Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, The Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet – Book Salon Preview
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Hacking Politics
How Geeks, Progressives, The Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet
Chat with David Segal, David Moon, and Patrick Ruffini about their new book, hosted by Tim Karr.
Hacking Politics is a firsthand account of how a ragtag band of activists and technologists overcame a $90 million lobbying machine to defeat the most serious threat to Internet freedom in memory. The book is a revealing look at how Washington works today – and how citizens successfully fought back.
Written by the core Internet figures – video gamers, Tea Partiers, tech titans, lefty activists and ordinary Americans among them – who defeated a pair of special interest bills called SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (“Protect IP Act”), Hacking Politics provides the first detailed account of the glorious, grand chaos that led to the demise of that legislation and helped foster an Internet-based network of amateur activists.
Included are more than thirty original contributions from across the political spectrum, featuring writing by Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz; Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School; novelist Cory Doctorow; Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA.); Jamie Laurie (of the alt-rock/hip-hop group The Flobots); Ron Paul; Mike Masnick, CEO and founder of Techdirt; Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder and co-director of Fight for the Future; Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit; Nicole Powers of Suicide Girls; Josh Levy, Internet Campaign Director at Free Press, and many more.
David Moon is a Washington-based policy attorney, political consultant and issue advocate. He serves as the program director for the million-member progressive Internet organization Demand Progress. In that capacity, Moon works strategically to help build a political voice for the organization’s issues.
Patrick Ruffini is founder and president at Engage, a leading digital firm in Washington, D.C. During the SOPA fight, he founded “Don’t Censor the Net” to defeat governmental threats to Internet freedom. For more than a decade, Ruffini has been a leader at the intersection of technology and politics. Prior to starting Engage, Ruffini led digital campaigns for the Republican Party, serving as eCampaign Director for the Republican National Committee, and as webmaster for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign.
David Segal was elected to the city council of Providence, R.I. as a Green in 2002, and then won a seat as a Democrat in the Rhode Island state legislature in 2006. While a state representative, Segal pushed numerous progressive initiatives involving the environment, progressive taxation, affordable housing, civil rights and civil liberties. He has written for many publications, among them the New York Times and Boston Globe. (OR BOOKS)
