Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Two of my favorite personalities on the Canadian web are Mark Goldberg and Michael Geist.  Often taking opposite positions on key issues, their commentary is always a worthwhile read.  So, this morning read Geist's cautionary piece on censorship and then read Goldberg's counter that reasonable societies should censor some elements of the web. 

I don't pretend to know the answers.  You'll have to make up your own minds.  But I have sympathy for both the argument that children need to be protected, and freedom of expression must be preserved.  As a society we need to preserve both of these values. 

Let's start by reframing the debate though.  Censorship is a dirty word.  It implies a restriction on the reasonable freedoms that citizens in a free society should have.  If we're going to have a conversation about preventing access to child porn, then let's frame the conversation in those terms, rather than talking about censorship. 

CounterPath is on the move.  Since their merger with Newheights, and refinancing at the hands of Sir Terry Matthews they've been on a buying binge.  February 1, it was FirstHand Technologies.  Just yesterday, Andy Abramson mentioned that BridgePort Networks had also been acquired by CounterPath, February 5th.

The common thread here is fixed mobile convergence.  They appear to be evolving from the softphone player that they were.  FirstHand was an enterprise FMC company.  BridgePort, was a carrier FMC company. 

This one will be interesting to watch.

Michael Geist was our SquawkBox guest this morning.  Michael is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He has degrees from Toronto, Cambridge and Columbia.  In addition he's a columnist on technology law issues who regularly appears in the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, and BBC. And he serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board and maintains privacyinfo.ca, a leading privacy law resource.

Recently Michael has been focused on copyright reform here in Canada.  The Conservative government has proposed legislation that is remarkably similar to the widely discredited Digital Millenium Copyright Act in the United States, and Michael has been asking ordinary citizens to voice their opinion on what Fair Copyright Reform looks like.  In fact, his Facebook group Fair Copyright for Canada has grown to nearly 40,000 members since it was started in December.

Enjoy the interview.  If afterward, you want to get involved, join the Facebook Group, and take a look at Michael's list of 30 things you can do, beginning with writing to your MP.   

 

 Squawk Box Feb 1 - Michael Geist [33:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We're going to have a minor celebrity on our call tomorrow in legal expert Michael Geist.  He'll be joining us to talk about the Canadian DMCA which will soon be before Parliament.  It's striking that our politicians are proposing such legislation now, given the acknowledged failure of American efforts. 

In any case, it promises to be an interactive and interesting session.

Click here to join us.

All I can say is WOW!  Duncan does a great interview and it was terrific to have a guest of his stature on the show.  His show at ScotiaBank Place on January 24th is going to be amazing!

Enjoy! 

 

 Squawk Box Jan 22 [37:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download