A Movement Is Defined at Freedom To Connect

The Internet is changing our country by changing how we interact with our media and government, said speakers at the Freedom To Connect conference. "We're talking about more than technology and politics here," said Timothy Karr, campaign director for Free Press. "We're talking about a movement." Karr defined three movements that are working together: the movements for media reform, free culture and open government. Each has coalesced around a specific crisis and has survived to influence future policy decisions. Karr said that the media reform movement was forged in the public battles over spectrum and then over battles on public access to private cable networks. The free culture movement is growing out of copyright battles in social media such as Facebook and YouTube. He asked for discussion on principles that all of the three movements would agree on and suggested: openness (a non-discriminatory Internet), transparency (making government information available to all citizens), innovation (copyright reform to foster new creativity), privacy (freedom from government spying) and access (to extend this new digital power to every American).