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.

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 … Read more

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.

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

A sad day.  George Will, curiously enough, may have captured my feelings best in his Washington Post essay this morning.  Among other insights, Will wrote of Sen. Moynihan: “His was the most penetrating political intellect to come from New York since Alexander Hamilton, who, like Moynihan, saw over the horizon of his time, anticipating the … Read more

Worries might be too strong a word.  Some things that I wonder about with Weblogs: 1) Is more speech necessarily better (think also about what Habermas, Sunstein, Michelman et al. have said about similar questions)? 2) Is more speech of the sort that blogs enables necessarily better? 3) Can people who use the Net really sort through … Read more