Joi Ito writes about the Digital Democracy Tech-In that will take place at this year’s Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego, California
Among others, the event will include:

• Wes Boyd, co-founder of MoveOn.org
• David Weinberger, Senior Internet Adviser to the Dean campaign
• Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup.com
• Joi Ito, venture capitalist, author of Emergent Democracy
• Doc Searls, co-author of The ClueTrain Manifesto
• Ethan Zuckerman, founder of GeekCorps; fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School

What a time to be having such a debate! Even the act of travelling to the USA has become slightly worrying thanks to the aggressive actions of the regime that took power in 2000. Meanwhile, Howard Dean looks sets to face Bush in one of the most polarised elections in recent memory, partly thanks to the ability of the Internet to galvanise ordinary people. People across the world are just starting to organise and communicate directly with each other using new forms of social software and other networked tools, which is tremendously exciting
However, some of the recent debate about the potential of social software and networked communications to change the world we live in has been naive and over-optimistic to the point of being offensive. People caught up in the exciting area of using technology for social and economic change often forget that not only are they a tiny priviledged minority, but that in the real world *their* tax dollars and *their* technology is being used in pursuit of aggressive domination of other peoples, rampant cronyism/theft, and the removal of civil liberties that we had all started to take for granted. Yes, the Internet has an incredibly empowering potential, but if we lose sight of the fact that the situation for the majority of people is getting worse, not better, then we will be unable to engage with the world at large
I am sure we will have much to learn from a very good set of speakers and participants.