[IP] Report from Personal Democracy Conference 5/16/05
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 18, 2005 11:24:51 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: isen@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Report from Personal Democracy Conference 5/16/05
Hi Dave
I thought readers of IP would be interested in my report from
the Personal Democracy Forum Conference held in NYC on Monday
which was just published on OhmyNews.
I met Dave Isenberg there and it was a treat to meet someone from
the IP list in person.
The article is:
Internet and Politics: U.S. Style
Report from the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, May 16, 2005
The url is:
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?
menu=A11100&no=227041&rel_no=2&back_url=
Dave Isenberg was part of a panel that described the Philadelphia wifi
efforts. Here is a excerpt from my article about that part of the
program
of Monday's conference:
2) A presentation on Wireless Networking followed. The panel was
titled "The Promise of Municiple Broadband". Dianah Neff, the Chief
Information Officer of the City of Philadelphia spoke about the
political problems encountered in trying to provide wireless Internet
access to citizens at an affordable price. She described a grassroots
campaign conducted by the city. Citizens were eager to support a
municipal wifi project. Later the grassroots process helped
Philadelphia city officials to counter the telephone company
lobbyists' pressure on the State legislature to require the local
governments to wait until the telecos decide if they wanted to
provide a wireless network in a city. (See Daniel Rubin, "Working
without a wire.)(4)
Also on the panel, was Andrew Rasiej, who spoke about the need for
the city of New York to make affordable wireless Internet access
available to citizens. David Isenberg, who acted as moderator offered
a rhyme to sum up the panel:
"Freedom to connect
It's like any other right
We'll have to fight for it
Or they will come
And take it away from us
In the middle of the night"
I welcome comments on the article.
Best wishes
Ronda
ronda(at)panix.com
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
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