John Palfrey

The famous Doc Searls is onto Jim’s Second Superpower piece.  I suspect he won’t be the only one to generate buzz about it.

Jim Moore has written a brilliant piece on what he sees as the emerging challenge to US hegemony.  Blogging, texting, the Net all play critical roles in his story.  There’s also an html version available.  He’s on to something big.

There’s been a fair amount of critique already about Rep. Tobin’s bill in Massachusetts “to establish a crime of illegal internet and broadband access and establishing penalties therefor.”  That’s a euphamism; see for yourself. There’s a lot not to like in this bill.

Given what others have already noted, I’m focused now on a tiny little part. I’m amazed at lawmakers’ continued habit of defining “internet service provider” different ways in countless bills.  See what the proposed bill is doing under “communication service provider.”  Consider then the CDA, the DMCA, the CFAA, all sorts of regs.  How many ways can you define what is ultimately roughly the same thing?  And how does that make for a good legal regime?

Hooray for opening day.

This time it’s EFF lawyer and BCIS super-alum Wendy Seltzer, who posted a nice piece on the default we’ve set up for a Creative Commons license on these blogs.  Thanks to Larry Lessig who pushed us along in this regard, too, of course.

The Boston Herald/Business Today ran an article about speech rights v. the rights of POWs not to have their pictures published online.  One of those incredibly hard questions at the margins.

The beads were only the thin end of the wedge. 

We’re launching Monday a free online series on Internet & Development.  There are many hundreds registered from something like 85 countries from every corner of the globe (Wendy, who’s done a great job organizing, knows the exact details!).  Join us, and let us know what you think.  We put a great deal of thought into the materials and time into stirring up the discussion and are eager to know how you react, how we can improve, etc.

Christopher Lydon, one to whom we all should listen, has started a blog.  This will be one to watch.  Next stop for XL: audio blogs.

I think that Roger Fischer has answered my time-wasting question quite articulately.  It pushes me to wonder if perhaps the point is that people who like to think “in the open” (a process-point, ultimately; this iterative process of decision-making takes time to work out answers but a) such a process may have merit on its own terms and b) may get to a better result) benefit from taking the time to review other peoples’ ideas and to write up their own thoughts.  That gets back to an idea I had about whether or not blogs would help practicing lawyers or not.  I suspect that those more academically-oriented and/or academically-compensated may be better-positioned to use the tech than those who bill by the hour for the big firms.  But those who do engage may be better positioned to serve their client, whomever that might be.