Friday, August 20, 2004

being john gilmore

Greplaw has a great interview with John Gilmore on spam, terrorism, drugs, encryption, government gone out of control, and sarongs.

Who is John Gilmore?

I'm a civil libertarian millionaire eccentric. I started out in my teens as a middle-class programmer, worked my way up to senior technical jobs, then learned business in Silicon Valley. A combination of luck and skill brought me through several successful startup companies and gave me the opportunity to decide what I want to do, rather than what I need to do. I decided I want to work to keep individual freedom alive and thriving. So that's what I'm doing.

Gilmore has been spending a lot of time and money fighting Ashcroft's creeping fascism in the courts, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (of which he is a founding member) is constantly fighting for your digital rights. And if you've ever checked your email over the wifi connection at Burning Man (10 more days, baby), you did so on the satellite link that he and Clif Cox set up.