According to the NY Times: In a White House ceremony today, President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, to a dozen prominent people, including:

Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the greatest force for democracy since the privately-owned newspaper and the curtains that surround voting booths.

Lawrence Lessig for fighting to return copyright protection to its original role: to maximize the sharing of ideas and works of creativity.

The Linux community for building something bigger than itself for others, and for doing more to protect the open market than the FTC has done.

Shawn Fanning for enabling 70 million people to do a de facto redefinition of the verb “to own.”

Google for making it possible to find shit.

Mnftiu for being funny just by telling the truth (edging out TheOnion).

We can dream, can’t we?

Categories: Uncategorized dw