Our first line of duty is to monitor Congress, US Agencies, State Legislatures and International Bodies for any proposed legislation or policy that relates to intellectual property or technology policy. We then analyze the policy, and decide what position to take on the legislation, in accordance with our organization's mission statement. Then we become an active part in the debate about the proposed legislation, in Washington DC and elsewhere: we talk about the issues with key policymakers, the press, public interest groups, industry and you. Our first priority is to stop any harmful legislation from passing, and we've been busy the past two years mostly doing this. However, we also support legislation we think is good, and plan on introducing some positive legislation of our own very soon.

We spend a lot of our time maintaining open channels of communication with policymakers, often serving in an educational role. Our staff reviews new technologies, understanding their technical capabilites, and we often brief the less-technical on how specific technologies work.

Whenever necessary, we file comments with the FCC and Copyright office. Our president, Gigi Sohn often testifies before congress. We also file amici briefs in relevant court cases.

We work on making our issues part of the public discussion. Our communications director talks daily with the press, educating them about an issue or discussing our viewpoint. We put on press conferences when a major event happens. PK staff are quoted frequently in the New York Times, Washington Post and a wide variety of other publications. Senior staff often goes on TV or the radio to speak about the issues at hand. PK staff and our speaker's bureau constantly speak at a wide variety of conferences, and are on panel discussions and debates (Would you like us to speak to your group? Email us at pk@publicknowledge.org. Public Knowledge also organizes an annual conference with the New America Foundation, and sponsors other conferences related to the issues we work on.

We also spend a significant amount of time maintaining open channels of communication with our constituents. If you're on our mailing list we'll update you on key developments in the space. We run actions, prompting our constituents to communicate with their legislators at strategic points in the legislative process. When legislation is proposed at the state level, we provide support, information and coordination to the state-level organizations. We're working on building a grassroots movement around these issues (and need your help.)

Public Knowledge looks for common ground between industry and the public-interest, and builds issue related coaltions between disparate groups that have the same views on the issues. We hold meetings for interested parties to share information and build strategies.

Public Knowledge also runs three projects that deal with specific areas of IP. The Open Access Project promotes the free and unrestricted world-wide electronic distribution of peer-reviewed journal literature. The Creator's Project works to make copyright and technology work for artists, The Global Knowledge Initative works on IP. We sponsor the WiFi on the National Mall project.