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I wasn't saying that a "moral right" concept as such exists in the U.S. as it does in Europe (it was probably a bad idea on my part to use a term that has a specific meaning in another legal system), but that the "life of author" branch of the copyright term owes its origin to "moral" concepts as much as to economic incentive ones.

I think the problem boils down to US competitiveness with Europe. Europe recognizes Moral rights (which last the author's lifetime), and the Lobbyists display to US lawmakers and say "See - Europe extends copyright to the life of the author - we're missing out!".. but they neglect to point out that it's a moral right, not an economic right.. and since the US doesn't recognize moral right, they simply extended the economic right "to compensate".

I would like to try to check out the arguments made in favor of copyright extensions in any Congressional hearings on the subject -- just to see if there are any half-way legitimate arguments I am missing. (Does anyone have any links?)

Try this one; it's from the Sonny Bono hearings.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/h ju 43666.000/hju43666_0.htm

The main thrust of the arguments seems to be "We need to be better than Europe!"

Vincent Vecera (a policial science student) posted an (admittedly one-sided) interpretation of these hearings (and others) here (it's in PDF format though.)

Wow. I knew the Perl community was big, but I didn't realize they had international TV broadcasts. Interviews with Congress too -- I wonder if I can write my representatives to ask for help with contexts?

The first thing I did after reading this article, and realizing that there were Representatives interested in tilting the balance of copyright slightly in favor of citizens again, was to write my representative Rob Bishop. Here's the text of the letter. Let me encourage you to do likewise: look up the name of your representative at http://www.house.gov and write!

Unfortunately, I felt that in a half-page letter I couldn't get all the details in. And I should have included a referral to a URL for him to get more information. Oh well, it's already in the mail, I'll do better next letter.

----
Dear Representative Bishop,
I don't often write my Congressional representatives, but I feel the need to do so in this case. I'm writing to encourage your support of HR 5544, "The Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2002", introduced by Reps. Boucher and Doolittle.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), while well-intentioned, has resulted in a massive power grab by the entertainment and media cartels. The grant of copyright by the citizens of this country to copyright holders was never intended by our founding fathers to be a bludgeon with which large corporations can force citizens and non-citizens into only writing software or publications of which they approve. It was granted as a measure to encourage new works, for limited times, by the author(s) who created an original work. Now it is being abused in an attempt to control not only the copying of works, but when, where, and how a legal purchaser of a copyrighted work can use it.

The DMCA has been appropriated by many companies now to prevent the publication of material which is not in their best interest, to prosecute competitors into oblivion with court cases rather than competing on product merit, and to silence would-be critics and whistle-blowers. We're now in a situation where a law is being abused by organizations to limit the free political and economic speech of individuals, and those individuals have insufficient resources to defend themselves from deep-pockets corporations in court.

HR 5544, while principally focussed on requiring media companies to label intentionally defective compact discs designed to prevent playback on non-approved devices, also includes a brief amendment to the DMCA which would be a valuable step towards preventing the egregious abuses of power currently trampling the first amendment landscape. Please support this bill, particularly the "Sec. 5. Fair Use Amendment", and restore the rights of scientific research, fair use, and free speech to the copyright landscape.
With kind regards,

Matthew P. Barnson

P.S. See also the Electronic Frontier Foundation's information regarding the unintended consequences of the DMCA by searching Google for "DMCA unintended consequences"

At the same time, this is a useful project - clearly, Ethernet is a common communications infrastructure component, and is probably one of the most flexible. This type of technology means that someone can plug a (commodity?) component into an unquestionably commodity network infrastructure, something not really available right now. There's no need to rewrite the home because the best place for the CD deck is in one room, and one place where the output might want to be listened to is another.

These two issues are important - a problem has been solved with open components, and it would be impossible to solve that problem without that open infrastructure. Yet various groups, lead by the MPAA (and to an extent cheered on by the RIAA, the representative of the recording industry which has concerns about unauthorized copying) have promoted laws that remove that ability to problem solve. In the end, the output of copyrighted material producers is being compromised by these actions, but this doesn't stop them as there's an assumption that open technologies are bad, and that technologies need to be centrally controlled and contain technologies to prevent not merely uses of copyright material that are clearly unfair to the content producers, but also of uses of that material that the producers have not heard of.

One company, Microsoft, has already proposed and demonstrated technologies that would make projects such as the above impossible. Content would not be copyable onto unprotected commodity components in Palladium, a digital restrictions mechanism that uses encryption and authorization at the hardware level to divide a world into "trusted" and "untrusted" realms. While Microsoft argues their technology is voluntarily, a content producer can restrict use of their content to only those who sign up for the technological restrictions.

This is a block on innovation. It's a block on personal freedom. In the end, it will cause damage not merely to consumers but also to those who produce content. We face a future of stagnant information growth, resembling more the state of Brewery development in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, than the technology industry during the same period.

Palladium is backed by entertainment industry promoted laws such as the DMCA, that make it illegal to bypass access control mechanisms, such as Palladium's Digital Restrictions Mechanisms.

