Nerocon

Copy and paste of the important bits. ---- Please join EFF in celebrating this year's Pioneer Awards! We are honored to present awards to the late digital rights activist Aaron Swartz, international access to knowledge advocate James Love, and journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Renowned academic, author, and activist Lawrence Lessig will be the keynote speaker. The ceremony will include drinks, bytes, and excellent company. The 22nd Annual Pioneer Awards Thursday, September 19, 2013 @ The Lodge at the Regency Center 1300 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94109 6:00 PM Special advance reception 6:45 PM General reception 7:45 PM Awards ceremony Tickets are available at special rates for members. Also available are tickets for an intimate advance reception featuring past and present Pioneer Award winners, keynoter Lawrence Lessig, and special guests. More about the Awards and the 2013 Winners EFF established the Pioneer Awards in 1992 to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. This year's winners will join an esteemed group of past award recipients that includes Internet pioneer and inventor of the mouse Douglas Engelbart, science fiction author and activist Cory Doctorow, and privacy rights advocate Beth Givens. This year, we honor Aaron Swartz, James Love, and Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras for their tireless efforts to make the world a better place through democratizing the flow of information. Aaron Swartz Aaron Swartz's achievements and influence on the Internet and its activist community are profound, despite his untimely death at age 26 earlier this year. Among numerous technological achievements, he co-founded Demand Progress—a critical part of the successful campaign to block SOPA and PIPA—and was a committed open access activist. After two years of fighting CFAA charges for downloading millions of academic articles through MIT’s open network, Swartz tragically took his own life. He will be missed. James Love James Love is one of the leading champions in the international battle for access to knowledge, defending everyone's right to free speech, privacy, fair competition, and health across the globe for more than 20 years. Love was instrumental in the groundbreaking adoption of a global intellectual property treaty for people with reading and visual disabilities this year. Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras brought the world clear and credible news and analysis about the massive domestic surveillance programs currently conducted by the NSA – transforming leaked documents by whistleblower Edward Snowden into riveting narrative that everyone could understand. These blockbuster stories exposed a web of convoluted, invasive spying on phone call history, email connections, and other communications data, sparking outrage across the globe and unprecedented admissions by the U.S. government about the extent of the surveillance. Both have a history of creating the incisive journalism and filmmaking essential to maintaining government accountability. Join us at The Lodge at the Regency Center for a special advance reception at 6pm to eat, drink, and chat with past and present Pioneer Award winners, keynoter Lawrence Lessig, and leaders in the law and tech fields. Tickets are also available for the general reception, starting 6:45pm. We hope to see you there! -- forgive the formatting, in a rush to get to work but wanted to post this.