I've been a member of the EFF for some time now, and got involved in speaking on Electronic Privacy when Dave Clement asked for people to serve on a panel at the 1995 WorldCon in Scotland. Henry Balen did a fine job of moderating that discussion, and I learned quite a lot from him and Phil.
I saw Bruce Schneier (author of Applied Cryptography) speak at the Boston Web conference, and asked him to join us for a similar panel at ConFusion 10101. A local Science Fiction author who I had met on the first panel, L. Warren Douglas, also joined us, with Iain O'Cain and Helena Harding to fill out the panel. It went even better than the first one, and was one of the most popular topics of discussion at the convention, with several people coming up to me and expressing hopes that we would continue in that vein next year.
For next year's ConFusion, I hope to get Bruce to do talk on encryption for VISA transactions, and continue the debate. Please give me your suggestions!