Re: pacer and lollapalooza

[Carl Malamud <xxxx@media.org>]

Hi Rhett -

I'm David Halperin's friend.  I used to be Podesta's Chief Technology  
Officer at the Center, am now running a c(3) nonprofit out of  
California that puts primary legal materials (e.g., court cases) on  
the net called Public.Resource.Org.

I'd like to introduce you to Aaron Swartz who has created  
Watchdog.Net.  The advice they received from their first funder, the  
Sunlight Foundation, was that they should be a c(4).  I believe this  
is Aaron's first nonprofit, but he has accumulated a distinguished  
record in a variety of Internet enterprises.  He wrote the "RSS"  
standard which is what newsfeeds are based on.

He was also a founder of Reddit, a popular social networking site that  
was sold to Conde Naste.  And, perhaps most importantly, he's been the  
technical smarts behind a lot of impressive operations for Internet  
veterans such as Brewster Kahle and Lawrence Lessig (a name you may  
remember from your recent Harry Potter suit. :)

Watchdog has some funding, but because they are early stage they are  
definitely not flush, so I know Aaron would appreciate any reduced  
fees or perhaps even pro bono representation for the initial C(4)  
application.  If it is helpful, I am happy to provide advice during  
the process, but this is Aaron's gig and I'm not directly involved.

I'll let you two arrange a phone call with each other and you can  
decide if this is worth taking the next step.

Best regards,

Carl

P.S. Aaron ... Rhett's URL, which you no doubt found already, is 
http://web.omm.com/rhettmillsapsii/