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Lessig For Congress?
luge writes "With the unfortunate passing of Congressman Tom Lantos, parts of Silicon Valley and San Francisco will be holding a special election in June to send a replacement to Congress. Given the area, it would be great to have someone who is both tech- and policy-aware fill the seat — and it looks like that just might happen. Lawrence Lessig has apparently bought 'change-congress.com.' A 'Draft Lessig' group is forming on Facebook, featuring some of Lessig's old co-workers at Harvard and Jimmy Wales, among others. No word from Lessig himself yet, but he's been increasingly vocal about politics of late. If it happens, it would be a huge step forward for the representation of technology in Washington."
I'm leaning toward Obama a bit for President. This is mostly because when he drafted his tech policy, instead of talking to some exec at AT&T, he talked to Lessig[1]. I find this admirable.
In the potential future where Lessig runs and wins, and Obama wins, we'd have two more Slashdot Moral Values-friendly politicians in office. Of course, there's already people like Dick Boucher of Virginia.
[1] Of course, who knows how committed Obama is to his tech platform, and/or how much he'd have to compromise to appease the Congresscritters who've been bought by the telecom and copyright cartels.
I doubt he'd be electable in a state which contains a large percentage (if not the largest) of content providers.
Perhaps not in the Senate, but this is the House, and he's a Bay Area resident. We have a few little companies here that are full of employees who feel pretty strongly about rational technology law; you know, Google, Apple, Yahoo, and about seventy-three thousand startups. House elections are local.
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I'd rather vote for a guy that stood up for what I believe in and failed rather than someone who stood up for something I'm against and succeeded.
He would make an excellent Congressman and technology advocate. Personally, I think Lawrence Lessig would make for the right template to choose Congressmen. That is, they both have general competence and area-specific knowledge. Rather than the old method of electing political cronies or party insiders or business schmucks or mercenary, power-hungry lawyers, we could elect men and women who are strong contributors to our civic life and also experts in their particular field.
For instance, I would feel much better about food safety legislation designed by a Congresswoman who was an actual FDA scientist. Then I could be reasonably sure that facts played a large role in her decisions.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I'd say elect Bill Gates.
Just coming up with bribes large enough to get his attention would bankrupt
the RIAA, MPAA, and similar mob enterprises.
Lessig comes up all the time here - or at least, he did until he switched "causes" away from copyrights.
Not so. He was pretty clear about the fact that he feels copyright is a symptom, and the corruption disease must be tackled in order to advance rational copyright law which balances the needs of creators and consumers. He has not turned his back on copyright reform, but taken what he sees as the only viable path to the goal.
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That's some good thinking there, tiger. Let's not vote for the guy who tried to change US copyright law on a shoe-string budget against the wishes of the biggest and richest corporations in America. Is it at least possible that the things he learned going through that could help him to be succesful next time? Or do you win all your SCOTUS cases first time? What's that? You've never fought a case against corruption at the level of the supreme court? You've never even fought any court cases against corruption?
I don't mean to sound like a fanboy, but Lessig has proven that he's willing to fight for the things I (and likely you, this being Slashdot and all) actually care about, and you slag him because he didn't win his supreme court case! Unbelievable.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
I don't live in his district, but I sent a check to Diebold and they said they registered my vote.