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I'd be willing to bet you were going to a small branch library. In the first few years of the Google era, I felt the same way that you do. Then one day I found myself back in a large university library. Big surprise: the big libraries blow away the internet in terms of quality and accessibility of information. Sure, you don't get your instant access to quotes, dates and other trivia. But if you want serious, in-depth, reliable information from an authoratative internet source, you have to pay subscription fees 9 times out of 10.

Besides, most libraries have Google too.

Now, when I want to learn about something I hear mentioned on TV or radio, or read in a book or magazine, I just load up Google, and type it in.

Another thing: ever been to The Memory Hole? Stuff on the internet can change quickly, and without notice. Vital facts can disappear overnight for any number of reasons. Electronic data cannot be trusted in the same way that old paper can.

Now, I'm not saying that books are infallible, but (most of the time) library books don't disappear or change overnight, real newspapers cannot be un-printed, and, reassuringly, librarians tend to get upset when the White House tries to boss them around. Conversely, it only takes a few minutes of browsing The Memory Hole to be convinced that your favorite online journals are all tools of The Man.

Despite the fact that this has been covered in the "major media outlets" ad nauseum for the past five years, did you venture to type this in your browser?

http://www.globalcrossing.com/

Or, maybe:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=glo bal+crossing&btnG=Search+News

For the truly adventurous, there is the text from the house oversight and investigation committee, regarding the effects of the GC bankruptcy:

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/bank/hba78601 .000/hba78601_0.HTM

Gee, the EU took someone into their fold for money? Who would have thunk it?
I've read ESA's press release several times now, and while I came across references to "international cooperation", "common interest" and the like, no reference was made at all to money. You're probably just overly focussed on the subject because of its closeness to home.

People can bitch about Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, etc. all they want, but they pale in comparison the magnitude of what China did in simply the last 3 decades.
If we were only to deal with countries with impeccable human rights records, we'd all sit alone in our rooms. Or are you suggesting that China's worse than the rest, so it's okay to deal with (for example) the right-wing tyrranies that the US has been propping up for those self-same decades because they're not as bad as China?

Your problem (and that of a lot of others here) is that you think your way is the only way of doing things. Bill Clinton's policy on North Korea was working quite well until Bush's asinine "axis of evil" speech, which turned the DPRK from a country heading towards normalisation back into a paranoid rogue state. How does China's record over the past five years compare with the previous fifteen? And how much of that improvement is down to US posturing, and how much to increased contact with the rest of the world?

I live in Dublin, Ireland, and it's slowly becoming a cosmopolitan city, home at the moment to Chinese people that number in their thousands. Would the world be better off if we told these people to fuck off, that their evil communist leaders were such bastards that we weren't going to let them into the country until it was a Shining Beacon of Democracy?

Oh, and to everyone who's fond of mentioning the Marshall plan: here's your chance to get your money back. Gradually phase out GPS and use Gailileo instead. In the long run, you'll save billions.

http://www.techlawjournal.com/home/newsbriefs/2003 /07e.asp

the letter is here : http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/pubs/omb072120 03.pdf

Robert

...and take it into the voting booth in November, 2004.

Agreed. And remember, Congress voted 357-66 in the house, and 98-1 in the senate. Which means, despite the rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidates - at least 69% of Democratic representatives (and 96% of Democratic senators) voted for it as well. So be sure to print off this sheet as well (pre-emptive google cache: here)

Give all these assholes the boot: vote against the incumbent!

For things like No Child Left Behind and AIDS help for Africa, he gives a "What can I do?" shrug and nothing else.

Yeah, cause Helping Africa is never a waste of money.

And the power given to the federal government to stick their noses in elementary education is listed in the United States Constitution.

(For those who can't catch my sarcasm, the power to have a hand in education, at any level, is nowhere to be found in the constitution. Yeah, yeah, the constitution poses no threat to our current form of government, but I can hope, can't I?)

That being said, authorization bills like this one provide a context for government projects and serve to add some pressure on Congressional appropriators to actually spend the money. And for the most part, projects are authorized before they can be or are funded, so it doesn't make much sense to condemn the bill as so much rhetoric.

THAT being said, don't hold your breath for this bill even being taken up at the subcommittee level, let alone signed into law, since the sponsor is a fairly junior member of the committee, and a minority (i.e. Democratic) party Representative to boot.

