Cory Doctorow on freedom and the information society, Ramez Naam on the War on drugs and War on terror, and their acceptance speeches at the London Worldcon 2014 Prometheus Awards ceremony

Excerpts from the Prometheus Awards Worldcon ceremony:
From Cory Doctorow’s speech: “This is an extremely prestigious prize that I value very highly…

Does information want to be free? It’s certainly true that people want to be free… and you can’t live in an information society and be free without free information.”

From Naam’s speech:
“I also wrote Nexus because I was concerned about the abrogation of freedom in my country and throughout developed countries in the name of the War on drugs and the War on terror.

And that abrogation continues… Now I want to be clear, I’m an optimist. I believe that in the long run, humanity has become more free, that we have more freedom than we had generations ago and we have more capability than we had a few generations ago, and technology has played an important part of that.

But that increase in freedom has not been homogenous…

There are places in the world that have become less free and technology is playing a role in that through certain forms of surveillance and totalitarianism.

I believe in the long run we will find ways to use technology to enhance our freedom.”