This quagmire of a paranoid entertainment industry crippling the future both of content production and technology 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 the 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 Palladium, at Microsoft. Tell them you understand the concerns content producers have about unauthorized copying, but that without an open technological infrastructure, the value of content will be lowered, and as the bar to entry into content production is raised more and more innovation will be sucked out of the industry. Tell them that technologies such as Palladium, DVD CSS, and other technological locks, will damage both the content and technology industries in ways that go well beyond anything reasonable. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to create new ways of viewing and hearing content but that if those technologies are closed, 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 digital restrictions 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 towards legally enforcing clearly damaging restrictions management systems.

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.

The bad behaviour of many CEOs creating crooked startups, picking apart viable companies, swindling employees and stockholders, and producing goods that aren't worth the money spent on the packaging, has lead to a damaging image so that all CEOs, regardless of whether they fall into that category, or are the kinds of nice ones that appear on the cover of Fortune magazine as people who have turned companies around, attend every employee party and are considered "down to earth", "one of the team", "a close friend to every employee", and who introduce back massages as a part of keeping their employees happy, are regarded as evil dishonest individuals, who do not deserve the multimillion salaries they're paid. This in turn puts people off wanting to become CEOs - after all, who wants to earn $57,000,000 a year plus stock options if it means not only having give two thirds of that to the tax man, leaving you with a measily $20,000,000 or so, but also means being assumed to be a common white collar criminal, always on the take, except when you're on the front cover of Fortune?

This quagmire of people not wanting to be CEOs because the taxes leave them with only a few million dollars as salary, and because CEOs aren't always the most popular people around, 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. Tell them CEOs are important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to cut taxes for the top 5% earners in the country to make being a CEO a more attractive proposition but that if the reputation of CEOs keeps being sullied by exposes and court cases for the really crooked ones, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternative jobs. 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 CEOs being treated badly harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policy on the treatment of CEOs.

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.

It's ironic that this happens and yet it's considered a poor-man's profession. Programmers in this field are generally poorly treated, with poor contracts, little chance of advancement, and little cross-skillification that would allow a programmer to move into a more respected arena. This is, in part, because it's an entertainment area, and in part because for every superskilled programmer who is able to push the arena into a new paradigm, there must be a hundred who can barely put together a bunch of assembler instructions to copy memory from one place to another without it taking five times as long as it ought to, and containing bugs.

This quagmire of the more innovative area of programming being hampered by a low perception of the people involved and the skills they bring to the table 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. Tell them you value programmers who have the imagination and skills to create entirely new technologies for the manipulation of complex graphics, and who have the cut needed to understand the essentials of good game play. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to create wonderful new games but that if good programmers are put off by poor working conditions and salaries, 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 poor working conditions detering the best of the best harms all three. Let them 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 on elite computer game programmers.

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.

The GPL was created for a specific aim - to ensure that there would be a base of software that is, for want of a better term, free to the end user. That means that the end user need not care about how the software is created and the aims of the person creating it, but is able to use the software for their own personal use to the best of its capabilities. If the software needs to support something new, they can change it. But in itself, this promotes a non-collaborative paradigm. And this creates - as you can see from some of the heated discussions of GPL vs BSD/X11, etc, discussions on Slashdot - an ironic dichotomy where the aims of those who use GPL'd software may be at odds with those of the original developers, almost my definition.

This quagmire of free software frustrating a small minority of those who are uninvolved in its development who in many ways wish to remove the very freedoms the GPL provides to users of their own derived software will not go away 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. Tell them you believe that collaboration and the use of derivation is something you want to encourage. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by the free software and open source communities, but if the freedoms they introduce end up being compromised by incompatable derived software that removes those freedoms 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 we need to work together to create a world where collaboration and derivation is a norm that can be relied upon to exist. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on your legislator's policy towards free and open software.

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.

Laws are not made to be broken, they're made to make living a little easier. If you have problems with the laws on the books, and believe they're not helping, you need to raise your voice. Make your government aware of your misgivings. It's YOUR government damn it. You may have decided to let it run itself these last few years, but ultimately the founding fathers made sure that the government would be, in some way, answerable to you - be that, arguably as originally intended, on a State by State level, or, as it is now, on a more pluralist democratic level (yes, as long as the legislature is answerable to the populace, it's a democracy. You don't need more than that, all this BS about rule by plebicite is just that: BS)

Speeding may or may not be something you believe should be outlawed. Clearly, if you believe it should be, you must call for more appropriate and stict enforcement of this law - if everyone is forced, through widespread non-compliance such that compliance is itself dangerous, to disobey that law, then the only way it can be made to work is to create mechanisms that enforce it properly. Similarly, you may be of the opinion that selective or patchy enforcement means that the law is itself wrong, that the ends do not justify having the law in the first place, and that the law should itself be taken off the books. But without you declaring it a problem, and demanding your government deal with this, the government will assume you consent to the laws we have as they're written.

This quagmire of government inaction over inappropriately implemented laws regardless of the consequences 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 [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Tell them either to enforce the law or take it off the books, depending on what you believe. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to protect your safety, or that you're fed up of taxpayers money being spent on enforcing unenforcable laws, but if money keeps being thrown at half-assed half-implemented solutions that you either agree or disagree 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 half implemented laws harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on whether or not they either implement the law fully, or abolish it, depending on your point of view.

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.

