11 September 2004

This e-mail is to announce the re-release of my 2003 cultural critique "Weapons of Mass Delusion: America's Real National Emergency" in free digital (Adobe PDF) format under the Creative Commons License Agreement.

There are two reasons for this action:

First, by releasing this book for free, I hope to encourage people to think seriously about where our great country is heading as we move toward the November elections. Regardless of whether or not you agree with my musings is not the point -- but if some of what I've presented gets you thinking a bit differently about the world around us and the prospects for our country's future, then I've done my job as an author.  After all, this election likely is the most important one we're facing as a nation, and perhaps as a world.  So consider this a small bit of geekish political activism.

Second, the release of this book into the Creative Commons indicates my strong and continuing support for limited but effective copyright laws as opposed to what today is promoted as "intellectual property protection"  for those select few with resources enough to influence (read: buy and own) legislators, regulators, and policy. After all, technology's promise and potential should be an enabler -- not enslaver -- of the citizenry both now and for the future.

The free PDF copy of "Weapons of Mass Delusion: America's Real National Emergency"  can be found at:

http://www.infowarrior.org/wmd/

As a result of "open-sourcing" the digital version of the book, future proceeds from hardcopy sales will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to assist in its ongoing efforts to defend our rights to think, speak, and share ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Thank you for your support, and for thinking for yourselves this election year.

Richard Forno
rforno at infowarrior.org

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official."  - President Theodore Roosevelt

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken