues who seek to promote their selfish agendas (rather than the public good) via the conference. A good example is the session titled, “Network Neutrality: Beyond the Slogans.” This is a subject on which Ms. Crawford has testified to Congress — making false statements when she did so. (To wit, she claimed that broadband service is a duopoly, even though in fact I am one of between 4,000 and 8,000 competitive Internet service providers doing business in the US.) She has also advocated proposals that would destroy those competitors and quash innovation.
The title of the CFP session creates the initial impression that perhaps one would see an unbiased presentation of the issues. However, the description, at http://www.cfp2008.org/wiki/index.php/Network_Neutrality:_Beyond_the_Slogans, contains one-sided and highly biased statements, such as “we have seen major violations of network neutrality” (as if this assertion and any definition of the term were not open to debate) and “debates over network neutrality are often not only contentious, but also unhelpful, if not dishonest” (as if it were a foregone conclusion that those who did not agree with the unnamed author of the description were necessarily dishonest). What’s more, while the panelists are not listed (Is this openness?), I have not been able to identify a single
person who is actually in the business of providing Internet service who is on the panel; rather, all of the panelists I’ve identified appear to be lobbyists and/or people who take an extreme viewpoint on the topic. This obvious bias does harm to the credibility and reputation of the conference and its organizers.