Bush's pernicious zealotry is mainifesting itself in far more that revisionism; last July, he cut funding to the UN Population Fund (normally at http://ww.unfpa.org , but I can't seem to get in ATM).
An enthusiastic bunch of our right-wing friends in the Population Research Institute claimed - without evidence and despite UN law to the contrary - that the UNFPA supported coerced abortions in China. Everyone from Colin Powell down who knew anything on the subject derided the PRI's claimes - check out the PDF from the House of Representatives - but despite all the evidence to the contraray, Bush went ahead and cut funding.

Interestingly, I googled to check the facts before posting (going against /. tradition, I know. Forgive me.), and came across a plethora of news stories on the topic, most of which run along the lines of "Bush cuts funds to UN body that supports coerced abortion", usually with a denial from some Chinese official. Here's the Telegraph version.

The PRI are here; couldn't find a link to the story.

I wonder if a similar ruling could be made with satellite TV? The code only says its only for cable.

1. Pennsylvania 9,808,261
2. Virginia 4,663,797
3. Indiana 2,871,225
4. Michigan 1,728,501
5. Illinois 1,507,526
6. Wisconsin 1,216,363
7. Oregon 1,185,099
8. Ohio 1,089,649
9. New Hampshire 817,000
10. Kansas 800,000

• Born in New Jersey
• Raised in New Jersey
• Not attending college in NJ (actually in NC, but ironically, it makes me appreciate how great NJ is), but God damnit - I will raise a family and die in NJ.
• God-damned proud of all of that

Um, why in the world would a songwriter get $0.08 for distribution of a song by US law ?!?

I can understand if the RIAA, or some guild or union has a rule or a bylaw to that effect. But that doesn't make sense to me for two reasons.

1) What reason would the Government of the United States of America have to get involved with something stupid like this. Not only paying songwriters, but setting a specific price by law? WTF? In 50 years when inflation makes that worth even less than it is now, will congress change the law to 20 cents?

2) Define a songwriter. If I write a stupid song about my trip to Walmart (let's call it Ode to Church Road), and then I perform it with my PC's mic, and share it via Gnutella. Does that make me a songwriter? If someone then downloads it, am I then automatically entitled to 8 cents? If I write a stupid song and then perform it, can I share the file loaded with keywords for porn and movies and other artists, so that unsuspecting people download it, and then rake in the money 8 cents at a time? Sure, by US law any time anyone writes a note on a napkin, that is automatically copyrighted, but that's a little different. That's just saying "you created this, so you own it". It's not saying "you created it, now someone got a copy you are owed $0.08."

This just doesn't make sense to me. You could be right, but can you provide any links or anything to back up this claim?

I did find a few links that say US law has a *CAP* on what a songwriter can charge in royalties of 8 cents per song. But that's not the same thing. That doesn't mean that a songwriter has to get paid at all. It just says that 8 cents is the most he or she can charge.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not defending copyright violation. If I rip my copy of Dr. Dre's The Chronic to MP3 and "share" it. Then that's illegal. Regardless of songwriter fees or not. Dre (or his record label at the time, or someone who is not me) owns the copyright on that album. I have received no licensee in writing, verbal, or implied to redistribute his works.

But, your example with the indy bands is flawed. Many indy bands write their own music. In which case, they don't have to charge anything for it. If they want to distribute it for free, they can do so, since the $0.08 figure is a maximum, not a minimum (unless you know something I don't, which I haven't completely discounted). What happens if My indy band (let's call them "Don't Throw Knives At Me", I like that name) wants to do a punk cover of The Unknown Stunt Man (theme to the TV show, The Fall Guy, written by David Somerville, Gail Jensen & Glen Larson and originally performed by Lee Majors)? Does my shitty indy band have to contact Somerville & company, or pay up to $0.08 for every song pressed? Well, as far as I can tell, yes. But my knowledge in this area it limited.

So where am I going with this rant? If someone breaks the law, you go after them. Simple. If Don't Throw Knives At Me records a punk cover of The Unknown Stuntman, we either owe the songwriter up to $0.08 per physical copy that gets distributed, or we have to work out a special deal with them. But if *I* write "Ode To Church Road", and perform it with Don't Throw Knives At Me, then I don't owe myself any money unless I say I do, which is stupid, because then I'd have to pay income tax on what I paid myself and I'd wind up loosing money ( :

As to how one verifies that I didn't unconsciously plagiarize another song, that's stupid too. In this case, the burden of proof is on any accuser. The artist doesn't have to prove that each and every work they ever write is original. That's like having to prove documentation to prove that something I'm selling on ebay isn't stolen. It may or may not be a good idea, but it's not required. It can't be unless someone makes an accusation. And even then, I believe the burden of proof is on the accuser, is it not?

One last tangent:

I find this 8 cent law interesting. Until I read your post and did some digging, I was not previously aware of it. What I find interesting it the fact that it only applies to physical media, yet it applies to MP3s and other digital file based media. I'm assuming this is because unlike a radio broadcast (to which this statute does not apply) when you share via MP3, a new, permanent copy is made. But how is this different from me tape recording the song off of the radio (which is legal, I believe because of time shifting rulings, please correct me if I'm wrong)? Does a songwriter technically have to get a royalty off of that too?

Again, I'm not 100% sure on any of these points, this is just how it appears to me, based on the information I was able to gather and my ability to interpret it. Any lawyers in the house with relevant experience care to chime in?

