Paul's Web Space 2.1

Why I decided to fight for freedom on the Internet

My fight for freedom on the internet started with a conviction that the convergence of computing and telecommunications technologies would not only usher in great possibilities for the future of civilization, but posed great threats to our privacy and civil liberties. I saw governments and other powerful institutions capitalizing on the power thus unleashed to watch and control us in ways that were unimaginable at that time.

The time was 1984. As a senior EE student at Yale, I wrote my signature paper about the threats to privacy and civil liberties posed by the convergence of computers and telecommunications. This was before the Internet was known to more than a several thousand academics, researchers, and government/military types, and before I had my first email address that communicated with other computers or networks. But I sensed that something was coming, something big, and I wrote about it in surprisingly prescient terms.

Later in the 1980s, I co-founded the DC chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), for which I obtained my first Internet email account through PeaceNet. In the early 1990s, I served on the Board of Directors of CPSR, during which time our DC office was helping to start a brand-new organization called EFF -- serving as its first professional policy staff while the organization was being built. I am back on CPSR's Board today, and have been active, writing and speaking and helping CPSR and other organizations fight this fight ever since.


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