Paul's Web Space 2.1

Eventful October - Part 1

Last week I did a lot of things that reminded me of my days on the board of directors of CPSR — some really cool events that had my head spinning with information and motivation.

First, on Tuesday, I attended "ITIF Forum: There is a Free Lunch – How Opening Up Unused ‘White Spaces’ on the Airwaves Will Drive Broadband Innovation" which was co-sponsored by ITIF and the New America Foundation. The speakers outlined a very compelling case for opening up for unlicensed applications (like WiFi) some of the bandwidth being freed up by the transition to digital television. This would provide a more flexible array of unlicensed bands to make wireless networks more flexible and powerful.



Then on Wednesday evening, I attended a fascinating talk by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn at the National Archives entitled "Internet Governance - Does anyone run the Internet?" They addressed that question, but also reminisced on the history of Internet development and speculated some on the future, and received some very incisive questions.

Finally on Friday I saw a truly scary panel discussion sponsored by EPIC, called "The President, Privacy, and Domestic Surveillance." The event, at Busboys and Poets, featured Charlie Savage, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting for the Boston Globe, and author of a new book, "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy." Also speaking were Whitfield Diffie, Sun Microsystems Distinguished Scientist and author of "Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption," and Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of EPIC. They discussed how the the Bush Administration's goal of reasserting and vastly enhancing the power of the presidency, through signing statements and other means, has been both unpublicized and very effective, enabling this White House to elevate the power of the executive branch to frightening levels, potentially threatening our very political system.

This week is less event-full but only by a little. Tuesday night, I went on a river wine-and-dine cruise courtesy of Visual Sciences, the vendor of HBX Analytics, as part of their VisCon Fall 2007 user conference. Tonight is my only policy-related event this week — I'm attending Public Knowledge's 6th Anniversary Celebration and 4th Annual IP3 Awards, honoring Jamie Love, Tim Wu, Bob Young, and the band OK-Go. When I was in graduate school in the early 1990s I worked for Jamie Love at the Taxpayer Assets Project; his current organization, Knowledge Ecology International, is a logical extension of the work we were engaged in back then. ¶ 1:46 PM | Permalink | |
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