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I'm a Cato sponsor. Depending on one's sponsorship level (read: donations), we receive these. Cato publishes these sorts of briefings all the time. Typically they try to cover issues of the day from a libertarian/free-market perspective. The Internet is a hotbed of both libertarian and statist/regulatory action. Recent relevant briefings cover important policy issues like the need for strong cryptography, non-American encryption products, and the negative effect of corporate welfare on Silicon Valley.

There's an awful lot in the world of regulation that has nothing to do with tech. Cato is at the forefront of exploring free-market alternatives to social security, term limits, welfare reform, and lots and lots of other important topics. As a person closely involved with technology, I'm not always up on these other issues. Cato briefings provide some intellectual ammunition when these non-tech things come up. Lots of people with a libertarian bent come at it from other perspectives - like, say, a pro-laissez-faire-business or a free trade focus. They might not have thought privacy and anonymity issues through. I'm not influential, but maybe some of the people I talk to are. At worst, Cato papers tend to be well thought out and researched; suitable for distribution to and consumption by people who need an alternate viewpoint. Like my congressman.Who really needs one.

I assume Cato sends these to relevant policymakers too; I don't know. Cato staffmembers show up all the time on the political talk show circuit, op-ed columns, etc.

Second, consider this problem from the point of view of the imaging equipment manufacturers. They clearly do not want to have some ill-conceived legislation rammed down their throats, that mandates some expensive technology be put into every device built. Even worse would be if every nation they sold too had different regulation that needed to be complied with.

So, the manufacturers with foresight are cooperating with the government to try to come up with inexpensive solutions that make the government happy.

Now, keep in mind that anticounterfeiting is distinct from encoding distinct marks into documents. I'm going to talk about the former first, and will come back to the latter.

As the original article pointed out, there are already both anti-counterfeiting and source indentification features built into current color copiers. However, these solutions are not necessarily extendable to consumer imaging, because they take place in a closed architecture as opposed to an open one.

Consider the path that a counterfeit note would take in a consumer based imaging system. It would travel from a scanner, to some image processing software, to the printer. At any point along the way it could be stored, manipulated, or transmitted via the internet. Each step may or may not be carried out by the same individuals. Becasue of this, the most logical place to put counterfeit prevention is in the printing step. The reason for this is that if the protection in the scanning or processing step is broken by any individual, then a print-ready file could be distributed to many others. However, putting the prevention within the printer makes it both less accessable to crackers, and requires that each potential counterfeiter break the protection again.

Let us focus then on the problem of the printing of counterfeit currency. Three ways of helping to solve this problem quickly present themselves.

1: Add currency-detecting logic to printers.
2: Add features to currency that printers cannot reproduce.
3: Add printer-specific watermarking to printers.

The trend in ink-jet printers is to make them cheaper and cheaper. Given this trend, it is not feasible to add much computational power to the printer without increasing their cost. For this reason, attempting to do general-purpose detection within the printer is not feasible at this time. This does not preclude, however, doing some quick and dirty detection that is computationally very simple. (For example, is the document being printed approximately 6" by 2.5").

The design of US currency is unsophisticated, especially when compared to that of other nations. Personally, I appreciate the simplicity and history of our design, but from an anti-counterfeiting point of view it is a nightmare. The latest iteration of our currency was a stopgap effort to try to make it somewhat more difficult to be digitally copied, but most of the new features (except perhaps for the watermark) are not well understood by the public at large.

Some simple features that could be implemented, easily recognized by the public, and impossible to duplicate on a consumer printer could include:

1: Printing on a transparant substrate.
2: (1) with areas that require perfect front-to-back registration.
3: Printing with reflective (foil)inks.

But as long as we are creating a new currency, we could consider hybrid solutions. That is, embedding some special patterns in the currency that are trivial for a scanner/printer to recognize, yet do not occur in other document types. This could be some specific geometric pattern, or a specific use of colors.

So, finally, we come to embedding a watermark in all images printed by an consumer printer. First, be aware that some office printers already do this, mostly color laser printers. But beyond that fact, this is really a separate issue from anticounterfeiting. Printer manufacturers are not going to volunteer to do this unless they are compelled to do so by governments.

