"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" This famous quote of Robert Kennedy paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw sets the tone for this mornings sessions at Computers, Freedom and Privacy.

The plenary panel will be discussing "an inter-networked communication infrastructure that could facilitate the creation of a modern surveillance society". It sounds like a fascinating panel, and looking at things, I am sure people are bound to ask the question, Why? There are plenty of explanations, which I hope will get explored.

A parallel track is Activism and Education Using Social Networks. It looks like a small turnout of people, many of whom I already know and are already very active online. Yet this is the dreaming of things that never were and asking why not.