Sources:
Texas Tech University
House.gov

the law was unconstitutional

Furthermore, the US has been subsidising drug development and low drug prices in Canada and Europe by allowing high drug prices here to drive innovation. As long as we're chasing pie in the sky, let's force those socialist free riders to start paying their fair share!

Too bad you don't have decent facts to back that up. A study by the Cato Institute shows that given the same usage patterns, Canadians would pay 3% more[PDF file] than their U.S. counterparts.

There's even a minority staff report[PDF] from the U.S. House of Representatives that states, in part:
"The drug industry's own testimony indicates that despite the high drug prices in the United States and the low drug prices in other countries, many drug companies are moving research from the United States to other countries," and that "more than two thirds of new drugs are developed by countries headquartered outside the United States."

Also note that some reasons given for the drugs that are lower priced in Canada include reduced liability for pharmacomps, which means reduced risks; and stricter controls on pharmaceutical marketing and advertising, an activity in the United States that pharmaceutical companies are spending amounts equal to or greater than they are spending on research and development.

Never mind that a majority of the research done by and for drug companies is done by the NIH, which is entirely funded by taxpayers. The drug companies take the most promising/profitable looking developments from them finalize what research is left to do, apply patents, and profit for the next 20 years (or 25 with patent extensions). Then they reformulate ("Now take only once a day!") and re-patent.

Get out of the mindset that drug companies care about your health. They don't. They care about making a profit - and if that means applying a submarine patent to a cure in order to prevent others from developing it, and marketing the hell out of something that temporarily relieves the symptoms until their lucrative patent is up, don't think they won't do this.

You want innovation in the drug industry? Shorten the patent protection period while broadening the coverage, so that a minor change in an inactive component of the drug doesn't qualify for a whole new patent.

The problem here, is that only the rich can afford an easy to use web publishing package like FrontPage running on Windoes XP/2000. Everyone else is forced to use a free but hard to use knock-off like Linux to make their voices heard.

Opening up the ability to publish could, as you suggest, be done by providing everyone in the country with a free copy of FrontPage. However, the ability to publish is limited if that that you publish can only be seen on, say, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and it would not be beyond Microsoft to modify FrontPage to do just that, restricting content only to that small elite who can afford Windows 2000 and Windows XP with Internet Explorer. A better solution would be to develop the tools: make those provided by Linux the equal to, or greater than, anything the competition can provide. The "cheap knock-offs", as you put it, would then be open to everyone.

This quagmire of content controlled by an elite will not disappeaar 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. Tell them that the only way to open up the information revolution and provide the ability to openly criticise government to all is to provide open, capable, web publishing software to all for free. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done in the Free Software and Open Source domains, but if more resources are not devoted to improving the output of these groups 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 providing free, high quality, web publishing sofware can help all three. Let them 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 on open web publishing software.

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.

The whole concept ITSELF is out of line. The TIA database isn't just for your financial transactions -- it will also be storing biometric information about you, along with facial recognition images that will be put together when you get your drivers license.

Articles like this are giving people false hope that they will be able to circumvent the system without mentioning the whole camera/surveillance/REAL big brother part of the equation. They won't need your credit card number if they have a positive visual ID of you purchasing something that may be considered threatening.

The fact of the matter here is that the whole TIA database idea must be scrapped, and no more federal funding should be granted. It has already sucked up well over $100million of our tax dollars.

Please write to your representatives and let them know how abhorrent this whole program is. It is an unprecedented invasion of our privacy, and it should be stopped dead right now.

Sending email to your elected officials is pretty much copying it to /dev/null. Noone reads their email, not even their interns most of the time. Either snail mail the letter or, if you're in a hurry, fax it to them.

At any rate, LET THEM KNOW. People made enough noise to force Kissinger to resign, people made enough noise to get Trent Lott in some serious hot water, people made enough noise to stop the exploratory oil drilling off the coast of California...

The point is clear -- make A LOT of noise to support your cause, and chances are you will be heard.

Your government throws money at all types of security "solutions" right now because it believes that is what you want it to do. It believes that, given the events of the last 14 months, you are frightened enough to break Franklin's famous principle about trading freedoms for security. It will do anything to make you feel safer, not only by making you safer, but by throwing tax payer dollars at pointless and socially dangerous projects such as "odor identification systems", as well as more infamous projects such as the face scanning technologies used in Tampa that were found to misidentify a large percentage of the population.

This quagmire of government spending to make you feel safer regardless of the consequences 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. Tell them not to do anything. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to protect your safety, but if money keeps being thrown at more and more invasive and ultimately pointless security measures 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 them doing stuff all the time just for the sake of being popular harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on whether or not they can summon up the political courage to spend an entire term getting nothing done.

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.

The agenda of Yahoo is the same as it is for all the giant corporations, ie Microsoft, WalMart, AT&T, Sam Adams, AOL Time Warner, etc; it's to turn you into a wage earning slave exploiting your production on one hand, while controlling what you spend with the pitiful money they give you.