Don't sweat the deficit too much. The absolute numbers mean nothing. If I told you that ten years ago, I held debt of $10,000, and now I hold a debt of $30,000, am I better off? Well, ten years ago, I made a fifth of what I make now, so I'm actually better off in terms of debt. Here are the actual numbers.

This is not to say that there's nothing to worry about; for all the conservative fulmination of President Bush, domestically he's turned out to be as free-spending as Clinton or any other Democrat. Apparently, "the era of Big Government is over" is over.

Having said that, if NASA's budget cut it would have to be politics over science (super-collider, anyone?). It constitutes such a small percentage of the federal budget that cutting it would achieve nothing. I'm a libertarian, but when it comes to the space program, I've always said that if my tax dollars are going to be forcibly extracted from me, at least a few of them are going towards advancing man into space.

I mean we let people from all over come here and work. Ummmmm, except we don't.

Um, YES we do!

The H-1 and L-1 Visa programs were invented specifically for this reason. In the US, we have no standard like those I've read about in Australia and elsewhere. Well, we have some regulations, but recently they've gone completely unenforced. If a company in this country can hire someone from overseas to do a job for which they're currently paying an American worker, and pay that worker half or less what the American makes, the company is under no pressure not to hire the foreign worker. It's happening for real. In the REAL world.

http://www.rescueamericanjobs.org/
http://www.local6.com/money/2381343/detail.html
http://www.thenetworkadministrator.com/LosingYou rJ ob.htm
http://www.house.gov/delauro/press/2003/L1_bill_7- 10-03.htm

Further, US jobs now are being sent TO other countries. By some estimates, 2 million plus jobs in the next few years. Than't a HUGE chunk of the IT sector.

http://www.cio.com/archive/090103/backlash.html (accoring to this article, the number is like 10% of IT jobs)
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=14700325
http://www.msnbc.com/news/947478.asp?cp1=1
http://www.techsunite.org/news/techind/030722_ibm. cfm
http://comment.cio.com/comments/13404.html

The reason this is a story here, is because a good number of us work in the IT sector. This has HUGE implications for us.

Consider the fact that many colleges around the nation are scaling back IT programs (my stepmother teaches various IT classes at a local college) and thike about what that means for those of us who spent money on educations or who have been relying on our IT experience as means to acquire jobs.

The economy and job prospects have been bad enough just dealing with the economic slowdown without having to deal with the jobs that are still there going away from the US (I know, I was unemployed for the greater portion of 2002, and I'm only employed now because I new the guy who ran the IT department for the company I work for now).

In many countries in the EU and also in Australia, they cannot hire a non-citizen unless they CANNOT find a qualified candidate who IS a citizen. The US government needs to step up and implement some similar legislation. Even if you think about this from a lawmakers perspective, an American who makes $50,000 a year pays a whole lot more than an unemployed American and the foreigner who takes his job for $30,000. They'll see a WHOLE LOT less than that from the unemployed American and the job that's no longer in the US! Even the companies that do use outsourcing are killing their own market. How many computers or programs or Coke ayr you going to buy when you're unemployed, and can the foreigner who's making half of what you were making pick up the slack? I don't think so...

Anyway, I'm done...

How's that for next.

How's that for next.

If you like censorship then this is great news! Otherwise ask some privacy and to be left the hell alone as We the People are the Internet.

I think I've found a couple of link's you'll find interesting...

The nice congressmen that introduced this bill have public contact info:


For Joseph R. Pitts (anyone)

For Christopher John (only ppl in his district)

Please be polite, because that's the only way they'll take you seriously. If they don't realize that some hardcore republicans (such as myself) will vote for the other guy if they keep proposing crap like this.

Let's drop Pitts a good old-fashioned mail-bomb, letting him know how the public feels. Also, you can find your way to this place and contact your representative, telling them that ratifying this might be a 'bad thing'

I think I've found a couple of link's you'll find interesting...

The nice congressmen that introduced this bill have public contact info:


For Joseph R. Pitts (anyone)

For Christopher John (only ppl in his district)

Please be polite, because that's the only way they'll take you seriously. If they don't realize that some hardcore republicans (such as myself) will vote for the other guy if they keep proposing crap like this.

Let's drop Pitts a good old-fashioned mail-bomb, letting him know how the public feels. Also, you can find your way to this place and contact your representative, telling them that ratifying this might be a 'bad thing'

I think I've found a couple of link's you'll find interesting...

