Joel Johnson, Boing Boing Gadgets editor, was booked to go onto an AT&T sponsored and underwritten show to talk about how cool gadgets are, but instead hijacked the interview to discuss The Big Blue And White Ball’s recently announced plans to spy on the internet. The Hugh Thompson show is made by AT&T to show solely on its online AT&T Tech Channel, so what better way to count coup then to use it as a forum to ask why AT&T, in the interest of stopping potential copyright violations, wants to peer into every bundle of data its users send over the internets. After Joel keeps talking about the AT&T announcement, eventually Big Brother’s voice comes over the studio loudspeakers and says “Hold, please.” Gawker videographer Richard Blakeley taped this part of the interview and was grabbed by three security guards which he tried to exit, but eventually he was allowed to leave with the tape. They probably just wanted to analyze his packets for potential IP infringement. Read the rest of Joel’s description of the event over at Boing Boing Gadgets. Our platonic man-crush on Joel just got larger.

Talking About AT&T’s Internet Filtering on AT&T’s The Hugh Thompson Show [Boing Boing Gadgets]

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