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Disclaimer: IANAL
But you don't have to use the DMCA if you don't want to.

Title 17, Chapter 5 of Federal law provided for civil and criminal remedies for copyright infringment before the DMCA

For the most part, if you read the DMCA (PDF), mostly all it does is add section 512 to the existing laws.

Take a peek at this federal website website. This one is even better: website.

I will take some of whatever you are smoking. That is a nice theory, but unfortunately your constitutional protections have been under assult for a long time now, and they no longer apply.

There are a couple of good sites.

• thomas
• senate

Aside from Federalist 68, there's The Electoral College For Europeans by Michael Gilson De Lemos and A Dissertation on the Electoral College by John Reilly. There may be other sources I got this from that I can't remember right now.

The idea was that the electors met in their respective states (as opposed to having them all get together in one place) to debate who to vote for. Meeting separately was supposed to prevent them from organizing themselves into voting blocs along party lines. They'd usually pick somebody that was popular in the region (so long as one of the two people they voted for wasn't from that particular state), and unless there was somebody with national appeal (ie. Washington), nobody was expected to always get the majority of votes in 13 different groups of people. The House would then decide between the people that got electoral votes.

Political parties got around this by nominating electors who had already decided on who to vote for. Instead of trying to figure out how to win through thirteen (now fifty) separate debates, they eliminated the debates entirely.

The bill in question is S.877 The contents of the bill haven't been posted to Thomas yet, but should be in a day or two.

I can't really say what I think about the bill, just yet, because the articles I've read are giving conflicting stories. One article says that ISPs will be able to sue spammers, while another indicates that only the state attorneys general will be able to.

The German parliament which has just adopted DMCA-style provisions to outlaw the circumvention of technical protection measures that control and curtail the fair use of intellectual property (and only needs the other House's assent for part of the new legislation) makes Germany the third country, following Denmark and Greece, to implement the highly controversial "monstrosity" known as the European Union Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC.

This move, allegedly a "propaganda victory" dubbed "lex Bertelsmann" (after the giant media conglomerate expected to line their corporate pockets under the new laws) in furious disapproval by tech-savvy parts of the news media, makes Germany one of the early adopters setting an unfortunate precedent for further European countries like the UK and France whose citizens, and notably developers like Linux kernel guru Alan Cox, will probably not be spared from similar legislation for much longer either.

Although open-source researchers, cyber-rights activists and even the ruling Social Democrats' very own IT experts as well as hardware manufacturers underlined the severe dangers and inconsistencies of this new and doubtful philosophy extending copyright law to reduce many of the general public's rights to insignificance, in a debate focusing only on academic exemptions from the publishers' power grab, the opposition even tried to tighten the government's bill, ignoring widespread experiences of Chilling Effects such as censorship and assaults on the Freedom to Tinker during the past four years under the EUCD's U.S. counterpart of draconian "bad law and bad policy", the flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act, another overreaching implementation of the

scripsit Jimithing DMB:

Sorry, there's no way that "Either shit or get off the pot" can be attributed to John Irving. I'd heard it colloquialy many times long before the book was published (1996).

According to the Library of Congress, Cider House Rules: A Novel was published no later than 1985. According to IMDB, Clerks was 1994.

scripsit Jimithing DMB:

Sorry, there's no way that "Either shit or get off the pot" can be attributed to John Irving. I'd heard it colloquialy many times long before the book was published (1996).

According to the Library of Congress, Cider House Rules: A Novel was published no later than 1985. According to IMDB, Clerks was 1994.

The bill is S. 877. However it's not up on the Library of Congress's Thomas server yet. Usually takes a couple days for the text to show up.

The bill is S. 877. However it's not up on the Library of Congress's Thomas server yet. Usually takes a couple days for the text to show up.

All hope abandon, as far as Europe is concerned...

...or could these developments still be stopped before setting a bad precedent for further countries such as the UK, which will probably not be spared from similar legislation for much longer either?