The nice congressmen that introduced this bill have public contact info:


For Joseph R. Pitts (anyone)

For Christopher John (only ppl in his district)

Please be polite, because that's the only way they'll take you seriously. If they don't realize that some hardcore republicans (such as myself) will vote for the other guy if they keep proposing crap like this.

Let's drop Pitts a good old-fashioned mail-bomb, letting him know how the public feels. Also, you can find your way to this place and contact your representative, telling them that ratifying this might be a 'bad thing'

If you're taking the time to write a comment on this story, DON'T. Instead, take that same amount of time to write a one page, reasoned, intelligent letter to your Senators (you have two, you know that?) telling them that you disapprove of this bill, telling them WHY (privacy violation, overextension of copyright, and so forth are good places to start), and encouraging them to work against it.

Good sentiment, but the article states that this is a bill in the House of Representatives. Since the bill isn't up for vote on the floor yet, write to a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, who "will hold a joint hearing on the bill in the coming weeks". My congressman, Rep. Christopher Cox, is on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I've emailed him before (got a boilerplate response but it was about the issue I emailed and agreeing with my position). Let him and the other committee members know they've got the support of their constituents!

Email your congresspersons! Write them! Phone them! Fax them....just don't only whine about it on Slashdot...whine about it to someone who can make a difference!

If you're taking the time to write a comment on this story, DON'T. Instead, take that same amount of time to write a one page, reasoned, intelligent letter to your Senators (you have two, you know that?) telling them that you disapprove of this bill, telling them WHY (privacy violation, overextension of copyright, and so forth are good places to start), and encouraging them to work against it.

Good sentiment, but the article states that this is a bill in the House of Representatives. Since the bill isn't up for vote on the floor yet, write to a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, who "will hold a joint hearing on the bill in the coming weeks". My congressman, Rep. Christopher Cox, is on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I've emailed him before (got a boilerplate response but it was about the issue I emailed and agreeing with my position). Let him and the other committee members know they've got the support of their constituents!

Email your congresspersons! Write them! Phone them! Fax them....just don't only whine about it on Slashdot...whine about it to someone who can make a difference!

If you're taking the time to write a comment on this story, DON'T. Instead, take that same amount of time to write a one page, reasoned, intelligent letter to your Senators (you have two, you know that?) telling them that you disapprove of this bill, telling them WHY (privacy violation, overextension of copyright, and so forth are good places to start), and encouraging them to work against it.

Good sentiment, but the article states that this is a bill in the House of Representatives. Since the bill isn't up for vote on the floor yet, write to a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, who "will hold a joint hearing on the bill in the coming weeks". My congressman, Rep. Christopher Cox, is on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I've emailed him before (got a boilerplate response but it was about the issue I emailed and agreeing with my position). Let him and the other committee members know they've got the support of their constituents!

Email your congresspersons! Write them! Phone them! Fax them....just don't only whine about it on Slashdot...whine about it to someone who can make a difference!

...gripping the levers of power without ever having had to personally defend those powers with their lives in combat.

President Bush: Texas ANG F-102 pilot (arguable)
Sec of State Powell: Chairman, JCoS
Vice Pres Chaney: Sec of Defense
Tom Ridge, Sec. Homeland Security: Army infantry, Vietnam
Norman Mineta, Sec. Transportation: Army Intelligence
Senate: 35 members with military experience.
House: 122 members with military experience.

Shall I go on?

May we inquire as to your military experience?

...gripping the levers of power without ever having had to personally defend those powers with their lives in combat.

President Bush: Texas ANG F-102 pilot (arguable)
Sec of State Powell: Chairman, JCoS
Vice Pres Chaney: Sec of Defense
Tom Ridge, Sec. Homeland Security: Army infantry, Vietnam
Norman Mineta, Sec. Transportation: Army Intelligence
Senate: 35 members with military experience.
House: 122 members with military experience.

Shall I go on?

May we inquire as to your military experience?

One of the national news broadcasts just had a couple people talking about 'computer problems' as a factor in the East Coast blackout. A transcript of the first few minutes of the outage had technicians complaining that their computers were acting strangely and that they couldn't diagnose the problem because of that.

The CEO of the company that had the 'original' problem asserted that there must have been systems failures at other sites in order to bring down the entire grid. He said his company alone could not have caused the problems that occurred.

I wonder if any of the MS worms that were circulating at the time actually were to blame for the outage as has been speculated here before?