This quagmire of big business and big gubmint working together to exploit you must end. But it will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and 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, or to the Bush Family Evil Empire at the White House. Tell them that personal freedom and privacy combined with decent working conditions, a fair wage for a fair day's work, and decent, affordable, universal health care, are important to you - that you should have the rightt to control that that you store on your own disks. Tell them that you are appalled at Yahoo!'s and the pResident's efforts in this area, but that in the absense of full disclosure, you will have to find a less secure and intelligently run country to live in. 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 corporate state run for greed's sake that exploits the workers destroys all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on the rights of ordinary, hard working, people.

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.

The facts behind the charges were pretty solid, as were the determinations. So why were they exonerated? As you can read here, less than a week before a 2-day congressional hearing was scheduled to review the allegations of scientific fraud, the National Institutes of Health reopened the inquiry and this time found "significant errors" in the paper, but "no evidence of fraud, conscious misrepresentations, or manipulation of data" by the authors. As you'll read in that article, the scientists basically thought that any government intrusion would be too much, and so the convictions were suddenly overturned. Ever since, this has been an example of how the scientific community was unable to police itself.

Most countries have taken this approach. In America, the FCC has taken on a role not merely of allocating frequencies but of controlling, insofar as they constitutionally can, what travels over them. The absurd limits on the 2.4GHz band, created in part not to help foster private telecommunications but to make microwave ovens legal, mean that communications over these bands have to be ultra-local in scale and have lead to conflicts between household and office equipment that should not exist. When my microwave oven is on, despite the heavy shielding, my Seimens Gigaset phone's reception is audibly impaired. I gather a common complaint is that 2.4GHz phones tend to interfere with 802.11* wireless networks too. And all because of artificial scarcity.

In the UK, until the mid-eighties, it was virtually impossible to use any kind of wireless device without a licence. An opening up made portable telephones and similar devices possible, but innovation was hampered for the longest time because of this.

A genuine opening up - with some restrictions for some bands to reduce the chances of a destructive tragedy of the commons, but otherwise an unrestricted unrestrained environement - of large amounts of the spectrum, possibly insofar as practically possible going for the long term goal of opening up 90% of the airwaves, would create opportunities both for localised and long distance communications to a degree currently unthought of. Private, community owned, relay networks could create sane and affordable telephone provision, last mile provision for Internet type networks would become easier and could work on a broadcast rather than point-to-point model. Devices designed to operate within homes could work without a maze of unintelligable cabling - your TV and receiver could receive digital signals directly from a DVD player anywhere in the house, as long as the signals followed agreed upon standards. It'd be ironic to see "plug and play" type functionality built into every household media device to free itself from the use of plugs and sockets.

At the moment, the government and FCC has no incentive whatsoever to do any of this. Governments have recently (last 20 years or so) seen rationing the electromagnetic spectum as an opportunity to raise stealth taxes. In an era where everyone looks at their income tax bills and blames the government, but looks at their cellphone bills and blames the cellphone companies, it makes sense for them to lighten the load on income taxes by moving to indirect taxation such as that generated by auctioning spectrum. This is a disasterous policy as not merely does it undermine the innovation that could be fostered in an environment of free spectrum, but it constitutes a form of regressive taxation as certain types of communication becomes more and more important and necessary because of network effects. I've known employers that refuse to employ people for certain types of job who will not supply a working cellphone number.

The spectrum will not open itself. The government needs to act, and act in the public interest, not what it can get away with to raise funds on-the-sly. 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 the FCC, your congressman or senator. Tell them that innovation and freedom is important to you, and that it's important that the airwaves be opened up to foster a genuinely innovative and progressive culture where communications are unhampered by artificial scarcities, monopolies, and restraints. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done into creating a large ISM band, but if these efforts fail, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed wireless technologies, to get around the bottlenecks the current ISM bands impose. 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 opening up the airwaves can help all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on opening up the airwaves.

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.

Microsoft's actions to kill OS/2 are well documented and need not be repeated here, except to say that they did a good job making it look like IBM's fault - MS basically told IBM if they distributed it with their own machines or continued to market it (and Lotus Smartsuite which died under similar circumstances) MS would do everything to prevent IBM from having access to Windows 95 in any sane way short of refusing to sell it to them. IBM capitulated, and the rest is history. For more details, the entire story is documented in the Findings of Fact in the Microsoft trial.

OS/2 follows BeOS, not to mention half a dozen other upstarts, in disappearing. I could say it's another nail in the coffin for choice, but I guess that nail was driven into OS/2's coffin in 1995. Right now the free software community seems to be the only place where choice may stay alive - by keeping platforms open, and by making source available allowing for the possibility of porting almost any open application to any open platform, choice has a chance, and probably the first chance it's had in several years. Vendors like Sun and RedHat have become a part of this (despite the constant protests about Sun, I think they're one of the good guys, NIS, NFS, OpenLook, OpenOffice, and many other innovations and applications have been given to the community over the years, and while Java isn't open source or free, it is source available, and the restrictions - given the 500lb gorilla that stands against Sun - are rational if disappointing.)

Linux, the BSDs, Atheos, and the upcoming BeOS clones, are only viable though because of this base of software that can either run on them now, or can be made to run on them. That means constant work keeping the base of free and open software relevent.

