Tonight at 7:45pm PST (4:45am CET), Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson of La Quadrature du Net will receive his 2012 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) at a ceremony in the Project One Gallery in San Francisco. The whole team of La Quadrature du Net thanks EFF and congratulates Jérémie.





Trophy’s 2009 – Photo by Quinn Norton and Amber Wolf Trophy’s 2009 – Photo by Quinn Norton and Amber Wolf

The EFF Pioneer Award were set up in 1993 “to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology”. Besides Jérémie Zimmermann, this year awards go to the Tor project, a key software infrastructure for anonymity on the Internet and to Andrew (bunnie) Huang, a key software and hardware hacker, with major achievements in interoperability and technological arts. The 2012 awards bring together three facets of the Internet and digital world that we stand for: democracy and political activism, the ability of collaborative projects to design major infrastructures, and the individual empowerment, here in the gaming and artistic domain.

The EFF states: “[Jérémie] Zimmermann has been instrumental in the fight against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a far-reaching international treaty that would curtail many Internet freedoms in favor of extremist intellectual property protectionism. Zimmermann has worked tirelessly to spread the word about ACTA and the ways in which it would put a chokehold on Internet and digital rights. This July, after years of secretive negotiations, ACTA was defeated in the European Parliament. Zimmermann has also worked on numerous other technology policy topics, including freedom of expression, copyright, regulation of telecommunications, and online privacy.”

Jérémie shares his prize with all of the volunteers and anonymous citizens who have contributed to La Quadrature du Net achievements or relayed its ideas and proposals. There are difficult struggles and exciting opportunities for a free Internet ahead of us. You can help La Quadrature du Net to be up to its responsibilities in the years to come, either in participating in its actions or in supporting its efforts.