The webcast of the hearing will be available here when it's ready.

Be species-neutral too. Call them Congresscritters.

And he's not making it up, that's what it says on the House website.

"Write Your Representative - Contact your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives."

Don't just complain, act: There is a bill in Congress introduced by Rush Holt, D-NJ. It is called "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003". It is H.R. 2239. It currently has 29 cosponsors and needs more support. The Summary page is here. The press page is here. Congress is in session again now. Contact your Congressperson and demand they support this bill. It would require a voter-verifiable paper trail.

Technology needs to become more universal, but its expense in implementation costs makes that hard to do. If you, in the US, are having problems enough getting hold of this kind of thing, can you imagine how hard it is for someone in, say, Russia, Egypt, or Australia, to gain access? And yet there's no technical reason why they shouldn't, and there are people within those nations who can afford such equipment and see it as worth while. But we limit the marketing of technologies, slavishly obeying arbitrary national borders, because of the difficulties associated with expansion.

Expanding means creating new marketing networks and providing the means of transporting this equipment to other countries. This is expensive, though if done with a shared spirit of cooperation and determination, there's no reason why, say, an open distribution network shared by any number of vendors, might not make such things possible. Such a network is, for all intents and purposes, impossible, because it relies upon there already being a large enough momentum towards unfettered distribution to work.

This quagmire of national boundaries restricting the flow of goods and services will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Write also to Jack Valenti, the CEO and chair of the MPAA, whose address and telephone number can be found at the About the MPAA page. Write too to Bill Gates, Chief of Technologies and thus in overall charge of systems like Windows NT, at Microsoft. Tell them that technologies and spreading the good they do to everyone, not just those in the very largest first world countries, is important to you. Tell them that open, standardized, distribution networks would help open up the free export of technologies across the world, bettering mankind. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by individual manufacturers and individual store chains to try and provide some of this functionality but that if the insistance of exclusivity and the lack of standardization in business practices are not dealt with you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how a lack of a free and open technology distribution network harms all three. Let your legislators know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies concerning the distribution of technologies to everyone.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

This assumes two things. First, that anti-trust laws are *proper*. And second, that 'competition' includes piggy-backing on MS hardware/bandwidth/etc for free in order to turn a profit. Let's take them one at a time, shall we?

Anti-trust seems like a good deal on the surface. Consumers get protection from overbearing companies, entreprenuers get a chance at improving an existing produce or service, and government gets to expand and exert more and more control over the actions and properties of citizens (companies are owned by citizens - a fact that people tend to forget.)

Now, the 3rd 'benefit' I listed is obviously not a benefit at all. The very fact that government grows and becomes more regulatory/coercive should alarm anyone with common sense. Then there's that little side issue of Constitutionality. Sure, the feds have the power, written into the Constitution, to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States" (Art. 1 Sec. 8 Clause 3). But Jefferson said that all future interpretations of the Constitution should be limited to the language and usage and definitions in use at the time of the framing. Which means that to regulate commerce between the states is exactly that - to prevent the sovereign States from enacting trade legislation that would disrupt the economic cohesion of the nation. It does *not* mean that the Federal government has the power to interfere with the operations of companies. Therefore, anti-trust is unConstitutional. Not to mention free-market principles, and the fact that the 10th Amendment limits the powers of the Federal government to only those specifically listed, and reserves all other powers to the States and the people.

Having cleanly decapitated the Sherman Act of 1890, there is no logical necessity to remark on the free ride you're claiming 'competitors' have been granted by the settlement between Microsoft and the Federal government. However, it will be an entertaining exercise, so here goes:

First we must address the term 'competitor'. You label free-riders as competitors. A sports analogy will serve to disabuse you of that notion. On the football field, a runner is sprinting across the yard markers. He is pursued by a member of the opposing team who wishes to bring his gainful exertion to an end. If he wishes to be competitive, he must rely on the strength of his own muscles and of his own will - he cannot draw ability or aptitude from his intended target. Regardless of his wishes, desires, hopes, or whims, he can only be *competitive* if he has worked hard enough to gain for himself the resources necessary to achieve his goal. If he begged for his opponent to slow down, he would simply be a supplicant.

Giving a company a free lunch at Microsoft's expense is not only unConstitutional, it is the very 'anti-competitiveness' anti-trust reactionaries shriek about.

Well, there are many websites that vigorously claim that the email tax is a number one hoax....