While this article assumes that Wednesday's approval by the Committee on Legal Affairs makes adoption of Germany's "DMCA" bill in plenary session on Friday "a mere formality" (as even the opposition's sole regret seems to be that fair use rights should have been curtailed even further), many of you sure wish to recount some experiences of the Chilling Effects from Four Years under the DMCA to the Members of the German Parliament about to repeat most of the DMCA's mistakes in their attempt to implement yet another overreaching implementation of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, the highly controversial "monstrosity" known as European Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC.

According to this (and its links), among civilized nations, the US may actually be one of the last to finally ban spam. So since it's a real shame to lag even behind the Europeans once again in terms of privacy law...

If you have information to the contrary, please furnish it to the proper authorities.

...please furnish it to the proper lawmakers that much of the Internet's benefit to legitimate (i.e. those respectful of the opt-in principle, and selling products or services rather than crap or scams) American businesses (and probably the very existence of a considerable number of them) is severely under siege by the spamming scum. When writing to/calling your congressman, you may wish to add how much you hate the idea that (short of locking your family away from the Internet) for now only "mob law" can possibly protect your kids from being overwhelmed with all the unsolicited "information" that spammers feel compelled to "offer"...

What if a 15 y-o stores self pics in the computer ? Is this a felony ?

I am not sure about where exactly one stands with the law of the USA. Is it online anywhere? I could not find US legislation on any goverment websites. Is the law in the USA even publicly available or is it a Goverment secret?

Suprisingly, I did manage to find the Constitution of the USA on a goverment website at http://memory.loc.gov/const/const.html. Unfortunately, it appears from the notice, "Permission is hereby granted to download, reprint, and/or otherwise redistribute this file, provided appropriate point of origin credit is given to the preparer(s) and the National Public Telecomputing Network.", that it is copyrighted.

I was going to quote from the constitution but I might be extradited to the US for copying it (because, of course, the USA now have jurisdiction over the World), so I will not. I just hope that they do not extradite me to the USA over copying the copyright notice on the Constitution. It probably doesn't matter anyway, because, now Bush rules the world, all your laws apply to me including the DMCA. This means that my vocal cords and fingers should be removed as DMCA-circumvention devices, because, if I wanted to, I could use my vocal cords to speak or my fingers to type the USA Constitution (even though I have no intention of doing so).

[Please do not mod the this down as it is true (unlike a lot of comments) and is not meant to criticise the US people as most of us non-USAns (including myself) feel solidarity with the people of the USA who are under the dictatorship of George W. Bush.]

Umm, no. What you describe is not `censorship'. If I decide what to discuss, or what to use my money to put on TV, that's free speech -- the opposite of censorship. If the government tries to tell me what to choose to discuss, that would be censorship.

But more than that, in addition to not being `censorship', what you describe is entirely normal and entirely desirable. The entire function of a reporter is to distill a day or several days worth of events in to a five-to-twenty minute reportage. This necessarily involves choosing what to focus on. When I have time to read all of what congress discussed in a given day, I go read the congressional record. In the far greater number of cases where I do not have that time, I rely on a wide range of news sources to give me that information.

Don't like what a particular network chooses to focus on? Change the channel! This is your right, just as it is the right of a broadcaster to focus on the news which he considers important.

Not sure if `a child of five could grasp that', but in a free society, not all important concepts can be reduced to things a child of five (or you, perhaps) can grasp.

Looks like you need to learn how to make permalinks to OPACs, not to mention properly search phrases instead of general keywords...

And you guys call yourselves geeks. You're pwned by librarians!

1728

Digital Consumer Right to Know Act

The folly of relativism... Okay--just got back from freshman philosophy class? You define truth as absolute. Next you state that if truth is not absolute, it is meaningless. Then you offer this as support for the statement that relativism is folly. Go talk to your professor and ask the meanings of the terms "tautology" and "non sequitur"

But truth, in this context is not absolute.

It is not the fact that people die in war, people are losing jobs, votes were miscounted, etc. that one wishes to hide. The facts will eventually come out. But they will be presented at a time and in a manner that supports the agendas of the presenters.

It is "the truths" that war is justified, we should spend money on new trucks, and GWB is our just and wise leader that are of interest.

Don't get caught up arguing semantics. What is going on is the control of the hearts and minds of the people. This is achieved through emotion, religion, fear, greed, salesmanship, torture... These are methods that have nothing to do with empirically provable facts.

