CFP08 Feedback/CFP09 thoughts?

Everybody knows that directly after a conference, while we're still recuperating and it's all fresh in our mind, is the best time to gather feedback and thoughts about next years' conference -- which is going to be in Washington DC in spring or summer 2008, specific date still TBD.

Please use this thread for feedback, ideas of what you want to see more or less about, thoughts about topics and formats for workshops or tutorials, and anything else about the conference that crosses your mind.

Signature thread for the open letter to the presidential candidates

The first step of Dear Potus 08 is an open letter from CFP attendees and our allies to the presidential candidates, asking for their help in sparking a national discussion.

• If you'd like to make a short (150 words or less) statement as part of signing on, please use this thread. (You can also put your name down on the wiki, and we'll circulate some paper signature sheets at the conference on Friday.)
  
• Please use the discussion and dissent thread for additional discussion -- and if you choose not to sign on, please let us know why!
  

Final draft:

May 23, 2008

Dear presidential candidates:

We call on your help to seize the momentous opportunity that the 2008 elections provide to spark a nationwide discussion on how information technologies (IT) and the knowledge economy impact traditional policy areas such as education, health care, social welfare, and civil liberties.

Our "Dear Potus 08" project is a series of web-based, interactive and open letters to the next President. This work, along with the accompanying broad dialog online and off, will cover topics that touch everybody in our nation, and in the process both engage and educate the public as well as industry and policymakers.

The topics we'll be discussing include

• Creating a safer Internet for children and adults -- addressing such issues as cyberbullying, phishing, hacking, and cyberterrorism -- while also preserving freedom of speech and privacy
• Reducing identity theft by leading consumer protection initiatives, including education, best practices, and -- where appropriate -- regulation
• The role of copyright, patents, trademarks and also alternatives to intellectual property in fostering innovation and creativity in a peer-to-peer-based democratic culture
• Using new technologies effectively to reduce health care costs and improve medical care and service without compromising patient privacy and creating security risks
• Enabling access to technology and knowledge for all Americans, investing in bridging the digital divide and considering accessibility, interoperability, technology education in and outside schools, and training in technological design and regulation
• Protecting privacy via comprehensive U.S. privacy legislation based on fair information principles, applying to governmental and private surveillance and data collection, and how this should be harmonized internationally

The participatory open letter format, along with accompanying discussions in online and offline forums, allows citizens to engage in the political process in a more deliberative way. We hope to pave the way and refine the methods for ongoing interactive communications between the general public and our government in the new administration. This effort will also help people develop a shared national vocabulary while gaining a deeper understanding of the complexities and challenges of the role of technology in the issues and concerns of Americans.

If you think this is a valuable goal and interesting approach, you can assist us by highlighting the importance of these issues, and your positions, as you're campaigning. Just as importantly, please challenge the media -- "old" and "new" -- to cover the issues with the depth they deserve and the attention currently paid to the sound-bite and horse race aspects of the campaigns.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We look forward to hearing what you and the technology policy experts in your campaign think of it.

Signed,

see the wiki page for the current signature list

Internet Freedom & Censorship

Don't miss the sessions tomorrow on bloggers in Iran and measuring threats to online internet freedom

Of interest to those attending the session is the new publication - The Internet Freedom Alert an ongoing publication that covers online developments related to censorship, Internet Governance and freedoms online. The alert is a bi-weekly summary of the bookmarks posted on internet freedom on Delicious

Dear Potus 08

Update, May 27: see the initial open letter to the presidential candidates, press coverage by Elise Ackerman in the San Jose Mercury News, and the overall Dear Potus plan.

From the in-progress page on the program wiki:

If the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy community wrote a letter to the next President of the United States about our priorities for technology policy, what would we say -- and how would we get him or her to read it?

There's only one way to find out.

At this year's conference dinner, we will launch a collaborative effort to write a short letter to the next President from the CFP '08 attendees. We'll get these initial results up on a wiki for comments and evolution, and refine them over the follwing 36 hours. By Friday morning, if we've managed to converge on something plausible, we'll start circulating the current draft for signatures. At the end of the conference, we'll mail the current draft to the presidential campaigns and invite their response.

We'll also put it all up on the web - with a Creative Commons "by" (attribution) license - and invite others to use it for whatever purposes they want as we revise our initial draft, get broader involvement and discussion, and try to get our voice heard amidst the din of the campaigns.

We'll be using this blog as a big part of the "Dear Potus 08" project, both to update the details -- currently described as "mostly TBD" -- and to discussparticular topics. The 9.5 theses thread is the best place to get involved with the technology policy discussion right now.

In this thread, any questions or thoughts about "Dear Potus 08" -- or links to similar projects?

Announcing: Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2008!

COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY: TECHNOLOGY POLICY '08

http://cfp2008.org/

18th Annual CFP conference

May 20-23, 2008

Omni Hotel

New Haven, CT

What should the technology policy priorities of the next administration be?