But if a manufacturer were forced to implement this, the most obvious place to do so would be in the driver. This is because (as mentioned earlier) the ink-jet printer itself has little computational resources. The driver has the full resources of the system CPU and is traditionally where the dithering takes place. As far as making the patterns unique, one could either query the printer for a serial number, or simply use the Pentium III serial number, or perhaps the MAC address from the LAN card.

One closing lesson here, if you were feeling cocky by saying "no problem, I'll hang onto my old printer", then make sure you never upgrade the driver, as that is where this would most likely be implemented.

Well, in closing, I would love to sign this with my account name. I can't however, so just call me...


Anonymous Coward

• 10USC 772(j)(1) is needed because 10USC 771 might otherwise prevent boyscouts from wearing uniforms.
• The referred-to part of 28USC 1863 is actually useful because it uses the more-accurate residence lists that MA has rather than voter lists, which tend not to include people not registered to vote.

I still don't get the Onion futures thing though. Someone care to explain?

Patents exist to protect our intellectual property.

No. Patents (and copyrights) exist to promote the progress of science and useful arts (clause 8) (non-Americans may substitute their own national references).

What needs to be thought is this treaty - specifically what can and cannot be considered new technology that is patent-worthy.

Yes. That's definitely something that needs to be revised.

But I'm also concerned about what this treaty means in other ways. If I understand this correctly, the treaty basically aims to force every nation to recognize patents from other nations.

If this were to happen, it would spell disaster for a lot of free software, and for the economies of many third-world countries. Consider the example of RSA encryption -- since the RSA algorithm is patented in the United States, American cryptographers cannot write code using that algorithm (unless they obtain a "license"). So anybody who wants to sell an RSA-based product has to base their business in Australia or some other country -- and even then they probably still can't sell to the United States. The situation is even worse for free software, because while a commercial organization may be able to pay the "license fees" to use the patented algorithm, no free software project will be able to do that.

So, what happens if Australia is forced to honor the American patent on RSA? All of the RSA development that moved to Australia to escape the patent is screwed. And if every country honors the patent, then the project is essentially terminated, because there will be no escape from the IP police.

Also think about what this means to Australia (or any other country) -- the commercial organizations who moved their business to Australia probably gave a nice little boost to the local econonmy. If they can't continue their business, then Australia's economy takes a hit.

I think this proposed treaty is a bad idea.

The prohibition amendment was repealed, so congress has legal precident to repeal the Bill of Rights as well.

Yes the prohibition amendment was repealed... with another amendment. No, it wasn't a legal precedent, it was simply an application of the rules in the Constitution providing for amendments:

Artivle V.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

The Bill of Rights is nothing more (or less) than the first 10 Amendments because it wasn't even in the Constitution at first. It was a list of 11 (yes 11!) laws which were proposed to insure that the people would be protected just a bit more from the governement. 10 of them passed through this process to become part of the Constitution and the 11th fell short of the 2/3 of the States and sat around unratified but ratifiable(sp?) for 200+ years until several years ago the requisite 34th State (don't remember which) ratified it:

Amendment XXVII

No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

The Bill of Rights legally have a status identical to all other amendments, and thus all other parts of the Constitution, making them subject to amendment (and, yes, repeal). What sets the Bill of Rights apart is this almost worshipful attitude most Americans have towards them (which you displayed to a small degree :-), leading to the IMO relatively safe assumption that if there are ever 3/4 of both Houses and 2/3 of all States ready to ratify a repeal of one of them, then the Government has already become a monster which ignores the rights anyway.

I reccomend you read up a little on the relevant documents:

The Constitution
The Amendments

There are also 1 or 2 papers and books and articles and such which have been written about these documents if you want to brush up on the background.

Chris

The prohibition amendment was repealed, so congress has legal precident to repeal the Bill of Rights as well.

