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Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

CPSR/Georgia (Atlanta)

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Welcome to CPSR Georgia!

This chapter was founded in 1997 and has maintained a steady program of activities.  Most of its activity is based at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, where there is a student chapter and where CPSR Board member Hans Klein is on the faculty of the School of Public Policy.
 

Testimony to the Georgia State Legislature: House Bill 687 "Super DMCA"

On 23 April 2003 Georgia Tech professor and CPSR Chair Hans Klein testified before the House Utilities Commission on a bill to strengthen protections for intellectual property on digital networks.  Prof. Klein argued that the bill was part of a broad policy initiative by intellectual property interests active in the World Trade Organization, the US Congress, and state governments to shift the balance of public and private interests in favor of such groups as the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).  He recommended that Georgia rely on existing legislation and not pass new rules in this area.  For more information on state legislature of this nature click here.
 

The US War on Iraq

CPSR co-sponsors Atlanta Internet activism portal: AtlantaGrassroots.org

CPSR co-sponsors Teach-in at Georgia Tech held on April 11.  See news coverage in student newspaper.

Event: New Directions in Internet Policy Workshop, (Atlanta, Feb. 15, 2002)

Talk: ?Supra-National Governance: The Vexing Problem of Legitimacy?
Full program here.

US Congressman Bob Barr speaks on Civil Liberties in Cyberspace (Feb. 15, 2002)

U.S. Congressman Bob Barr about citizens' rights to online privacy. His talk was based on his experiences with the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency and addressed responsible governance of the Internet.  CPSR co-sponsored this event by the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy.

 

Georgia Tech:  Student Chapter of CPSR Founded, 2000

Georgia Tech graduate students Dara O'Neil and Rob Orr officially founded the student chapter of CPSR in the winter of 2000.  Although the campus has hosted numerous CPSR activities, especially since the founding of the CPSR Georgia chapter, this student chapter should increase that activity.  For more information contact Dara or Rob.
 

National Conference on DNS Management and Internet Governance

The CPSR Georgia chapter provided most of the resources to put on the CPSR's national conference, Governing the Commons:  The Future of Global Internet Administration, held near Washington, DC, in September 1999.  That event assembled both critics and supporters of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).   They keynote speaker for that event was Ralph Nader, and the event received press coverage in The New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and overseas press.  This event was co-sponsored by the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, College of Computing, Ivan Allen College, and School of Literature, Communication and Culture.
 

Internet Governance:  DragonCon Atlanta, 1999

CPSR National Chair and Georgia Tech professor Hans Klein gave a talk at the DragonCon Conference in Atlanta on July 1999.  He described and analyzed the potentially wide-ranging powers of the new Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is poised to become the centralized governance and regulatory institution for all of cyberspace.  The series of policy talks at DragonCon included talks by first amendment lawyer J. Scott McClain.  The speaker series was organized by former CPSR Board member Robert Costner and the group he founded, Electronic Frontiers Georgia (EFGA).
 

Privacy in Cyberspace:  CPSR testimony at Social Security Hearings, Atlanta 1997

Following a public outcry after it made tax records accessible over the Internet, the Social Security Administration held public hearings to learn how to better ensure taxpayer privacy.  Public hearings were held in Georgia, California, and numerous other states around the country.  At the Atlanta hearings, held in June 1997, CPSR member Robert Costner testified about the importance of new technologies to ensure privacy, and CPSR member Hans Klein testified on the importance of diffusing awareness of privacy to all federal agencies.  To learn more about this event, read the Public Forum Transcript or go straight to the transcripts of Robert Costner's presentation or Hans Klein's presentation.
 

Pretty Good Privacy:  PGP Creator Phil Zimmermann Speaks at Georgia Tech

Phil Zimmermann came to Georgia Tech campus as the guest of CPSR Georgia and Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy and College of Computing.  Zimmermann spoke about his experiences as the object of a criminal investigation following his creation and diffusion of Pretty Good Privacy, a program that puts the power of encryption in the hands of all computer users.

Anonymity in Cyberspace:  CPSR in the Federal Courtroom

Hans Klein gave expert testimony in Federal District Court in Atlanta in January 1997 in the case ACLU of Georgia v. Miller.  He testified on the implications of Georgia law forbidding anonymous communications on computer networks.  For more information about this case, see the relevant ACLU web pages from the ACLU Georgia and the national ACLU site.
 

If you have questions or are interested in becoming involved with this CPSR chapter, contact:

Hans Klein
Phone 404 894-6822
hklein@cpsr.org
or
Dara O'Neill
Phone 404 894-6822
dara.oneil@gtri.gatech.edu

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This page last updated: April 2003 by Hans Klein

E-mail cpsr@cpsr.org with questions or comments.