Report from Personal Democracy Conference 5/16/05

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ronda Hauben <ronda () panix com>
Date: May 18, 2005 11:24:51 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: isen () isen com
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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