The Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference 2005, has just issued its Call for Proposals.
A key part of my becoming an Internet lawyer was attending an early CFP..maybe CFP 3?…in '92? '93?…could it really be that long ago?…in order to figure out the lay of the land. I had a computer background, and a legal background, but they were fully compartmentalized parts of my history, and I had only recently thought about putting them together. (I'm certain that the idea of 'computer law' was never breathed in my hearing during three years at Yale Law School.) I wanted to know what the state of the art was. I happened upon an announcement for CFP, it sounded interesting, so with some trepidation I went.
There were a few lawyers there, but not many. Most of them seemed (forgive me, whoever you were) to be talking nonsense, or to be very uninformed about how the technologies actually worked. There was one very noticeable exception, however: Stewart Baker, then General Counsel of the NSA. He was technically clued up, he knew his law. And I disagreed with him. So I came away with the feeling that I could play in that league.
On the other hand, there were loads of technologists, and cypherpunks, and some cops, and they were all pretty interesting. I learned a great deal from them. And for several years I kept going back; one year I even found myself on the program committee.
If you want an introduction to hot issues in the intersection of, well, Computers, Freedom and Privacy, then CFP can't be beat. It's pretty good for intermediates too; experts will enjoy the hallway conversations which tend to be great fun.
A variety of circumstances, some beyond my control, have kept me away from CFP for the last few years. And once again, the combination of distance (it's hard to find a place big enough to hold a CFP that is farther from Miami and still in the lower 48) and the number of classes I'd have to cancel to go may cause me to miss it again this year. Which makes me nostalgic.
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