Slashdot Mirror

You support charging them for corruption and tax evasion, maybe by supporting Lessig's Fix Congress First initiative.
You donate to wikileaks.
You support bitcoin.

These sentences have a common point : they all begin with you.

Maybe. Democrat or Republican, vote for those that promise to change the rules of lobbying : http://fixcongressfirst.org/

Of what value are promises?

Maybe. Democrat or Republican, vote for those that promise to change the rules of lobbying : http://fixcongressfirst.org/

It is only inevitable if you consider it inevitable. http://fixcongressfirst.org/

True, it should be. But the U.S. Congress has shown itself to be somewhat more corruptible by for-profit special interests than the courts. Copyright in particular suffers from the entertainment industry's control of the means of reaching the electorate. If we don't want to (ab)use the courts to help clarify the statutes that Congress has enacted into law, I guess we need to fix Congress first.

How do we handle government lies like this?

Simple. You sue the state in court, just as if they had declined the FOIA requests outright. That's what the judicial branch is for- limiting the ability of the state to abuse its power.

Unless the judges there are completely corrupt, they would force at least a reasonable argument about why the state made the decisions to go with paper and in-person delivery (because they'd be ruled against with this idiotic claim), if not force the governor to release everything digitally.

Between the major newspapers and cable news outlets, the cost and effort would be minimal. All we need is competent journalism, which includes knowing the difference between things that really matter and the bullcrap which comprises most Palin-related "news".

...Which citizen's group do I send money to for the purpose of pushing legislation that requires the government is honest to the people. Lies like this should be actionable.

The legislation is already there. FOIA and related disclosure laws are thankfully in-place, though perhaps not as tough as we citizens would like. Trying to get better versions of the legislation is IMO a waste of time. Rather, I'd check out various campaign-reform groups, such as Lawrence Lessig's, and perhaps third-party/independent candidates.

http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/

And there lies your choice.
You can follow Lessig's path. Fighting corruption by the rules, trying to create a framework where corruption is harder.
Or you can follow Assange's way and assume that corruption can't be solved but that "off the record" agreements must be made harder.

I feel like that is kind of a different problem. I mean it's like this. If you have corruption in politics, you're screwed. The end. So if that is the problem, we need to address it, but it is a separate issue with a separate solution unrelated to how to solve the problem of competition in internet service.

Me, I think the corruption in politics is both the result and the enabler of corruption in Corporate America - and I don't think that you can separate a concept such as providing services on a non-profit model from that corruption unless you take steps to ensure that you are not dependent upon any service or supplier that corruption can reach.

You would be competing with corporations that contribute to the corruption of politics (either directly, or through their lobbyists) - corporations that engage in M&A activity because competition inhibits profits - so once you embarked upon that path you must perforce accept the fact that you will have both political and corporate dogs seeking any weakness you expose.

I feel like that is kind of a different problem. I mean it's like this. If you have corruption in politics, you're screwed. The end. So if that is the problem, we need to address it, but it is a separate issue with a separate solution unrelated to how to solve the problem of competition in internet service.

If you can't have a steadily growing small party that gains seats incrementally on each elections, you are effectively locked into a bi-party system. To solve that you need the approach that Lawrence Lessig promotes : create a movement inside both parties. And chose to be a turn voter that makes choice on a single issue : the stand of candidates toward lobbying.

Fair Elections Now Act

Only one thing to do. Crack into the systems and expose the truth.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/

http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/

Brooksley Born was right.

Fix Congress First.

Both Republics and Democrats have been pushing this shit. Who the hell is standing against it?

Lawrence Lessig

Watch these videos to understand his take on the problem and the first step toward a solution.

Institutional Corruption - v3 50min 50sec

Good Soul "corruption" 4min 12sec

And that's how we fix it : Lawrence Lessig's fix Congress First. Reps or Dems, several politicians support the Fair Elections Now Act. Support them and outvote the others. Ask your candidates their opinions and the reasons they don't support it.

I don't see any hacker's solution a la GPL to get out of this situation (GPLv3 tries a bit but doesn't get the momentum needed. Maybe an LGPL version forbidding patents ?). So the only solution that I see is to do some politics. In US support Lawrence Lessig's efforts against lobbying (Fix Congress First) anywhere else, get involved in your local pirate party (International Pirate Party)

EXACTLY!

Lawrence Lessig explains it nicely in this video and at this website: Fix Congress First.

After campaigning for a year for Universal, Single Payer health care, the voters elected Obama in a landslide.

It took Corporate lobbyists less than a year to buy out ALL of his fellow democrats. They already own the Republicans. Thus, the votes of millions of Americans are nullified by the corruption of a handful of politicians who took bribes (a.k.a. "Campaign Contributions", which they can convert to personal funds when they retire) and made the wants of a few owners outweigh the hopes of MILLIONS of voters. Both the corporate owners and the politicians have excellent health care plans. The people get the toxins the pharmaceuticals manufacture for profit, not for safety or efficacy.

Or you could support Lawrence Lessig's Fix Congress First initiative which proposes to do just that.