One thing I think worth highlighting is the opening sentence. It is true that the internet and the government have been conflicting in various ways from the get-go. In point 11 he talks about the differences between industry inside knowledge and government's framework for reasoning about tech lacking in several ways. I think there is also an interesting intersection of the public's framework for reasoning about both government and the internet that is finally starting to be a stress point. Only in the last few of years have we seen the general public starting to become aware of how much government (non)action in the internet space is a big deal.
Recent stories on the NSA, Snowden, Manning, etc, and the Arab Spring have really pushed the awareness of government actions in the internet into the general public awareness. I remember previous things like DMCA and ECTRA did not make a real blip on the general public's radar. More recently however, things like SOPA were heavily discussed outside of tech circles.
Public discourse is really a place we should make our industry insider status heard as much as to/within government, and now is the time it matters.
Amusingly, the inverse is also true: more political articles have been finding their way to HN lately, because suddenly general political discourse is extremely intertwined with internet policy and tech issues.
Recent stories on the NSA, Snowden, Manning, etc, and the Arab Spring have really pushed the awareness of government actions in the internet into the general public awareness. I remember previous things like DMCA and ECTRA did not make a real blip on the general public's radar. More recently however, things like SOPA were heavily discussed outside of tech circles.
Public discourse is really a place we should make our industry insider status heard as much as to/within government, and now is the time it matters.
Amusingly, the inverse is also true: more political articles have been finding their way to HN lately, because suddenly general political discourse is extremely intertwined with internet policy and tech issues.