GeekPAC: Growing digital rights movement needs to put some political heads on stakes —

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“Earlier this month, two prominent members of the open-source-software community, Jeff Gerhardt, host of the online “Linux Show,” and Doc
Searls, senior editor of The Linux Journal, announced the formation of a sorely needed new lobbying group they’ve dubbed GeekPAC.

The group’s organizing manifesto has been posted online for public comment. Its opening pages masterfully detail the interrelated technical
and business issues that are helping to hobble the high-tech economy.

Ticking them off one by one, it lists the top 13 obstacles facing the high-tech community, and explains how in each area, narrow corporate
interests are using the federal government to erect roadblocks that are slowing down the pace of innovation and economic growth. The
primary goal of all these efforts, they note, is to preserve the profit streams of a handful of big media companies, even if it means stopping
technological progress dead in its tracks. ” More at sfgate.com.

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