Yes the prohibition amendment was repealed... with another amendment. No, it wasn't a legal precedent, it was simply an application of the rules in the Constitution providing for amendments:

Artivle V.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

The Bill of Rights is nothing more (or less) than the first 10 Amendments because it wasn't even in the Constitution at first. It was a list of 11 (yes 11!) laws which were proposed to insure that the people would be protected just a bit more from the governement. 10 of them passed through this process to become part of the Constitution and the 11th fell short of the 2/3 of the States and sat around unratified but ratifiable(sp?) for 200+ years until several years ago the requisite 34th State (don't remember which) ratified it:

Amendment XXVII

No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

The Bill of Rights legally have a status identical to all other amendments, and thus all other parts of the Constitution, making them subject to amendment (and, yes, repeal). What sets the Bill of Rights apart is this almost worshipful attitude most Americans have towards them (which you displayed to a small degree :-), leading to the IMO relatively safe assumption that if there are ever 3/4 of both Houses and 2/3 of all States ready to ratify a repeal of one of them, then the Government has already become a monster which ignores the rights anyway.

I reccomend you read up a little on the relevant documents:

The Constitution
The Amendments

There are also 1 or 2 papers and books and articles and such which have been written about these documents if you want to brush up on the background.

Chris

"every single warhead has our technology"?

Ummm, not quite... read the Cox Report... whatever information the Chinese obtained on the W-88 warhead design hasn't been implemented in the current-generation DF-5 ICBM's (which were deployed *1981*), but would instead be expected to have influenced the design of their next-gen DF-31 ICBM's, which won't even make it into the PLA's 2nd Artillery Corps' arsenal for at least 3 years. In other words, check your facts before you vent.

This, along with a story about a patent on Y2K 'windowing' I heard last night on NPR (which was also reported earlier here on Slashdot) has got me completely disgusted.

It's about time we get together as an angry mob with pitchforks and torches, and knock over and burn that damn patent office. Why hasn't there been any congressional lobbying or attention on this yet? (Because companies like being able to fence off almost brainlessly obvious solutions and hold other companies hostage? Hello Amazon? Hello Yahoo? Hello-- oh hell, just search for 'patent' on Slashdot!)

I'd rather see no patents whatsoever on anything than this garbage!

Well, since unsigned bands aren't represented by the RIAA, I'm sure they don't care about those MP3s. Obviously they are going after pirated music, which is their right under the law

They are going after ALL MP3s (and trying to equate MP3=Piracy), this is purposely misleading. I have tons (95%) of legal MP3s which would get flagged and I would get in trouble for. Is this what you want?

There is no time limit for copyrights mentioned int the US Consitution

from here

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To...

Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Now maybe its just my interpretation, but I don't see "limited" as meaning "life + 95 years". Nor do I see how not letting the public look at it for a lifetime "promote(s) the Progress of Science and useful Arts." (which doesn't even cover useless(MHO) Arts like pop music, music videos, most motion pictures, etc) Congress was given a power and has abused it to the delight of their financial backers. That is a fact, if you don't think it's bad thats a different story, but that is a fact.

Why shouldn't a person's estate be allowed to profit from the person's work?

They should, but there are limits to a government granted monopoly. I can think of numerous examples where something taken to one degree is fine, but taken to another becomes unpleasant (temperature, for example)

Look, you don't have the right to other peoples things, and its wrong to take things without permission.

Is it wrong if I listen to something you own, without you knowing, without you noticing, and without ANY cost to you whatsoever? It is wrong for you to cry to the police when such a thing happens because (~whiny brat voice) That's MY music!!! (/~wbv).

My mom taught me to share, and that was sharing things that I couldn't use if I shared them!

Here's a link to section 1201, which you can't get to on Cornell's site:

Title 17, Chapter 12

Yes, it has a "DOC" extension, but it's not MS word, it's plain text.

One other thing - IANAL, but the very first text of the section is this:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.

The document contains the date "01/05/99" for that section, so does that mean that as long as DeCSS is working before "01/01/2001" (assuming they don't mean 1899...) that it's OK?

We need some law hackers.

Hey, it's easy enough to check U.S. Federal law. Just go to http://uscode.house.gov/ and look it up. Particularly relevant section is Title 17:

a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures.
- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that
effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take
effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the
enactment of this chapter.
(B) The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply
to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a
particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be
in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of
such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of
that particular class of works under this title, as determined
under subparagraph (C).
[...]

subparagraph (C) explains that it is the Librarian of Congress who is supposed to review cases where prohibition (A) may cause difficulties to people who have non-infringing reasons to circumvent an anti-piracy scheme.

