Dave Winer is asking the candidates who’ve adopted blogs for fundraising to promise to keep the Internet free. No one’s biting. Larry Lessig has invited candidates to speak on his blog, only to get the most mealy-mouthed responses on his favorite issues. Let’s look at Nader’s record:
- Fought the Microsoft monopoly.
- Fought the ICANN monster.
- Asked the government to consider procuring free software.
- Fought for compulsory drug patent licenses when needed.
- Fought software patents.
- Fought business method patents.
- Fought for strong open access/end-to-end protection of the Internet.
- Fought bilateral intellectual monopoly treaties.
- Fought for low-power FM.
- Fought for public domain information resources.
- Fought for Internet privacy protection.
- Long fought for true media diversity.
He did this all before it was popular. He did this without being pushed to do it by campaign contributors. He did it because it was right. I don’t want to sound all hippy-dippy here, but maybe this is a guy we should support.