Making the alternatives stay sensible and rational will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and 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 [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Tell them that choice is important to you, and that it's important that the base of open, free, software available with source is constantly kept up to date, viable, and relevent to today's needs. Tell them that you appreciate the efforts of free and open software producers, but if one day those applications ceased to be updated in line with modern needs, you would be forced to find less secure and intelligent 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 monopolies and a failure to keep the alternatives relevent destroys all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on choices, on relevence, and keeping the free and open software base relevent.

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.

You do realize that Congressmen could care less what you have to say

On top of the fact that big business has alreay $voted$, the opinion of small factions like the technically inclined matters little. They care what Joe Blow thinks, and Joe Blow thinks his AOL internet is just super, as long as it works.

Defeating this quagmire of misrepresentation, where people do not vote because politicians do not take any notice of them, and politicians take no notice of people because they do not vote, will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and 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. Tell them that their opinions and policies are important to you - that you have the right to vote them into, and out of, office. Tell them that you appreciate their efforts as a lawmaker, but that in the absense of full accountability, you will have to find less secure and intelligent 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 accountability only to big business destroys all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on freedom and democracy.

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.

Much of the problem has to do with the short term needs of bandwidth providers. Many are bankrupt, those that are not still require substantial investment in better "end-point" equipment - routers, switches, hubs, etc. A chaotic telecommunications industry that is at odds with Internet systems (ATM and X.25 vs TCP/IP) is also creating uncooperate rivalries that makes it harder and harder to make efficient use of what's available.

The end result is that we are allowed to use 5% of what could be available without substantial further investment. Caps and per-byte billing is popular in a way it really ought not to be. These entirely unnecessary caps and metering charges immediately destroy many potential benefits the Internet can bring, from being a remarkable force for the distribution of new works of art (music, films, etc), to a point-to-point person-to-person network that far exceeds anything the telephone could have brought us.

Defeating this quagmire of untapped bandwidth and short term commercial interests destroying the long term viability of super high bandwidth digital communications it will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and 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. Tell them that you're concerned about the clampdown on bandwidth use that's happening at a time when there is clearly a bandwidth glut. Tell them you appreciate the efforts of telecommunication companies to open up bandwidth in this area, but that in the absense of unlocked resources and free (as in speech) use of what's available, you will have to find less secure and intelligently designed alternatives to the Internet. 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 arbitrary caps and per-byte charges destroys all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on opening up bandwidth.

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.

All of which is a pity - a genuine Internet based electronic music (and content in general) distribution method that can raise revenues and other incentives for artists while making it cheap and affordable for people to obtain content is a wonderful thing. It can happen, it must happen: Distribution costs right now far out-strip revenues for artists (typically a few percentage points of the cover price of a CD will go to the creator) while prices continue to rise as the costs of bricks-and-mortar delivery methods rise above and beyond inflation.

Challenging the status quo - creating new networks that independent artists can use and which afford reasonable benefits for those who would otherwise have not the time to produce wonderful content - will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and 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. Tell them that open, non-proprietry, content distribution are important to you - that you believe it is important for strong alternatives to the existing music distribution systems exist so that all voices are heard, not just those a small minority feel are the most profitable. 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 locked up networks destroys all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on open distribution networks.

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.

There are ways of fighting this kind of lock in. One is to produce open codecs that, byte for byte, deliver equivalent or better quality to those in the "private domain". This is what the Ogg project is trying to do. Indeed, it's what the MPEG project is doing - the specs are open in the sense that anyone can look at them and create readers and writers, although as detractors are quick to point out, those who do implement the MPEG codecs and share their work, commercially or non-commercially, with third parties, are usually obligated to agree to pay royalties. Still, this is a situation infinitely better than the Apple/MS/Real situation.

Defeating this quagmire of content locked by the tools that distribute it will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and 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. Tell them that open, non-proprietry, codecs are important to you - that you should have the right to control that that you store on your own disks. Tell them that you appreciate Real Network's efforts in this area, but that in the absense of full disclosure, you will have to find 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 arbitrary file format locking destroys all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on open codecs.

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.

OpenBSD needs SMP support. Theo, Todd, and the rest of the gang have done an excellent job, but virtually any reasonable non-Intel machine these days is an SMP based system. As well as the potential security and stability enhancements (imagine two processes seperated not merely by an MMU, but by not even being run on the same processor) and speed improvements (anyone who's run SSH on their 40MHz Sun Sparcstation firewalls knows the more raw CPU power thrown at OpenBSD, the better, and knows it's less likely insecure systems like rlogin and rsh will be used in their place out of raw necessity), SMP may well allow forms of security that haven't existed before - admins able to lock down processes in to specific CPUs, etc.

This will not happen by itself. Resources need to be devoted to implementing such functionality, and 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 [house.gov] or senator [senate.gov]. Tell them OpenBSD is important to you. Tell them that without OpenBSD, you would have to find 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. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on OpenBSD.

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.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them FreeBSD is important to you. Tell them that without FreeBSD, you would have to find less managable and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on his or her policy on FreeBSD.

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.

How many people here even know how their own representaives voted on Homeland Security? For the record, here is the official list of who in Congress voted for and against the creation of Homeland Security:
House Roll Call
Senate Roll Call

(Interesting note, Senator Hollywood voted against. There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests.)