First off, I did a little more research. The HRC already has a server at http://hillsource.house.gov. Their equivalent for the Democrats is the House Democrat Caucus, and they have a website at http://dcaucusweb.house.gov. Since the HRC already has a server at a meaningful location, why would they need another at a misleading location?

Secondly, if the purpose of these groups is to handle all the complicated technical details, preventing duplication of effort on non-controversial issues, then why are they separated by party? Every technical committee is bipartisan, these are not technical committees. My understanding is that their purpose is to make it easier for those congressmen who want to be loyal party members to see which bills they are supposed to be voting for or against.

Sure enough, a quick look at these websites show them both to be sharply partisan. The HRC opens with bright red text saying "STOP THE RAID", referring to the GOP's stand on recent social security debates. The HDC hides it a little better, but the partisan sentiment is at least as strong on their site.

Again, these are clearly extensions of the political parties, why do they have official government standing? Secondly, why does the HRC, who already have a website, need another one; particularly one whose name carries the implication that the Republican Party is a core government agency?!?

----

First off, I did a little more research. The HRC already has a server at http://hillsource.house.gov. Their equivalent for the Democrats is the House Democrat Caucus, and they have a website at http://dcaucusweb.house.gov. Since the HRC already has a server at a meaningful location, why would they need another at a misleading location?

Secondly, if the purpose of these groups is to handle all the complicated technical details, preventing duplication of effort on non-controversial issues, then why are they separated by party? Every technical committee is bipartisan, these are not technical committees. My understanding is that their purpose is to make it easier for those congressmen who want to be loyal party members to see which bills they are supposed to be voting for or against.

Sure enough, a quick look at these websites show them both to be sharply partisan. The HRC opens with bright red text saying "STOP THE RAID", referring to the GOP's stand on recent social security debates. The HDC hides it a little better, but the partisan sentiment is at least as strong on their site.

Again, these are clearly extensions of the political parties, why do they have official government standing? Secondly, why does the HRC, who already have a website, need another one; particularly one whose name carries the implication that the Republican Party is a core government agency?!?

----

Here is the link to his house.gov website: Just another old white guy?

Maybe one of the Mods can link to this in the blurb from the main page?

Let your representative know how you feel. With this link you don't even have to know who that is

Write Your Representative

If lots of people write and let them know that this is a "BAD THING", maybe the house will act.

I did say maybe.

The following is from memory. I spent 30 minutes looking for a citation from statutory law and couldn't find the killer source paragraphs, although there are several references in 15 USC Chapter 2B. Also, the following is United States law, which does not apply to Corel in Canada.

An insider is: someone who owns 10% or more of the company; or someone who is on the board of directors of the company; or someone who has a policy-making office in the company.

It is legal for insiders to buy and sell stock in their company. There are restrictions against practices like short swings (buying the stock and selling it in less than six months).

It is not legal for anyone, insider or not, to trade on material non-public information. Usually the insiders are in the best position to have knowledge of material non-public information, but other people can know it, too. For example, if your friend works at a printing plant and they call you and tell you that they just printed 400 copies of a document that say "Microsoft Acquisition of FOO.COM" on the front cover, and you then go buy 100 shares of FOO.COM, the SEC will bust your ass.

Material has a specific legal meaning. It means that the information, if known by a reasonable investor, would affect that investor's decision to buy the stock.

Non-public means that the information has not been disseminated to the public.

In this case, Cowpland appeared to have material information (he knew the company earnings were going to suck) and the information was not public (Corel hadn't put out a press release about it).

I don't think the online-ness of his broker has any bearing on the broker's responsibilities. In the United States, brokers are required to have written procedures in place to prevent trading on material non-public information. Part of this procedure is asking all customers "are you an insider of any company".

I believe that if Cowpland had traded on e*trade and answered "no" to this question that the SEC could bust him for criminal fraud. If he answers "yes", then it's my humble non-lawyerly opinion that e*trade would have an obligation to have a human being review all of Cowpland's trades in Corel stock, and to ask him questions like "do you have any material non-public information at this time?" before executing each of his trades.

