Statement by Mallory Knodel: Member, Leadership Committee, May First/People Link, United States I represent May First/People Link, a membership organization comprised of over 400 progressive organizations and an additional 100 individual activists, most based in the United States. Our primary political work is acquiring, developing and sharing among our members the resources of the Internet to enhance the scope and effectiveness of our members' organizing and communications work. Recent events have made clear the Internet's importance in facilitating organization and coordination of political movements, most recently the Spring protests that have swept the Middle East. But the contribution Internet communications makes to a better, freer and more democratic world has been made clear every day for over a decade and that contribution grows every day. With the Internet isolation is impossible, repression and oppression cannot be hidden, truth bursts through the corporate spins and government cover-ups and people can communicate, explain their lives, share their lessons and support each other. The human race invented and developed the Internet to facilitate the world-wide communication and coordination so necessary for our survival. Its success in fulfilling its purpose depends on the principles which have driven its development: free and complete access for all people in all countries on earth; absolute privacy and security; basic software that is free, completely accessible and based on fully available source code; complete net neutrality and equality of Internet functionality; and the complete absence of censorship over all Internet communications. These are the world's communication priorities. They feed democracy because democracy flows from this information. They enhance development because without basic infrastructural development, these goals cannot be achieved. They enrich the potential for coping with such challenges as climate change because people can share information about their environmental challenges and the remedies they are developing. And they nurture the potential for world peace because, when people speak to each other over the din of government and corporate lies, we can reach agreements that benefit us all. The governments of the world must unite in supporting these principles. The people of the world are uniting to fight for them. We are proud to be part of that fight.