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MEP Eva Lichtenberger answers questions by Leo Findeisen about the dangers implied for civil rights in some of the upcoming decisions in the European Parliament in 2008 or the voting of June 2009. She outlines several issues that are partly interrelated and give rise for many concerns. These issues are the

• Telecom-Package which still includes  passages that would allow for searching children’s iPods while checking in at the airport; the so-called
• French Three-Strikes-model that would e.g. allow private persons, families and businesses to be cut off their internet access; and the
• ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) process where a lack of transparency about what mandate the European Council has given its diplomats to elaborate – behind closed doors – on rigid laws to enforce intellectual property rights in all developed nations, e.g. by border officials or via online surveillance. 

She also discusses some historical developments that lead to the current state of the European Union, its institutions and the dialog with its citizens, about the motivations of Spanish and English MEPs to seek strong measures of surveillance because of their fear of new terror attacks, and some of the major changes European policy making is undergoing these years. 

“Money is not a problem for them.”

A short interview that was taken right after the from on a historical day in the Microsoft antitrust penalty hearings in Brussels, 30 March 2006.

The interviewee is Carlo Piana from Tamos, Piana & Partners (Milano) who served as a counsel to the Free Software Foundation Europe and an intervenor during the hearing.

“The best thing is if you can make some Free Software, the next best thing is if you don't make any software, and the worst thing is if you make some proprietary software.”

Richard Stallman explains the ethical principles behind the concept of Free Software and the GNU project.

“Wikipedia holds up the dark mirror of what humanity is, to itself.”

At Notacon 3 Jason Scott speaks about Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales design choices and their consequences.

“It began as a moral question. […] But it becomes along the way also a window into the economic organization of the human society in the 21^st century.”

Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, gives a keynote at the October 2006 Plone conference in Seattle.

“It's that new diversity of ways of creating information and exchanging it, that characterizes the Network information economy.”

Markus Beckedahl from netzpolitik.org speaks with law professor Yochai Benkler about his book “The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom” and some of his thoughts on the developments and influences of collaborative work and peer production on the net.

“My message to the patent world is: Either get back to the doctrines of forces of nature or face the elimination of your system.”

Hartmut Pilch of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) gives insights into the history of patent law, the theoretical shortcomings of the concept of software patents and their consequences.

“And so they decided – because they could – to write their own world!”

Danese Cooper, board member of the Open Source Initiative, gives a short introduction about the relationship between software companies, software patents and the concept of Open Source.