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Do you have any facts to back up this claim? I know that some legislators are lawyers, but in the past whenever I've contacted my own representatives (which I've done many times) I've been struck by how utterly clueless their staff seemed to be. (And, by the way, Senator Allen R-VA is a lawyer who, judging by his staff and subsequent form letter, has no idea what net neutrality even means.) Furthermore, law is a specialized profession. You don't just have to be a lawyer to really understand this, you have to be a lawyer with at least a rudimentary understanding of technology who also specializes in IP law (as opposed to tax law, criminal law, family law, constitutional law, etc.) How many legislators fit that bill? I think you're drastically over-simplifying this case. I find that annoying because every time some wide-eyed fanatic claims "all the legistlators are lawyers and teh lawyers are all out to get us!" he or she takes away from serious analysis of a serious problem. No one is going to take you seriously if you sling around unfounded assumptions, and that gets in the way of people like me who actually want to change things instead of just be melodramatic about them.

In any case, I visited this site: Congress Merge to do a search of how many members of congress were lawyers. I first did a search for "lawyer" in the profession field. I got 6 hits (3R, 3D, if you're curious). Then I did a search for "attorney" and got 193 hits. Assuming no overlap, we've got 199 lawyers in congress (102D to 90R, if you're curious, and I'm assuming 1I). Congress has 635 members (435 in the House, 200 in the Senate).

So out of 635 members, 199 were lawyers or attorneys at any point in the career. That's 31%. Hardly enough to say, in my opinion, that "Legislators are by and large lawyers". 31% of those are lawyers, how many do you think are IP lawyers? Sorry to rain on your simplistic world, but it's more complex than just "teh lawyers are everywhere!"

-stormin

You have made some good clearly stated points and I believe I have as well. This has been a good debate, but we see things from a different perspective. I will make one final comment though.

It's too bad you didn't ask the same before believing the Iraq Weapons claims.

Actually I was against the war from the beginning. I felt that Iraq was not a real threat even if he did have WMDs, though I still do not doubt that Bush felt he was. I also felt that we were going into Afghanastan without enough proof. As it turns out we were right about Bin Ladin, and I am certainly glad that Sadam is out of power whether our war was justified or not.

Believe me I am not a Bush supporter. I just don't see a viable alternative. As for Kerry's voting record there is a nice chart here. The article is of course BIAS, but then again every article about politics is Bias. The chart is good though. For a source with far better source quoting try here If you can get past the fact that it is the GOP website. Finally for a completely unbiased look here is a link to his voting record. I notice quite a few instances where he was not voting. I have also read Kerry's website extensively and though I find him MUCH more tolerable than Howard Dean, I still wish there was a viable third candidate.

Can also be found here - why not drop him a line? :p

Congress Merge offers tables linking zip codes to congressional and/or state legislative districts and congressional databases Data can be provided either as a text (flat) file or an Access database

So there you go.. A flat text file could easily be imported into mysql surely.

If every slashdot reader were to write a simple letter to their senators & congressmen about fair use, there'd be no stopping us

I'll second that. It only takes a few minutes and the potential payoff is HUGE. Here is some good info on the protocols involved, and this will let you find out who to contact.

If every slashdot reader were to write a simple letter to their senators & congressmen about fair use, there'd be no stopping us

I'll second that. It only takes a few minutes and the potential payoff is HUGE. Here is some good info on the protocols involved, and this will let you find out who to contact.

but something you should know: Information on Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina

This site lets you find your representatives' fax numbers. Write a polite letter explaining why this is important and fax it to them.

It'll take ten minutes to write, five minutes to look up the three fax numbers, and five minutes to fax them.

You can read the actual text linked in the story for finding the important details to include in your letter.

The U.S. Senate is obliging and gives out the addresses in a convenient form: U.S. Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives is less so, but others have done the work: CongressMerge Contacting the Congress.

It wouldn't be difficult to comb The U.S. House of Representatives Locate Representatives' Web Sites Listed by Name for addresses.