While I do think civil disobedience is a fine and noble thing, and I wouldn't oppose this idea, have any of you tried writing your congresspersons and senators a letter? A letter writing campaign will have much more effect than an act of civil disobedience. A friend of mine once worked in a congressman's office. I asked him how many letters they had to get on a subject before it would actually be brought to the congressman's direct attention. He said four. Four!!! (Note that there are exceptions, like gun control and abortion which generate mail like crazy, but on some garden variety issue, not on the "radar", it takes four letters).

I'm sure this varies from issue to issue and from congressperson to congressperson, but I still urge you (and everyone else who cares about this) to write an original letter and put it on paper, sign it, and send it to each member of your delegation.

It *does* have an effect.

The "special interests" control the process in no small part because we don't exercise our freedoms. Want freedom of speech? Say so!

See http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm for a list of senators, follow through to their mailing addresses.

See http://www.house.gov/zip/ZIP2Rep.html to find out who your House member is. Follow through to their web pages which should offer an address.

Use your rights and let freedom ring (okay, I know I'm souding hokey, go rent Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and get all hokey too!)

Just in case anyone wants to check out the Shermann Act, prosecuted by the DOJ, it can be read here.

Problem is that we elect officials that look the other way or outright allow the intellegence community to abuse our percieved rights. Though I'm not actually convinced that a national photo database in and of itself is a bad thing, if it were, I'd rather holler at my congressional reps rather than CIA, SS, NSA, FBI, etc...

It's their jobs to collect information. If congress/senate/president insist on bending over backwards to accomodate their requests, we should oust them from office. I'm actually quite comfortable with all those 3 letter agencies existances... I just wish that our elected officials would say no to them (at least once in a while

Check out of the links available on the page like http://www.house.gov/science/full_charter_061099.h tm God I hope it is the result of a scanned document.

Under the current system the problem is the number of jurisdictions Internet retailers sell in, and the dificulty in enforcing the 'Use' tax that many states have to supplement sales taxes. Use taxes require the buyer to pay the same rate of tax as the sales tax in your local juridiction on any purchases made away from home or by mail-order/Internet. Probably 99.5% of people have never even heard of these taxes let alone paid them. (Except if they ever bought a car out-of-state, then registered back home)

States are allowed to collect sales & use taxes under the Internet Tax Freedom Act (the moratorium mentioned in the article) as noted on this Congressman's FAQ on the Internet Tax Freedom Act.

1600's Calvinist totalitarians (Pilgrims on a journey my ass) escape the wrath of Catholic totalitarians

Salem. Nuff said.

1770's Unpopular Declaration of Independence discussed behind closed doors. All who wanted to be in had to sign. This meant if they were found or the war lost they would be shot.

Big debate on women voting too.

'Course it wasn't too long before we pulled a Columbus on Indians, Mexico.

So don't be surprised. We need a more direct response to this.

When Germany ordered Jews to wear yellow markers, all of Denmark wore them without even thinking twice. It was obvious what they had to do.

So start encrypting long repetitititions of "Mom, I'm at the store. I'll bring my commie friends home tonight."

Check out

Freenet

Ompages

Link Farm

They're trying to reinvent the Earth and conquer it before people get their rightful share. If you really don't want to see pedophiles on the net, your best bet is to claim some part of the net and get over your fears. Otherwise we're guaranteed to see the net auctioned off to superpowers and rampant with crime. There's too much power in it for the assholes to pass up.


Go see Senate on the net and House on th net

(or on the otherhand, if you're breaking one law and they get a sealed warrant because they think you're breaking another law and they find evidence for the first crime they can go get another sealed warrant and then gather evidence and you never knew why they suspected you in the first place)

This is refered to as fishing, and is specificaly outlawed.

I'm more worried that it will pass because us citizens haven't made our feeling known to out representitives. See: Member and Committee Information of the 106th Congress.

Remember this is a participatory democracy. Now PARTICIPATE!!!

(b)(1)(A) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), unless authorized by the owners of copyright in the sound recording or the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), and in the case of a sound recording in the musical works embodied therein, neither the owner of a particular phonorecord nor any person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that phonorecord or computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending.