As the choice of presidential candidates becomes clearer and election year moves towards a comparison of the candidates' platforms on the issues, technology policy is increasingly relevant to the forefront of public debate. In the areas of privacy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and freedom of speech, topics that were once confined to experts now appear in the mainstream of political issues. We now know that our decisions about technology policy are being made at a time as the architectures of our information and communication technologies are still being built.

This year, the 18th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference is focusing on those issues at the forefront of technology policy this election year. With plenary panels on the "National Security State and the Next Administration" and "The 21st Century Panopticon?" the discussions taking place look towards our present and future priorities.

CFP: Technology Policy '08 is an opportunity to participate in shaping those issues being made into laws and regulations and those technological infrastructures being developed. Policies ranging from spyware and national security, to ISP filtering and patent reform, e-voting to electronic medical records, and more will be addressed by expert panels of technologists, policymakers, business leaders, and activists. The panel topics are listed below and full panel descriptions are available on the conference website.

The CFP: Technology Policy `08 conversation has already begun in the virtual spaces connected to the conference: the CFP community wiki, a Facebook group, a LinkedIn group, and this blog. Even if you are unable to attend the conference this year, there are several opportunities to participate remotely. The guiding principles that ought to guide our policies are being debated on the conference blog -- see the 9.5 theses thread for an early example. The Yale Journal of Law and Technology is hosting a call for essays on the priorities of the next administration,. And the Workshop on Activism and Education using Social Networks has already started accumulating resources on the wiki, and will include remote participation during the conference.

Of course, if you can make it, it's even better being there in person. We look forward to seeing you in New Haven on May 20-23.

Eddan Katz

CFP: Technology Policy '08 Program Chair

http://www.cfp2008.org/


Important dates

Hotel Conference Discount Deadline: May 1, 2008

Early Bird Registration: Fri., May 2, 2008

YJoLT Tech Policy Essay Contest: Mon., May 5, 2008

Conference program

Plenary sessions

• Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive
• The 21st Century Panopticon?
• The National Security State and the Next Adminstration

Tutorials

• A Short History of Privacy
• Constitutional Law in Cyberspace
• e-Deceptive Campaign Practices: Elections 2.0
• Maintaining Privacy While Accessing On-line Information

Workshop

• Activism and Education Using Social Networks

Panel sessions

• Breaking the Silence: Iranians Find a Voice on the Internet
• Charismatic Content: Wikis, Social Networks, and the Future of User-Generated Content
• Filtering Out Copyright Infringement: Possibilities, Practicalities, and Legalities
• Filtering and Censorship in Europe
• Hate Speech and Oppression in Cyberspace
• Interoperability at the Crossroads?: The "Liberal Order" versus Fragmentation
• Law, Regulation, and Software Licensing for the Electronic Medical Record
• Measuring Global Threats to Internet Freedom
• Network Neutrality: Beyond the Slogans
• New Challenges for Spyware Policy
• Patents: The Bleeding Edge of Technology Policy
• Privacy, Reputation, and the Management of Online Communities
• Rights & Responsibilities for Software Programs?
• States as Incubators of Change
• "The Transparent Society:" Ten Years Later
• Towards Trustworthy e-Voting: An Open Source Approach?

Workshop: Activism and Education Using Social Networks

As well as providing ways to stay in touch with friends and make new connections, social networking technologies are increasingly important for activism and education. This interactive workshop will look at social networks and other innovative avenues such as blogs, wikis, mashups, and virtual worlds - as well as the role of more traditional online communication mechanisms like email and discussion forums. It will cover these technologies and their larger implications; techniques for engaging others while dealing with challenges such as trolling, flaming, and privacy invasion; and a nuts-and-bolts introduction to utilizing these tools.

The Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Workshop on Activism and Education Using Social Networks will run in parallel with the concurrent sessions on Thursday, May 22. To accommodate those will be attending -- or presenting at! -- other sessions for different parts of the day, we're organizing the bulk of the workshop as a series of independent modules, covering different skills, and best practices for educators and activists. We'll also cover success stories, brainstorm challenges faced by attendees, and construct groups for CFP attendees to stay in touch as well as profiles and groups for several organizations attending.

Confirmed modules include Facebook and Promoting books (and potential books) on social networks. Other potential topics include mashups, screencasting, getting your site found on Google, and effective use of social network sites like Ning, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and SecondLife. We're using the Modules page on the wiki to help organize this; please check it out for the current status -- and if you've got suggestions, please add them, either on the wiki or as comments on this thread!

One of our goals for the workshop is to make it valuable both for in-person participants and the 99.99999% of the world that will not be at CFP on that day. If technology allows it, we will set up the room so that people can participate remotely. Even more importantly, we'll be collecting information on the wiki, and encouraging discussions on various blogs and social network sites.

In the spirit of which, a couple of questions to kick things off:

• what are some particularly good examples of educators and activists using social networks?
  
• what skills or techniques do you think are important -- and are there any good online references?

Other topics welcome, of course. And please forward this on to others you think might be interested!

Yale Information Society Project's 9.5 Theses for Technology Policy in the Next Administration

The theme of the 18th Annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference is "Technology Policy '08." To help shape public debate in this election year, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School recommends the following policy principles -
The 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.