========================================================================== _ _ __| | ___ _ __ ___ ___ ___ _ __ __ _ ___ _ _ _ __ ___| |_ / _` |/ _ \ '_ ` _ \ / _ \ / __| '__/ _` |/ __| | | | | '_ \ / _ \ __| | (_| | __/ | | | | | (_) | (__| | | (_| | (__| |_| |_| | | | __/ |_ \__,_|\___|_| |_| |_|\___/ \___|_| \__,_|\___|\__, (_)_| |_|\___|\__| |___/ Enhancing Participation in the Democratic Process Through the Internet _________________________________________________________________________ Update No.2 http://democracy.net/ March 20, 1997 _________________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents - democracy.net Cybercast draws Thousands to Interactive Hearing - Upcoming Events - Volunteering for democracy.net - About democracy.net ___________________________________________________________________________ DEMOCRACY.NET CYBERCAST DRAWS THOUSANDS TO INTERACTIVE CONGRESSIONAL HEARING democracy.net, a project designed to explore ways of enhancing citizens participation in the democratic process via the Internet, held its first live, interactive cybercast of a Congressional hearing on Wednesday March 19th, 1997. Thousands of Internet users joined this historic event by listening to a live audio feed from the hearing (cybercast over the Internet via RealAudio), submitting questions and testimony for the hearing record, reading information about the hearing, and joining a simultaneous online discussion forum to discuss the hearing with Congressional staff and policy experts. The hearing was held by the Senate Commerce Committe to consider S. 377, the Promotion of Commerce online in the Digital Era (Pro-CODE) Act and this issue of US encryption policy -- a critical issue to the Internet user community. Some statistics from the event. * 6,019 individual Internet users visited the democracy.net web site containing information about the Hearing, links to both sides of the issue, and other relevant information in the 24 hours preceding the event. * 703 individuals listened to the hearing live online via Real Audio throughout the 3 hour event. The actual Senate hearing room (Russell 253) where the event took place only holds less than one hundred people when filled to capacity (as it was for this hearing). * Throughout the event, between 20 - 50 people joined the simultaneous live chat discussion where Commerce Committee staff and encryption policy experts fielded questions and discussed the hearing. The audience included individual Internet users, reporters, advocacy groups, and Congressional staff. * Twenty-three Internet users submitted formal comments for the hearing record via the democracy.net web page, including IETF chair Fred Baker. The democracy.net cybercast was promoted on the front page of Netscape's World Wide Web site (one of the most popular destinations on the entire Web) on March 18 - 19. The site is also featured at Progressive Networks WebActive Site of the Week for the week of March 17-21. Despite some technical bugs early on (par for the course for a cutting-edge Internet event such as this), the cybercast went even better than we anticipated. We are grateful to Brett Scott, Mike Rawson, Matt Raymond, Mike Inners, and Pia Pialorsi of the Senate Commerce Committee staff for their help and support of this effort. Archives of the hearing are posted http://democracy.net/events/03191997/ democracy.net is a new project of the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Voters Telecommunications Watch designed to explore ways of enhancing citizen particpation in the democratic process via the Internet. democracy.net is made possible through the generous support of Webactive Panix, Digex, and the Democracy Network. Visit http://democracy.net/about/ for more details. ______________________________________________________________________________ UPCOMING EVENTS * April 10, 8:30PM EST - Online town hall meeting with Rep. Rick White (R-WA), Co-Founder of the Congressional Internet Caucus * April 16, 8:30PM EST - Online town hall meeting with Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Key Representative from California's Silicon Valley and leader on Internet Policy issues. * Additional events are in the works -- please visit http://www.democracy.net for more details, and sign up for our event announcement mailing list. democracy.net town hall meetings will be moderated by Todd Lappin (Cyber Rights Editor for Wired Magazine). The town hall meetings are designed to bring interested members of the Internet community and key members of congress together to discuss current Internet policy issues. ____________________________________________________________________________ VOLUNTEERING FOR DEMOCRACY.NET A volunteer is needed to help index the RealAudio transcript of the hearing. If you would like to help, please do the following and mail the results to webmaster@democracy.net. To index the RealAudio transcript, please listen to the transcript and watch the time counter at the bottom right of the page. Please note the following beginning and ending times: -whenever a new witness begins their prepared testimony and, -whenever a question and answer section begins. Mail them to us at webmaster@democracy.net with the start and stop times of each section. Thanks! ____________________________________________________________________________ ABOUT DEMOCRACY.NET The democracy.net is a joint project of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) to explore ways of enhancing citizen participation in the democratic process via the Internet. To this end, democracy.net will host live, interactive cybercasts of Congressional Hearings and online town hall meetings with key policy makers. democracy.net is made possible through the generous support of WebActive, PANIX Internet, the Democracy Network, and DIGEX Internet. More information about the project can be found at http://democracy.net/about/ To receive democracy.net announcements automatically, please visit http://democracy.net/ _____________________________________________________________________________ end Update No.2 03.20.97 =============================================================================