For the full section, use the search page of the U.S. House of Representatives Office of Law Revision Council, enter "17" for title, and "software rent" for the search term. The first hit will be 17 USC Sec. 109.

It's obvious that what the software industry wanted (and got) was a different pricing model from the motion picture industry. The studios sell tapes to video rental stores, and usually do not receive a cut of the rental price. Software companies didn't want there to be any rental unless they were the renter and received the entire rental fee.

So I guess my overall question is what use is it to organize online when many politicians either don't notice or don't take the net seriously?

The address is http://www.house.gov/writerep/

If you choose, visit the address above and fill out the necessary form!

If EACH one of us, forward this message on to others in a hurry, we may be able to prevent this injustice from happening!

Contact your Senators and Representatives.

I have included my own letters below if you are interested in using them.

For Congresscritters:

Dear Representative,

I just heard the news that the House Appropriation Committee voted to severely curtail NASA's FY 2000 budget. I would like to register my strongest objections to any such cut in NASA's budget.

For Senators:

Dear Senator,

I just heard the news that the House Appropriation Committee voted to severely curtail NASA's FY 2000 budget. Given that the Senate committee will soon vote on a similar issue, I would like to register my strongest objections to any such cut in NASA's budget.

(rest of the letter)

Space research contributes practical, life-saving discoveries and useful commercial applications far out of proportion to investment. NASA is not just a simple "pie-in-the-sky" organization with esoteric, useless goals, and any cuts to NASA funding will drastically affect our future returns.

Budget cuts on the order of those approved by the House will dramatically effect NASA's research in earth and space sciences, studies which are directed towards better understanding of the Earth itself. We can ill afford such short-sighted thinking. I find special irony in the juxtaposition of the House Committee's vote with the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.

As a [insert your state here] citizen, I implore you to support our nation's space program. Much of our modern world would be unrecognizable without the breakthroughs engendered by NASA's research, many of which have had a direct impact on the economy of our great state.

Sincerest regards,




Regards,

You've all taken time to read/post here, so why not write to your senators and congressmen?
Go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov. Both make it exceptionally easy to write the people representing people. All you need to know is your state and zip code!

For the first time in my life, I've written to Congress. (It took less than five minutes.) I think you all should too, whether you support or hate the proposed cuts. If you choose to write, please be civil (i.e. avoid swears and direct insults.)

I think it's about time that our boys and girls in the House, and the Senate, felt the full brunt of being Slashdotted. Follow those links to immediately find your local Representative and Senators' home page (don't forget each state has two senators, write them both). Email addys shouldn't be but three clicks away.

I'm not talking about flames, mind you. But let's show them how digital democracy can work. If everyone reading my comment were to email their congressman, maybe even send some snailmail (that may actually recieve more attention) perhaps they'd get the message. I suppose non-US citizens could email too, the more the merrier. (My only concern is that such folk aren't their constituents, ie, hold no power over them, but it never hurts to try)

I pay pretty close attention to politics, and not to try and start party wars with other /.ers, but I expect this is a Republican thing here. Since part of their party platform is tax cuts, they have to pay for it somehow. The surplus is needed for Social Security & maybe Medicare, but if the Repubs want to have a hope at passing the size cut they just did ($700 billion, which Clinton has declared he will veto) the Appropriations committee is likely looking for any way it possibly can to scrape together more funds. The fact that Republicans have never liked any public works doesn't help. Remember when they wanted to slash funding for PBS? They think the private sector (one of their main voting bases) can do everything. I don't agree, which may explain why I'm a card carrying Democrat. If any Democrats on the committee were involved, though, I'm just as disgusted at them.

Just as a closing point, to me this underlies the very reason why nerds need to stop living in such an insular world, ignoring things that aren't directly very techie. This comes as no surprise to me, but perhaps does to others. I wonder how many Slashdotters knew the reasons before I put forth my explination, or how many others have realistic explinations of their own. Perhaps if we all got more involved in politics, then such incidents would occur less often. At the very least, we wouldn't be be bowled over by them.

