MySpace to Homeland Security: Privacy and the Totalitarian Urge

I happened to catch one of the most engaging and fascinating lectures that I have ever heard in my life with blogger, copyright expert, and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow. Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and co-author of the great blog Boing-Boing, Cory is to me one of the most brilliant and engaging figures I have ever heard, and I try to never miss one of his podcasts.

You can listen to this lecture by Cory (delivered at Duke University on February 22, 2007) and recorded by the great podcast Random Signal by clicking ‘play’ below:

or by downloading the file (right-click and choose ‘save as…’) here.

Have a listen! It is one of the most fascinating things I have ever heard. It is about technology but also about mankind in general and the new ease of communication, indexing of information, and methods of collaboration that we all increasingly have at our fingertips, as well as the perils of such innovation.

Cory is a big proponent of liberal copyright laws and Creative Commons comments. He discusses the reasoning behind such views in this lecture. This should be essential listening for any legislator considering prioritizing traffic on the internet.