Freedom to Connect 2012

by The Internet Distinction on May.21, 2012, under Uncategorized

Today and tomorrow, May 21-22, at AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland.

(See http://freedom-to-connect.net/ and http://freedom-to-connect.net/agenda-2/)

About F2C: Freedom to Connect

F2C: Freedom to Connect is a conference devoted to preserving and celebrating the essential properties of the Internet. The Internet is a success today because it is stupid, abundant and simple. In other words, its neutrality, its openness to rapidly developing technologies and its layered architecture are the reasons it has succeeded where others (e.g., ISDN, Interactive TV) failed.

The Internet’s issues are under-represented in Washington DC policy circles. F2C: Freedom to Connect is designed to advocate for innovation, for creativity, for expression, for little-d democracy. The Freedom to Connect is about an Internet that supports human freedoms and personal security. These values, held by many of us whose consciousness has been shaped by the Internet, are not common on K Street or Capitol Hill or at the FCC.

F2C: Freedom to Connect is about having access to the Internet as infrastructure. Infratructures belong to — and enrich — the whole society in which they exist. They gain value — in a wide variety of ways, some of which are difficult to anticipate — when more members of society have access to them. F2C: Freedom to Connect especially honors those who build communications infrastructure for the Internet in their own communities, often overcoming resistance from incumbent cable and telephone companies to do so.

The phrase Freedom to Connect is now official US foreign policy, thanks to Secretary of State Clinton’s Remarks on Internet Freedom in 2010. She said that Freedom to Connect is, “the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace.” Her speech presaged the Internet-fueled assemblies from Alexandria, Egypt to Zuccotti Park.

The Agenda is now quite stable.

Confirmed keynote speakers include Vint Cerf, Michael Copps, Susan Crawford, Cory Doctorow (via telecon), Benoît Felten, Lawrence Lessig, Barry C. Lynn, Rebecca MacKinnon, Eben Moglen, Mike Marcus and Aaron Swartz.

Panels include:

Big Enough to Succeed
BTOP, Gig-U and other big pipe experiments
Freedom & Connectivity from Alexandria, Egypt to Zuccotti Park
Internet Freedom is Local
The Fight for Community Broadband

F2C: Freedom to Connect Agenda 0.99.9.1

Monday 5/21

8:00 to 9:00 AM Registration, Continental Breakfast

9:00 to 10:30 AM
Vint Cerf keynote (45 min)
Rebecca MacKinnon keynote (Ian Schuler, US State Dept., discussant) (45 min)

11:00 to 12:30
Big Enough to Succeed: small carriers at the leading edge — entrepreneurial (non-Municipal) carriers show a fourth way (after Telco, Cable and Muni) to the future of connectivity. (60 min)

John Brown, CityLink Telecommunications
Gary Evans, Hiawatha Broadband Communications
Ken Johnson, Conneaut Telephone Company
Pat Kennedy, Lit San Leandro
Levi Maaia, Full Channel
Leslie Nulty, ValleyNet

Susan Crawford keynote (30 min)

12:30 to 1:30 Lunch

1:30 to 3:00

BTOP, Gig-U, and other big pipe experiments (60 min)

Blair Levin (brief intro)
Lev Gonick, CIO, Case Western University, founder, Case Connection Zone
Pankaj Shah, Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet)
Michael Smeltzer, UIUCNet, U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Mike Marcus keynote (30 min) Dewayne Hendricks (brief intro)

3:30 to 5:00
Benoit Felten, keynote (30 minutes)
Aaron Swartz, “How we stopped SOPA” keynote (30 min)
Michael Copps keynote (30 min)
– Jim Baller introduces Commissioner Copps

RECEPTION, location tbd.