Jerry Berman, former EFF policy director, is heading up his own public interest policy group: the Center for Democracy and Technology. According to several EFF board members (who asked not to be identified), Berman was fired in October for mismanaging the EFF's organizational and financial affairs, though they did not accuse him of wrongdoing.
Board members were also upset because they believed Berman had cost the EFF street credibility in the eyes of the online community. It was Berman, as a Washington insider, who helped broker various compromises that became law with the passage of the FBI's Digital Wiretap Bill. EFF board members praised his efforts in the arduous negotiations to get the bill passed, but grew wary of the political-insider role Berman was crafting for the group.
The new group will lobby for laws designed to protect and enhance "individual liberty and democratic values in new digital media," according to its prospectus. Berman insists that his parting of ways with the EFF was a mutual decision. Several other former high-ranking EFF members left in December. Funding for the Center for Democracy and Technology, Berman says, will come from "foundations and different cross sections of the communications industry."
ELECTRIC WORD
Is Microsoft Finally Headed for a Fall?
The Continuing Investigation of Phil Zimmermann
Berman's Bailout