Grossman's Statement

I realize it isn't pleasant or happy document, but it was the basis of at least one legislative attempt (the Hyde Amendment to H.R. 1501) and basically sums up the absolute worst and most ignorant facet of the people governing us and how they view computing technology. Try not to read it on a full stomach.

Lamar Smith also voted for the Hyde Amendment to the recent Juvenile Crime Bill. This bill amendment, if passed, would mean five years in jail for selling Doom to a 15 year old.

Here's his Web site: http://www.house.gov/lamarsmith/


What a god-damned fascist.

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html

or

http://www.senate.gov

BTW - is there a feminine form of Senator?

And this is why:

First of all, read what he has to say about these National ID Cards:

"Please be alert to misinformation regarding section 656(b) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, a law passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress. Some claim that section 656(b) creates a "national ID card" and attempt to link the provision with various far-fetched conspiracies involving the federal government. I do not support a national ID card and don't know anyone who does. I do support reasonable measures that prevent aliens from using fraudulent documents to obtain jobs and government benefits."

Then take a look at his web page's title on it.

"National ID Card? Not!"

He sounds very lost, first he wants it, then he says he doesn't support it. Then he wants to keep out illegal aliens, blah blah blah. The FBI says Raphael Ramirez had 4 SSN's, blah blah, this will help prevent that. Blah blah. How man miniorities are serial killers? Really? Hardly any. Sure immigrants commit crimes, but serial killers? That's left for the whites. Sheesh.

You can see Lamar Smith's page at http://www.house.gov/lamarsmith/idcardhtm.htm

./brm

'no court shall have jurisdiction'

'shall not be subject to judicial review'

Whether this particular restriction is constitutional is a harder problem, as it would seem to foreclose all avenues of relief for violation of a constitutional right. It's not a foregone conclusion, however.

'no court shall have jurisdiction'

'shall not be subject to judicial review'

Whether this particular restriction is constitutional is a harder problem, as it would seem to foreclose all avenues of relief for violation of a constitutional right. It's not a foregone conclusion, however.

There's a realplayer copy of the hearing on nanotechnology last Tuesday here, which led to this government funding. Just click on the View Archive button next to it. Molecular systems research is pretty interesting stuff in my opinion, so screw you naysayers on nanotechnology ;)

Hopefully you realize that Pascal's wager is based on the vindictive human-nature atribted to the Christian God. Not all religions attribute eternal damnation to failing to heed the word of some messiah.

Moreover, I question that Pascal would be able to "choose to believe in" every god whose religion threatened post-mortem doom. Remember, just because Chrisitanity calls their god "God" doesn't make him some sort of meta-deity over all other religious entities.

To bring the conversation back on-topic: The ten commandments are primary texts used by a dominant religion. I am far more afraid of the use of this document as a form of oppression than I am some third-hand mythology that is taught jokingly in English class.

Consider how you were taught greek and norse mythology: "What a bunch of wacky people! Man-boy love, Gods on Mount Olympus... Crazy neanderthals--though the Greeks were on to something with that democracy stuff."

I just read the first amendment last night. It's short--45 words covering 5 topics. It is tough to ascribe the 16 words concerning religion their broad public impact. However, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." certainly applies in the case of this particiular amendment.

Finally, I hardly disagree with some of the 10 commandments as text, indeed, Jesus had some good things to say about the meek and respecting others. However, these moral lessons can be taught independent of religion. Not everyone needs the fear of eternal damnation to behave in a civil and respectful manner to their fellow humans.

The constitutional amendment.
The unconstitutional amendment.

That bill will (almost certainly) be passed by the House within the week. It then gets shot back to the Senate, which has already passed a similar form; they too will have to vote on the modified bill.

There are numerous other amendments that make this bill a bad idea. Children as young as 13 will be tried as adults. Judeo-Christianity's Ten Commandments will be posted in public schools (though apparently Buddhism's Four Noble Truths are still unwelcome).

But the worst part of it will be the censorship of every federally-funded school and library across the nation. To be precise, we will be turning over responsibility for that censorship to unaccountable third-party software companies who use computers to scan for naughty keywords. (Information on this shoddy and biased software is available at censorware.org.) Third-party censorship is the worst threat that the net will face in coming years, because everyone thinks computers can magically determine what's porn.

