What you’re getting into…

Written by Christina Drummond
Welcome to the blog for the Technology and Liberty Project (TLP) at the ACLU of Washington (ACLU-WA). As the Director of the TLP, I plan on keeping you posted on news, activities and concerns that are relevant to our activities in Washington State. I’ll try to stay focused on state activities, but I make no promises as I may post some items that I’d feel guilty keeping to myself. Oh – and you can expect to see at least a weekly post.

You probably already know that the ACLU-WA has long been involved in technology issues. Starting with the birth of the Internet, the ACLU-WA has supported an uncensored cyber-world where anonymity and freedom of expression are both expected and required. And we have kept watch over technology that can broadcast information about our private lives, making widespread surveillance possible, easy and cost-effective.

So, who am I? I’m an early adopter that loves technology, who’s part of the generation that grew up moving a turtle around and selling lemonade on Apple IIe’s. I know the Information Age is upon us and have not yet given up on maintaining privacy in this new era. I don’t fear technological innovation because I know technology holds just as much potential to solve problems as it does to create them. Think about it. Technology can provide increased transparency to government operations, increase access to educational resources, and provide a lens that protects the privacy of information by providing a means to be anonymous.

Yet there are many ways technology implementations can challenge our civil liberties. What happens when the government implementation of an innovative technology reduces our privacy or when industry considers technical solutions that would protect our liberties as either a) not yet fully developed or b) too costly for the marketplace to implement on its own.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of work to be done. I look forward to bringing you along!

A note on comments: At this point we don’t have a huge staff devoted to this blogging effort (I’m it – and the occasional guest-writer I can line up.) Commenting is something we hope to enable in the future; in the meantime feel free to email your comments to me directly. And if you’re interested in assisting us as a moderator, or as a subject matter expert on a specific technology or issue area – just let me know.