So it must be true then.

Right?
RIGHT!

Uh Oh.

That was this summer 2003, Sen. Mark Dayton's idea to fight Spam...

Pfew, that was a close call: Senator Downplays E-Mail Tax Idea, Thursday, May 22, 2003.

If they tax email, then the spammers have won.

Now, if 'they' find this posting, they'll probably come up with a tax on hyperlinks...

But will anybody think of the children?

That is what is explicitly recognized in federal law. The actual understanding of the founders was that the militia is in general the "body of the people." Nose around a little and you can find references for that too.

I was shut down on 19 Aug by the DMCA as well. See this article .

I am really dismayed at the lack of debate my story has generated: No one replied to my call to action in the thread, and every one basically just said how America sucks and started flaming about the MIddle East :-)

Really, good for her for getting so widely covered! I have posted to many independent media sites including Rense.com, EFF, and the ACLU and still nothing. Maybe it is teh difference that my program empowered people? Hopefully people will respond to this thread :-)

Below is a copy of my letter to my senator, McCain, of Arizona. Feel free, indeed encouraged, to email your own senator (or even others!) and representatives. You can find their addresses at [Senate] and [House] .

===============

Dear Senators:

Some of you have reservations about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the many ways in which it violates the guaranteed Constitutional rights of the populace. It affected me personally on 17-Aug 03. I am the main developer of one of the few person-to-person filetrading programs for UNIX (Linux, FreeBSD, etc) machines and MacOS X.

Apparently I was struck without warning by some DMCA clause for downloading 'copyrighted material.' In other parts of the law, you need habeus corpus, search warrants, judicial review, warning, etc. With the DMCA they merely terminate you, with no warning, with no appeal, with no representation, with no pretense of jurisdiction, based upon evidence that was 100% obtained outside the framework of any noticeable governmental or 3rd-party oversight.

In short, it is an apparently open fascist policy prone to rampant abuse, supporting the rights of the Establishment over the People.

My life revolves around the marvelous information transport technologies collectively referred to as the Internet. I attend a part-time university online (www.accis.edu), near 95% of my contact with my friends and family is online, 100% of my employment is online (via rentacoder.com), and my personal hobbies and political activitism are online.

In short, terminating my internet without warning has seriously halted my life. It is time we make the right to chat online a fundamental human right. The government should be allowed to restrict a person's movements (prohibit uploads, downloads, etc) by placing restrictions on the amount of data a 'criminal' should be able to send online in a given day or so (500KB should be sufficient for email, chat, etc). Such bandwidth caps are already implemented by teh vast majority of broadband suppliers throughout the nation adn would be just about as easy to implement and enforce as the current DMCA suspension of accounts.

I just wish there would be *some* judicial process involved in the DMCA. I should have my constitutional right to a fair trial. This is above and beyond the reasons why most people download movies. People overseas download movies and music because of artificial monopoly regulations that delay the international exportation of American media by weeks and even months.

People in America download media because they are either too poor to purchase the overpriced media (partly because the MPAA and RIAA use a lot of the profit in legal battles against P2P and political lobbying), and also primarily to see if a given media is of good enough intellecutal quality to warrant purchasing, due to the unequal consumer rights 'laws' which prohibit the returning of open media.

Generally, people download not out of nefarious intent, but because they lack real alternatives to verify the intellectual quality of any given electronic Media before purchasing.

Thus, more consumer rights laws, less 'illicit' copyright infringement.

Sincerely,
Theodore R. Smith

Now, I know that on Slashdot as of late it has been decided that we will no longer be permitted to discuss things as the following when a shiny new movie is released (as I have well found out by previous moderation), but I thought I would nonetheless try once again.

Why have things changed? Why don't we talk about such things anymore?

Since this is a story about Warner Bros, and given the many Slashdot stories about this fine corporation and its parent company, as well as several regarding a prominent trade organization to which it belongs, I could not help but conclude the following ought to be both relevant and on topic.

To start, I dropped a little write-up in my journal which may or may not have some entertainment value for you.

That said, I spent a minute or two and started collecting a few rather uninteresting links.

Perhaps Slashdot readers can contribute to this woefully inadequate list?
It would be quite nice to have all of the information in one place, so that it can be referenced by a simple link in future stories where it is relevant, as is this one.

Warner Bros orders 15 year-old Christie Chan to turn over www.harrypotternetwork.net.

