Greetings DDN crew, I'm writing to invite you to join bloggers from across the country for a phone conference on the future of the Internet. Featured speakers will include Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, Mark Cooper of Consumer Federation of America, Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy and Ben Scott of Free Press. WHEN: Friday, Feb. 10 -- 12:30 p.m. EST / 9:30 a.m. PST CALL: 1-800-370-0906 CODE: 7028789 Until now, the Internet has been governed by the principle of "network neutrality <http://www.freepress.net/netfreedom> ," which allows independent voices to try out new ideas without having to pay extra or ask for permission. But net neutrality is in danger. Major communications companies are planning to discriminate against the online content and services that they don't yet control. If successful, their scheme would forever alter the free flow of information and ideas in the blogosphere. Congress is now debating the future of the Internet. Unless bloggers and their readers get involved, our elected representatives could allow the Internet to become a "walled garden" and shift the digital revolution into reverse Lessig, Cooper, Chester and Scott will give brief presentations on the threat to the Internet and then take comments and questions from you and other bloggers. For more information, please visit www.NetFreedomNow.org or www.freepress.net/netfreedom <http://wwwfreepress.net/netfreedom> I hope you'll join in the conversation on Friday. Sincerely, Timothy Karr Campaign Director Free Press www.freepress.net P.S. Here's some more information about the speakers: Lawrence Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Professor Lessig represented Web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and chairs the Creative Commons project (www.creativecommons.org). He has won numerous awards, including the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and was named one of Scientific American's "Top 50 Visionaries" for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Professor Lessig is the author of Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). Mark Cooper is director of research at the Consumer Federation of America (www.consumerfed.org/) where he has responsibility for analysis and advocacy in the areas of telecommunications, media, digital rights, economic and energy policy. He has provided expert testimony in over 250 cases for public interest clients including Attorneys General, People's Counsels, and citizen interveners before state and federal agencies, courts and legislators in almost four dozen jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada. He is the author of Media Ownership and Democracy in the Digital Information Age (Center for Internet & Society, Stanford University, 2003), Cable Mergers and Monopolies (Electronic download) (Economic Policy institute, 2002, paper) and Equity and Energy (Westview, 1983). Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (www.democraticmedia.org), a nonprofit organization devoted to ensuring that the digital media serve the public interest. A former journalist and filmmaker, his work has appeared in many publications on radio and on TV. He has played a leading role in debates about media policy in numerous forms for upward of two decades and was named by Newsweek as one of the Internet's 50 most influential people. His article on "The End of the Internet?" was recently published by The Nation. Ben Scott is policy director of Free Press (www.freepress.net). He heads up the Washington, D.C. office, dedicated to monitoring and analyzing media policymaking to increase public awareness and participation. Before joining Free Press, he worked as a legislative fellow handling telecommunications policy for Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is also in the final stages of his doctoral degree in communications from the University of Illinois. He is the co-editor of two books, Our Unfree Press (New Press, 2004) and The Future of Media (Seven Stories, 2005). _____ = = = = = Timothy Karr Campaign Director Free Press <http://www.freepress.net/> www.freepress.net 1.201.533.8838 Join a daily discussion on the state of our digital union at MediaCitizen: <http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/> http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
