The most important action computer professionals can take right now is to provide free, popular, public access to news and mail. And to do so with considerable hand-holding, education, and support. Offering the service for free is important in order to make it inclusive. There is an ever-growing segment of society that has little or no money to spare. Food and shelter will always take priority over education.
Popularity is important because the most effective communication reaches a lot of people.
They just need help in the initial stages. Then you will have community support, popular support for the issues that affect everyone. If a goodly chunk of the community learns the value of free, uncensored, international communications, there will be substantial support for fights against dumb ideas like ClipperChip or plans to sell publicly funded information back to the public. Peter Gordon is a CPSR member in British Columbia, Canada.