[ Thanks to Linuxcare for this link.
]
“In my March 21 column, Electronic Brains, I related my disgust
for laws that treat digital technology as special merely because
they’re computer-based. While writing that column, I pondered the
origin of bad technology policies. I now believe the answer is
staring us right in the face. Look in a mirror! It is our
obligation to educate the media and enlighten our elected officials
about technological issues. If we don’t do this, the results are
laws like the DMCA, UCITA and the recently revised U.S.
cryptography policies.”
“The free software movement forms the core constituency of the
larger Internet-centered technological revolution. We know this to
be true because amongst our members are the very people who
invented the Internet. Unfortunately, we still have to struggle to
be heard outside our core. We have our own information
infrastructure and even our own press. But when I listen to the
radio, watch television news, or read a newspaper, the geek gap is
all too apparent. What is the geek gap? That yawning chasm between
fact and public opinion. Particularly when it comes to topics dear
to geeks, the accuracy of information in the press is abysmal.
If our message is getting out at all, it isn’t very
effective….”
“Apathy is definitely not the answer here. We need some of our
people in the halls of government pushing our agenda. We need some
of our people as major media spokespersons. We need some of our
people to educate a technologically ignorant populace. We need some
of our people elected to public office. We need to vote in
elections. Only then will we have a voice in the very revolution we
founded. It’s time for geeks to actively move into the political
sphere.”