Don't get complacent and think it will be overturned. This bill may well be Constitutional because it is tied to federal funds. Find your representatives, find out how they've voted, and call them at (202) 225-3121.

More info on the bill is at the ACLU.

Jamie McCarthy

And what gives the US the right to assasinate foreign leaders? Well, if we can send cruise missiles into Belgrade and kill innocent children, you think we'd have an even more valid right to kill someone who has actually ordered children to death in Kosovo.

What is the point of this post? US policy has FAILED to deal with the leadership in Iraq and Yugoslavia. "Cruise missile" diplomacy does not work.

Let's either stop wasting money (ob geek: which could be going into Internet 2, or could be going into our pockets to buy more Linux boxes), or cut off "the head."

You're right that dictatorship is never just the actions of an individual. But tyranical dictatorship is driven by worship and political power of an individual. Especially in situations like Yugoslavia, where I believe the average person is reasonable, but the military power is in the hands of very greedy people. The Yugoslavs I have chatted with for the most part hate Milosevic, but hate getting bombed even more.

Picking up a gun is not the way to make your country better. Don't assume you have no power as a citizen beyond the threat of force; that should be your *last* resort. Realize that the you have much more potential influence over government in the US than the average person in most other countries does over theirs. Speak to your representatives about this, because someone should.

It's about time someone said this, and now I've heard it I'll be saying it over and over myself.

Democracy has become irrelevant in the US, thanks to the entrenched power of the Pentagon, its corporate subsidiaries and other major corporations, the two major parties

The ridiculous individualist ideology which values guns and investment above community and the vote keeps those people who might do something to improve public policy in opposition to public policy *itself*, as though the only possible policy was fascism. This leaves the US's more subtle, less fascist fascists firmly in control.

But the democratic institutions themselves exist! The US is, technically, a democratic country! Never mind that the Constitution (I mean the 1787 one, not the 1777 one) crippled the independent, radical democracy of the New England states; even Madison's document, designed to let "the people who own the country ... run the country" allows for 'the people' to influence decisions at the highest level.

The US polity is flawed and its government (including the unaccountable corporate elite) is fundamentally serving its own interests alone. But violence is not the way to change that.

Thanks.

J

Eek. Did I just say a Congressman was cool?

Eek. Did I just say a Congressman was cool?

Eek. Did I just say a Congressman was cool?

The point is, spread it around! We've seen the slashdot effect with servers, yes? Well, the only person to experiance a Slashdot effect with email has been Mr. Katz, which hardly seems fair. Get the word out! If enough people have the truth shoved in their faces, they have to listen to reason.
And let's all do it before it's too late for our little version of reality. I like being a geek. At this point in my life, I don't think I could start over.

The Constitution :
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union..." (you can hear the School House Rock song can't you?)

Declaration of Indep. :
"When in the course of human events...."

It's easy to screw these two up. Anyone remember the print ads for the movie Jefferson in Paris from ~1995? They used "We the people.." in the image, even though Jefferson had nothing to do with the Constitution.

Unfortunately, I do not live in Louisana, or have any family/friends, etc. who I could call up and have a little influence on. So all I can do is join in this rant, and hope the web makes enough noise to let Tauzin know that he's way off base on this one.

Perhaps we can really use the /. effect in a major way on this: go to the House of Representative's email response page and bring the sucker to it's knees with his name plastered all over it.

Ought to make him real unpopular with 434 other representatives, don't you think?

"PI is also bestowing awards to recognise the work of individuals who are active in the protection of privacy."

Ron Paul should get that one, he's been pushing through alot of pro-privacy bills in the house, and is often the only republican who votes against anti-drug legislation as well.

(Unfortunately, Goodlatte's website doesn't accept email outside his district.)

And don't forget to mention your support of the bill to YOUR district rep!
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html

(Unfortunately, Goodlatte's website doesn't accept email outside his district.)

And don't forget to mention your support of the bill to YOUR district rep!
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html

(Unfortunately, Goodlatte's website doesn't accept email outside his district.)

And don't forget to mention your support of the bill to YOUR district rep!
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html