Is your senator in favor of Homeland Security? Are you? If the answer to those is not the same, then write a one page letter to your senator expressing your extreme displeasure with his/her actions. No, not tomorrow, not when you have time, RIGHT F*ING NOW! Fax it or snail mail it to their local office. (Not their federal office, snail mail doesn't get through there any more due to extended antrax checks.) They represent YOU! If they're not doing it right, make it clear to them.

Is your congressman in favor of Homeland Security? Are you? If the answer to those is not the same, then write a one page letter to your congressman expressing your extreme displeasure with his/her actions. No, not tomorrow, not when you have time, RIGHT F*ING NOW! Fax it or snail mail it to their local office. They represent YOU! If they're not doing it right, make it clear to them.

But what if they did vote the way you wanted them to? WRITE THEM A LETTER OF THANK YOU! Everyone likes positive feedback from the people who control their job. If your senator was one of the nine dissenters, thank them for standing up for what is right! Include with the snail mail letter a check (not cash) for $100 to their campaign fund. Polticians speak two languages; votes and money. Speak your mind in both, in enough numbers, and they WILL listen.

While you're at it, write a short OpEd for the local newspaper. Short, sweet, to the point. Maybe they'll publish it, maybe they won't, but they definitely won't if you don't send it.

This is a democracy. Your government SPEAKS FOR YOU! Your representatives represent YOU. Remind them of it. Daily. Make them scared shitless of losing their job if they cross you. Their first thought when they wake up should be "am I pissing off the people who vote for me?" Their last thought before going to bed should be "am I pissing off the people who vote for me?" As a voter, it is YOUR PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to see to it that those who claim to represent you actually do.

250,000 Slashdot voters is 500 times the difference in Florida in 2000, for a Presidential election. Imagine the sheer power of that electorate in congressional elections, if only it would get up off its collective ass and do something.

The Patriot Act of 2001 labels many so-called computer crimes "terrorism." I openly state, I am a terrorist. I seek to instill terror in the hearts of my government of trampling on my freedoms, or of voting against my will. I seek to make my government live in fear of me and my power over them. I seek to give George W. Bush nightmares of crossing me.

I am a voter. Are you?

DON'T SELL OUT TO MILLIONAIRES CLAIMING TO REPRESENT THE ARTISTS

! The entity known as "xxAA" amongst the slashbots is claiming to represent "the artists". They represent nothing more than a bunch of corporation. We need the Music Online Competition Act in place so that REAL ARTISTS who spend their lives creating content can work in a sustainable business environment where they can get paid for their work. We do not want to live in the world the xxAA is trying to create for us, where we are all denied the right to create.

Please SUPPORT the Music Online Competition Act.

Anonymous Coward.

A congressman...who cares about the interests of individuals in the tech world? This wouldn't be our good old, oft-lauded on Slashdot friend Rick, now would it?

Total Information Awareness will be used for the security of all American citizens, watching over you with the compassion and leadership of a big broth---er, uh - a favorite uncle.

Our glorious leader will leverage these tools to usher in a new era of safety and prosperity, unfettered by the shackles of complicated and antiquated laws. Never fear, no terrorist will be able to hide behind the The Constitution.

Of course, we rely on your cooperation and your TIPS to ensure our enduring freedom.

Everything is warm and fuzzy. War is peace.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Your congress(wo)man

Not sure they would pay much attention to a letter from a British citizen living in France. Which of course is one of the problems with attacking the people sending the spams.

The U.S. economy has got a lot to lose vis-à-vis UK & France either: being considered a spam haven jeopardizes every country's role as a trading partner of Europe since Directive 95/46/EC: This is an issue that does matter to the US, and the administration is taking it very seriously, because losing Safe Harbor status (which was not easy to obtain in the first place, given the state -or in many sectors rather: lack- of U.S. privacy law) simply means this:

(56) Whereas cross-border flows of personal data are necessary to the expansion of international trade; whereas the protection of individuals guaranteed in the Community by this Directive does not stand in the way of transfers of personal data to third countries which ensure an adequate level of protection; whereas the adequacy of the level of protection afforded by a third country must be assessed in the light of all the circumstances surrounding the transfer operation or set of transfer operations;
(57) Whereas, on the other hand, the transfer of personal data to a third country which does not ensure an adequate level of protection must be prohibited;

So, do write your letters/make your calls (up to the equivalent of $20, everyone!) to the representatives and senators now (even more so as a U.S. citizen of course) and I'm pretty sure you will get a reply, and get the right people concerned about the problem (it also seems to have worked the other way round as e.g. Americans announced to spamblock European sites when the a misguided committee of the European Parliament prepared to legalize spam by adopting an "opt-out" scheme earlier this year).

This is a good reason to support Congressman Boucher and the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002. They are trying to actually get fair rights usage on the law books, not just as court case precidents (esp. since the DMCA stripped a lot of our rights away and this takes some back). It is not slated to appear this congressional session. However, it never hurts to start calling your Reps and asking them to sponsor the bill.

Info on the bill

/end paranoid sounding political rant

Actually, that's not correct. Even the article you link to speaks of Husseing spending a whole bunch of time and money trying to get nukes, but claims he has not succeeded (how they can know, since no inspectors have been near Iraq in four years is left as an exercise for the reader). These sources have more information on the matter, and disagree even on this point:

• A piece on Hussein's atomic program from Richard Muller of LBL
• Richard Sperzel (former head of the UN weapons inspections) to the House

As for delivery systems, a missile is hardly the only way to deliver a WMD. A far bigger risk is that of Mr. Hussein providing such a weapon to al Qaeda, or to his own intelligence services for a more uncoventional delivery.

