So I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but the Canadian DMCA bill has been delayed, session is closed and Michael Geist and 25,000 concerned Canadians (myself included), have received a great Christmakuh gift - free speech.

The Montreal Gazette just released a bluffers guide to Canadian Copyright. Familiarize yourself and talk amongst your selves.

POLITICAL ACTIVISM:
Ok. The internets are obviously working. 25,000 people on Facebook have helped delay the DMCA bill; however, it isn’t just the academics that are getting into the swing of things. US presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul and his supporters have just raised $6 million in one day with the majority of those donations coming via online support.

Here he is addressing GOP executive. At the 2 min mark he casually discredits evolution as a theory he doesn’t subscribe to, at the 8 min mark he addresses Net Neutrality.

ONLINE VOTING
With the onslaught of online efforts, will there ever be increased access to voting via the internet? I’m sure this would be a particularly daunting security problem and I’m also sure this would be terrifying for many candidates; however, think about our current system. In Jan 2006, according to Elections Canada, 64.7 per cent of the country’s 23,054,615 registered voters actually showed up to the polls. This is actually an excellent turnout in comparison to the little over 50 per cent of Americans that vote. Now think about the barriers to voting. The American Journal of Political Science cited lack of education as the major barrier. Is internet polling a way to encourage additional voters? Can it even ever happen? Maybe not, but after looking at Wikipedia’s long list of controversial elections citing various points of fraud, I don’t know that the internet could be much worse than our current systems.