East coast code and west coast code

Lawrence Lessig’s book “Code” captivated me when it first came out, with its argument about the ways in which federal regulation (“east coast code”) and software/hardware choices in internet technology (“west coast code”) were — and are — rapidly closing down the decentralized space of the Internet. Now comes a piece on Tompaine.com, written by Jeff Chester and Steven Rosenfeld (which I found courtesy of Commondreams.org) that sounds the alert again. Communities of faith ought to be weighing in on these issues, because they have profound consequences for the health of our “creative commons,” not to mention our democracy. I just wish I could get some of them to pay attention…