And yes, if North Korea becomes as much a threat to us as Iraq is, we will deal with it. That doing so will be harder now that they already have nukes is a perfect demonstration of why we must not allow Mr. Hussein to get that far.

How isn't that completely changing legislation? Take a look at the house summary of the legislation (here). Besides being covered in mid-'90s Republicanism, it gives the President the authority to cancel specific dollar amounts of new discretionary spending. So if Congress passes a bill that establishes subsidies for security costs associated with protecting abortion clinics and gun shows, the President could line-item the abortion clinic funding but preserve the gun show funding. Tell me that isn't "completely changing" legislation in a manner specifically antithetical to the intent of the framers.

It's not like you have to call. I've tried that before, when you do get through you get an intern who takes a message. I usually get replies by email though still probably an intern.

Index of reps contact info

ps., if you're actually interested in copyright law, I'll make this even easier for you: Title 17.

That is copyright law as it stands today. This bill would change that law. Any questions?

The Constitution of the United States of America, Section 9, Clause 5 reads: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Simple.

Following the fine example set by others here, I figured I'd go to my Congressman's official website and "send an e-mail." Being lazy, I simply took the link to Rep. Tubbs Jones (http://www.house.gov/tubbsjones/) and changed the name to holt.

Of course, I expected that to work. (And, of course, I was wrong.) Rep. Rush Holt's (NJ) official website is at http://holt.house.gov. Doesn't seem to be any consistency in anything on the House pages!

Following the fine example set by others here, I figured I'd go to my Congressman's official website and "send an e-mail." Being lazy, I simply took the link to Rep. Tubbs Jones (http://www.house.gov/tubbsjones/) and changed the name to holt.

Of course, I expected that to work. (And, of course, I was wrong.) Rep. Rush Holt's (NJ) official website is at http://holt.house.gov. Doesn't seem to be any consistency in anything on the House pages!

Following the fine example set by others here, I figured I'd go to my Congressman's official website and "send an e-mail." Being lazy, I simply took the link to Rep. Tubbs Jones (http://www.house.gov/tubbsjones/) and changed the name to holt.

Of course, I expected that to work. (And, of course, I was wrong.) Rep. Rush Holt's (NJ) official website is at http://holt.house.gov. Doesn't seem to be any consistency in anything on the House pages!

It is good stuff, you send it to the email address it should go to: tannaz.haddadi@mail.house.gov
Probably an aid or something.

There is a generic email form for all house members. It doesn't say anything about needing a certain browser and I'm pretty sure that I've emailed my congress critter through this form several times.

When I try to write my Representative, I am directed to http://www.house.gov/writerep/
which works fine with Mozilla.

No funny IE tags, no funny forms, just a classic, simple webform.

Hmm. Informal survey:

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones - OH - Democrat
Requires constituents to use evil, proprietary software from a criminal monopoly in order to communicate with her. Has never been caught kicking puppies and kittens. Lives in Ohio.

Congresswoman Melissa Hart - PA - Republican
Supports open standards, including those used by Open Source software. As American as apple pie. Probably scowls when she hears the word "Microsoft". Most sincere desire is to retire from politics and spend her time promoting Linux.

Final Score:

By Party:

Republicans 1
Democrats 0

By State:

Pennsylvania 1
Ohio 0

Hmm. Informal survey:

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones - OH - Democrat
Requires constituents to use evil, proprietary software from a criminal monopoly in order to communicate with her. Has never been caught kicking puppies and kittens. Lives in Ohio.

Congresswoman Melissa Hart - PA - Republican
Supports open standards, including those used by Open Source software. As American as apple pie. Probably scowls when she hears the word "Microsoft". Most sincere desire is to retire from politics and spend her time promoting Linux.

Final Score:

By Party:

Republicans 1
Democrats 0

By State:

Pennsylvania 1
Ohio 0

My rep (Wolf/Virginia) says this on his contact page:

I participate in the "Write Your Representative" program of the House of Representatives so that I can more effectively respond to the needs and concerns of the people of the 10th District. A public e-mail address does not provide a way to ensure that 10th District residents get priority in reaching me over the Internet. Please click on the icon below to e-mail me through the "Write Your Representative" program.

Whatever. He has a link to a generic form that seems browser-agnostic and uses a numeric code instead of an email address in the hidden fields.

Write to your senators. Write to your representative. Hell, write to your governors and state legislatures, just make it clear that you're not in favour of further restrictions on our rights.

Senators can be found here:

U.S. Senate Home

Representatives can be found here:

Representative Member Directory

If you do this, you have some form of say in our government, or at least a chance at influence. Don't waste it.

It's part of the 1992 cable Act: Section 623(b)(8) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. Volume 47 of the US Code Section 543(b)(8).
You can find it online at
http://uscode.house.gov/usc.htm
using the above information.

That being said, can anyone come up with a list of "good guys", besides Rick Boucher and Zoe Lofgren?

Ron Paul is the only one worth a damn, including the two you mentioned.