Is Net Neutrality essential for democracy? What role will AI have in the future of the web? What will Web 4.0 look like? On June 11, in an attempt to answer these and other questions, Tim Berners-Lee and other leading web authorities will gather at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., for an old-fashioned debate with a social media twist: The content of the debate will be collaboratively created by web users, who can submit questions and promote them through a user-based ranking system similar to Digg. The most popular questions will form the basis of the debate, which will be webcast live. Viewers will also be able to interact with the panelists by submitting questions and comments in real time. For more details about this interactive event, plus instructions on how to submit and rank questions, go here.

Controversy around RealID is nothing new. When Congress passed an act in 2005 that required a set of machine-readable information on government-issued identity cards, plenty of opposition pointed out the expense, the unnecessary amounts of data and the bureaucratic nightmare of issuing all-new cards to citizens. So far not a single state has actually made the May 2008 deadline to implement the IDs.

But an article from Jim Harper at the CATO Institute points out that L-1, a prominent maker of driver’s licenses and biometric security products, plans to buy the identity card business of DigiMarc, the No. 1 maker of state driver’s licenses. The combined entity will have a lock on the identification market and a reason to push for RealID, argues Harper.

As anyone whose income tax data or social security numbers have been posted to the web can attest, the government isn’t exactly a lockbox for personal information. Having so much data on such an accessible state document is an invitation to privacy violations that would have far more repercussions than your girlfiend realizing you bought her a diamond ring on Overstock.com. Just something to to think about this election year.