Congratulations to the winners of EFF's 2010 Pioneer Awards: Steven Aftergood, James Boyle, Pamela Jones and the website Groklaw, and Hari Krishna Prasad Vemuru! The 19th Annual Pioneer Awards ceremony was held this past Monday at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. We were all deeply inspired by the words of our award winners and our Master of Ceremonies, Cory Doctorow, and want to share the experience with all who weren't able to join us in person.

The event was kindly recorded and live-streamed by Chris Hansen of BAMM.TV. The video is embedded below and available at Justin.tv.

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(Pamela Jones and Groklaw submitted a video acceptance speech. If you're having trouble seeing it in the video above, you can view it here.)

Amber Wolf of Wiz Bang Photography took photographs of the event, which you can check out on Flickr.

Finally, we'd like to share the words of our VIP ticket contest winner, Larry Starkand, who wrote in to tell us about how EFF inspires him to support digital rights:

I first became aware of and inspired by EFF in the same way I continue to be today. It was nearly 20 years ago after the OKC bombing, when the newly elected Senator Feinstein wanted to censor bomb making information from the internet. Mitch Kapor had been called to testify before the committee, and when he first spoke about First Amendment protections and free speech, Sen. Feinstein immediately piped up and said: I am sure when our forefathers sought to protect our right to free speech they did not mean those who would foster the violent overthrow of our lawful government. To which Mitch responded - Umm Senator? YES THEY DID. The next day I joined the EFF and have been a member ever since. Just like that day, EFF inspires me every day to be aware, to speak up and always remain vigilant, because Freedom is taken slowly when we are not looking.

Many thanks also to our sponsors: CEA, JibJab, Junk Email Filter, and Zynga; to 111 Minna Gallery; and to our 2010 Pioneer Award Judging Panel: Jim Buckmaster, Cory Doctorow, Mitch Kapor, Drazen Pantic, Barbara Simons, and James Tyre.