Warner Bros orders www.harrypotterisawizard.co.uk to be handed over.

Warner Bros orders 15 year-old Claire Field to turn over www.harrypotterguide.co.uk.

Warner Bros demands 10 year-old daughter hand over www.harry-potter-magic.co.uk.

Because Warner Bros cares so much about you, you can not be allowed access to a signal sent into your house, and not even to exercise widely presumed fair use rights over its content.

And say, has anyone heard about something called DeCSS or the DMCA?

My memory is a bit foggy on this point, but I seem to recall something or another about Warner Bros being involved here? Does it ring a bell for anyone else? Maybe not.

here's a news source to back up the skimping on aids money. maybe i was wrong.
maybe it was only 1.5 billion. and maybe we havn't even paid up on our previous promises.
information about how effective condoms are used to be found at the cdc
this article from the villiage voice is about the pressure nonprofits are feeling to conform to the bush admin's line. it also includes info on USAID orgs and the pressure they are experiencing in relation to aid prevention/contraception work abroad.

as for the visas, hard to say. i dont think it really matters either way for this admin. whats good for America as a whole is irrelevant to these folks. but it sure is good for corporate America.

The attitude presented behind this posting is an example of the growing trend of Judicial Activism. In essence, due to our current flawed process we read too much into historical cases and the cases themselves begin to define law - which is not the job of the judicial branch of government. This growing trend will increasingly effect our laws and our society by unelected leaders. Please read Ron Paul's take on this matter in a column of his called "Federal Courts and the Imaginary Constitution".

too_lazy_to_create_an_account

Any proof for child or slave labor there?

You're kidding right?

Fans of Chinese slave labor can buy apparel here. If you're not a fan you might consider supporting legislation such as this. If you don't know enough about the topic to decide whether or not you're a fan, do some reading. My government has. Well, enough to have formed a policy on the matter. If you're all about self-reliance, just feed the term Laogai into Google.

Enjoy your Chinese laptop.

>> You obviously vote Republican.

You obviously have no idea as to what the political position is of anyone in office. Democrats are just as "guilty" of poorly thought-out legistlation as Republicans. Members of both parties are given to rash, ill-advised, and hasty decisions made in the name of "National Security." A little education might be in order before you go making such blanket statements as the one above. I suggest you start here, here or here.

And how you got modded as Informative and not as a Troll is beyond me. Makes me wish that I hadn't burned up my mod points yesterday.

Visit the site that champions the Public Domain Enhancement Act (HR2601) and write your Congresspeople (House, Senate) to support this bill. If these games are no longer commercially exploitable, the proponents of this bill believe it is unlikely the copyright holders will file the form and pay the low tax to retain copyright on the work. Maybe these games will eventually enter the PD where we can all legally share and modify them so we can play them on MAME.

Here's a FAQ, previous /. discussion, and another /. discussion.

Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions
Clause 2: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

"That would be a great method for "destroying" filesharers' PCs a la Senator Orrin Hatch."

I would point out that this wasn't Hatch's idea, but rather (at least, with regards to Congress) that of Howard Berman.

It's lame that nobody gets it. needed power take a look at that. Its amazing that you picked Berman to showcase constituent response! If you look here, it becomes obivous that he is "serving 'his' constituents." He represents Hollywood and the Entertainment industry, he is a Member of the Congressional Entertainment Caucus. For the people who vote for him, there is nothing more important than protecting their IP. If he didn't support Disney and the MPAA, that would be a shock. This is a perfect example of the author's point. Politicians are out to protect their people. If the guy represented a steel town, wouldn't you expect him to try to protect the mill? No different here, its just that the mill is Hollywood. A crucial point that seems to be missed entirely in all the posts is that this audience needs to support what organizations we can (EFF, FSF, etc.) that can pool resources to get our ourselves heard.

It's lame that nobody gets it.

It's lame that nobody gets it. needed power take a look at that. Its amazing that you picked Berman to showcase constituent response! If you look here, it becomes obivous that he is "serving 'his' constituents." He represents Hollywood and the Entertainment industry, he is a Member of the Congressional Entertainment Caucus. For the people who vote for him, there is nothing more important than protecting their IP. If he didn't support Disney and the MPAA, that would be a shock. This is a perfect example of the author's point. Politicians are out to protect their people. If the guy represented a steel town, wouldn't you expect him to try to protect the mill? No different here, its just that the mill is Hollywood. A crucial point that seems to be missed entirely in all the posts is that this audience needs to support what organizations we can (EFF, FSF, etc.) that can pool resources to get our ourselves heard.

