Daithí (with a hat tip to Lessig) has come up with an excellent idea for this election year, and for our next government:

We know that a lot of interesting IP and IT law and policy issues … will make their way into new Cabinet workplans.

This week, I’m calling on interested parties (interested being those (bloggers or not) with an interest in the legal and policy elements of the Internet …) to join in. Each person will be responsible for one proposal, of her or his choice … to identify an existing law (â€?lawâ€? including whatever you want it to, and specifically including European directives, as a lot of the American issues are EU competence over here), and to suggest how it could be improved / amended / replaced / etc.

Brilliant idea. Wish I’d thought of it. In partial answer to my previous post, it’s one good reason for blogging. I’m in (if he’ll have me). You should volunteer too.

I hope it can make a difference, but am not too sanguine that it will. During the election campaign before last, a candidate and his team knocked on my front door, and sought to canvass my vote. After listening to the stump spiel, I asked about internet policy, and he told me that he and his party “believed in the internet”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but it’s marginally better – I suppose – than the series of political misengagements with technology catalogued by John Naughton in today’s Observer, or describing the internet as a “series of tubes“!

(Disclaimer, in the interests of full disclosure: I am supervising the PhD on the regulation of web media mentioned by Daithí in the right tool bar of his blog).