For reasons that are unclear, but I wasn’t inclined to argue about them, I’ve been invited to a “summit” on “democracy, terrorism and security” in Madrid next week, me and my close personal friends Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan Zuckerman, Dan Gillmor, Joi Ito, David Isenberg, and Bill Clinton…you know, the same old crowd.

About thirty of us (excluding Bill) are in a group talking about the Net, democracy and terrorism, not a topic I know a lot about. I presume there will be some arguing in favor of tightening security on the Net in order to prevent terrorism, an approach me and my jerking knees oppose. I mean, everything I know about security could be written on the back of a tie-dyed t-shirt, but I do think some of the batten-down-the-hatches arguments ignore not only the social and political costs but miss ways an open, worldwide network can help in the fight against terrorism. But I’m willing to listen and learn. And the format of the conference sounds like it should facilitate learning: The first day we meet behind closed doors and on the second we engage publicly.

The Summit is sponsoring an online forum about its topics right now… [Technorati tags: madrid terrorism]

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