WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange convened a small meeting of friends and leading Web activists from around the world to discuss the future of the free and private flow of information on the Internet.

Hacker and computer security specialist Jacob Appelbaum points up the scary reality that companies such as Facebook and AT&T have become “privatized secret police” in the service of government:

“This isn’t about technology at all. It’s about economics. They have decided that it is more important to collaborate with the state and to sell out their users and to violate privacy and to be a part of the system of control, to be paid back for being a part of the system of surveillance … than to be resistant to it. So they build it and become a part of it.”

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.The World Tomorrow:

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