Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

Dave Winer at Harvard Law School

Dave Winer spoke with me the other day about freedom of the Internet,
encouraging the Dean campaign to take this up as a cause.  I
agree. 

I also agree with Dave that the Bush administration and John Ashcroft’s
use of the Attorney General’s office is restricting our rights of
citizenship in profound ways–and I can’t understand why more Americans
don’t seem to care about this. 

The restriction of rights, whether in “meat space” or cyberspace, is a
very very fundamental issue.  It is in “rights space” that
citizens act, that positive social change and innovation happen, and
that we live out our daily lives. 

If you don’t think that the new regime is affecting the daily lives of
citizens, ask almost any friend of yours who is of either of Muslim
extraction–any generation of citizenship–or friends of yours who are
of African extraction (for example, Somalis) who are of first
generation US citizens. 

If you don’t think the restriction of rights will affect you
personally, consider the surveillance capabilities being established by
the federal government for tracking actions in cyberspace,
citizen-to-citizen telephone calls, and for monitoring personal
movement via cell phones locator services. 

Freedom matters.  Freedom is fundamental to blogging. 
Freedom is fundamental to a grassroots-empowered society. 
Grassroots empowerment, entrepreneurship, citizen initiative–these are
the real sources of vitality in our country.  These fruits of
freedom are the true sources of our contribution to the world at large.

Jim Moore at Dean for America

Are you a United States citizen?  Want to improve our country and
our world?  Then today is the day:  get involved in one of
the Internet campaigns for president! 

Disclosure:  I am involved in one of the
campaigns, but my message
today is to get involved in any of the campaigns. 

The crucial
thing is to sign up by email to at least one–and to do it immediately
while signing up is top of mind.  If you are like me, you either
need to do it now, or are unlikely to do it until much later.

Why sign up by email?  Here is why:

The Internet has already changed the campaign, and now it is going to
change policy and governance practice.  The main mechanism of involvement will be email.

The campaigns will use email in concert with other web applications
to engage
people more deeply in interaction and discussion, for example inviting
you and others to face-to-face meetings, and involving you in online
dialogue and polling.  One campaign–the one I’m involved
with–has already started.  But all will do it, on both sides of
the fence.  If you have specific issues of interest–for example,
global human rights, or the freedom of the Internet, or free speech and
other constitutional rights, you will want to be in these
gatherings.  You will want your ideas heard.

Sign up now and get your feet wet, today!

Mark my words!  After
the New Hampshire primary, many many folks will become involved in the
campaigns.  It behooves you to sign up now, not later.

Early signup will tend
to give you and your issues increased influence.  You will get
into the conversations earlier.  The outcomes of these early events will be used by the campaign staffs to help shape later
agendas. 

Early signup will give you access to conversations while they still have relatively few
total members. Your contribution will have a greater
effect now than if you join later.  For example, the open online conversation about the shape of
governance that the Berkman Center held jointly with the Dean campaign
allowed for a few people to really develop their ideas (e.g. view one thread
from that dialogue), and have them
read by the campaign.  At this time, open online conversations are
small–soon they will be much larger.  If you sign up for campaign
emails and other online features, you will learn of these opportunities.

The experience itself is interesting.  Some folks subscribe to
several campaigns, just to be in the loop. 

There is no cost to
email signup, and no downside.

I believe you will like the experience.  However, if you try it and you don’t like the experience,
you can unsubscribe at any time.  The campaigns are legit senders, and in many cases allow you to pick
your activity level.  Unsubscribing in itself is an opportunity to
send a message.  But, to state the blindingly obvious, if you
don’t subscribe you can’t unsubscribe.

Hey, love it!  Rock on..

PS: Politics Online has a new report on the year of the Internet in politics. Check it out.