It's lame that nobody gets it.

There's already one in Congress, co-authored and introduced by Rep. Barney Frank. It only applies those who have citizenship and have lived in the U.S. for at least twenty years. Of couse, it means nothing until it's ratified, but since Mr. Schwarznegger is a citizen and has lived in this country for more than twenty years, he would be eligible.

-Jennifer

Uh, this isn't legislation through litigation. This is enforcement of existing code via litigation. The Department of Justice is the appropriate government agency, here, because it's the executive branch's responsibility to enforce the laws.

No, see, there's this law against what's called "false advertising". Advertisements should not be deceptive.

More to the point, Putnam is a Republican kid whose dad owns some orange groves in Florida.

I recently attended one of Putnam's subcommittee hearings. His subcommittee is responsible for government agency IT legislation (e.g. FISMA [pdf]) and presumably has no jurisdiction over private sector businesses. (There's no way this Republican Congress is going to pass any legislation that mandates that private industry spend $ on cyber security.)

Neither Putnam nor the Federal agency CIOs he was grilling seemed very technically knowledgeable at all. It seemed to me Putnam was trying to make political hay about some GAO cyber security letter-grades that are over a year old. Some agencies spend so much of their time writing reports for Congress and OMB (Office of Management and Budget) when they could be spending more time actually improving their security. Worse yet, the nongeeks are starting to attempt to set technical policy. OMB recently demanded that Federal agencies install a specific sendmail patch. Remember, OMB are supposed to be bean counters.

You can get a message to the president much more easily through them than if you try directly via e-mail. This is how representative democracy works.

If you are truly interested in contacting your congressman/woman or sentor, the best way is through fax. I called my senator's regional office, and the intern said that most faxes are actually read by the senators because someone took the effort to fax directly. Try http://www.senate.gov/ or http://www.house.gov/, and find a fax number if you really want to say something. But I have a feeling this is too much effort in our representative McDonalds/Wal-Mart/MTV democracy.

So now you want to blame Bush for what "might happen" even though it hasn't happened yet? Yeah, the economy could still go plop. If/when it happens we'll talk about that.

Incidentally, I hope I don't have to remind you that the largest peacetime economic expansion in history also occurred under Clinton's policies

Nope, don't have to remind me. I heard it enough during the last few years of the Clinton administration and during the 2000 campaign.

However, the second largest expansion was during the Reagan administration. The "Clinton" expansion was 100 months while the Reagan expansion was 92 months. There was only a 9-month recession in between the two (coincidentally when Bush Sr. decided to raise taxes)... So it could quite easily be argued that the "Clinton" expansion was simply an extension of the Reagan expansion that was interrupted by tax hikes. And even if you want to consider them two separate expansions, the Clinton expansion definitely exceeded the Reagan expansion due exclusively to the tech bubble at the end of the 90's. If it weren't for that artificial bump it is doubtful the Clinton expansion would have been able to claim that title in the first place and would still be second to the Reagan expansion of the 80's.

coupled with the fact that no period of prosperity can last forever, are the prime contributors to the current recession.

I would agree with that.

The fact that two huge tax cuts still haven't really gotten it back on its feet indicate to me that Voodoo Economics still doesn't work.

Well that indicates to me that the business and economic cycles are just plain strong, and a relatively small tax cut isn't sufficient to overcome those natural cycles in economics. But leaving money in the hands of those who make it--both rich and poor--is always a good idea.

1. Upload copy of United States Constitution taken directly from the House web site: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.".
2. Upload copy of this bill that violates the oath that Conyers and Berman swore to uphold the US Constitution.
3. Call EFF.
4. Turn self in.

True, it's just a proposed law. But it still needs to be opposed NOW so that lawmakers know we don't want it. Why is that a kneejerk reaction?

And while we're on the subject of kneejerk reactions...

Then, after it breezes past our sitting 'I'll sign anything for business' president.

Every single sponsor (6 total) of this bill is a Democrat. Verify it here if you want. I'm really tired of people making the blanket accusation that Republicans are the only ones that support big business. I would venture to say that almost every member of Congress has their token industry from back home that lobbies the shit out of them - and the industry usually gets what it wants, Democrat or Republican.