To control "the truth" is not to hide the facts, but to convince people that only the facts you like are relevant. Anyone who campaigns against this view threatens that control of "the truth"

Those who wish to control "the truth" often state their truths as dogma, and legislate against contravening statements or even privately held views.

In many situations, sedition, heresy, treason by word are crimes. Remember the witch hunts--in the 1600s and the 1950s. Same process; different details. There is a very legitimate concern that those in power--in order to maintain power--will criminalize speech (in any form) that threatens their control.

This is why the first amendment to the US Consititution is the first amendment. It's that important.

BTW, the full text of the above referenced document is available at Thomas. It's an enlightening read if you haven't already. The original text is only 14-15 pages long; check it out!

From the list of languages and their abbreviations:

Ewe; ewe

That's what sheep speak, right?

I like your idea... of course, amazon.com is not the best source of info. I have been advocating isbn.nu for years for this sort of thing. They're not perfect, but pretty nice. Of course, you could always just look something up in The Library of Congress (Search their catalog Here).

I like your idea... of course, amazon.com is not the best source of info. I have been advocating isbn.nu for years for this sort of thing. They're not perfect, but pretty nice. Of course, you could always just look something up in The Library of Congress (Search their catalog Here).

It's hard to do anything with a bill that's introduced a month before the Congress ends, as was the case with H.R. 5522. But a lot of times a late bill like that isn't introduced so that it will be passed, but rather so that it's on the record and available for consideration in the next Congress.

LOC call numbers are not guaranteed to be unique. Therefore it's not suitable for use for identifying work.

catalog.loc.gov

This made me think of something - I used to hear that the Library of Congress has "2 copies of every book ever printed". Nowadays I know more than I did then so I figure this can't be 100% true. But lots of books have LOC numbers, so is this duplicating the efforts of the LOC over the last several years? Or is it supplanting it? Could the LOC even help?

I'm not thinking in terms of physical storage or even database design. I'm thinking in terms of interface and data input.

If you search for, say, "Inferno" on IMDB there are 90 matching titles. If you have a book database that is fairly complete just for the last several decades you'll have far more books with "inferno" in the title than we currently have movies.

What I'm trying to point out is that even if you have several new books added every day, and get 1000 books entered a year you are still only listing the most popular books. If you take an existing data source, such as the Library of Congress and then add a comment interface to it you are still going to have a huge dataset with little added value since 95% of the books won't have any information on them.

The IMDB still suffers from this problem today - current, new and popular movies have comments and ratings. A lot of other, good films simply have no information other than a short synopsis (which was gathered from a seperate data source) and list of actors. It will simply serve to make popular books more popular.

-Adam

Or, even better, use Z39.50 to grab everything from the Library of Congress.

The basic problem is that there was no online database for movies before imdb.

But these people are re-inventing the wheel. There are tons of people who have much more experience with this stuff, who've spent years getting masters degrees in library science. These people have spent a lot more time trying to figure out out to categorize books already.

Plus, there are already numberous search tools available, like the loc and Amazon.

Already exists: http://catalog.loc.gov

or this.

You could but Slashdot might invoke the DMCA on you!

• A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design ... that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.

from about the LoC

One LoC consists of

• 18 million books
• 2.5 million recordings
• 12 million photographs
• 4.5 million maps
• 54 million manuscripts
• 29 million other items

Chriss

Okay. So let me get a couple of things straight. LOC = Library of Congress, right? And they're moving 64,000 of these around PER DAY?

THAT'S ASTOUNDING!!! Have you ever been to their main building, the Thomas Jefferson Building? It's freakin' HUGE!

Where'd they find 64,000 of these buildings and just how exactly are they moving them around??

Maybe I should've posted this as a question to Ask Slashdot.

Google:
Searched the web for Office.
Results 1 - 10 of about 78,600,000. Search took 0.10 seconds.
Start sending the letters!

as an interesting side note, the first link is US Copyright Office

I'd like to see a direct quote, please.

Well they said this was at Congressional Committee. Go look it up then. They have a audio record of the hearing, as well as some written statements. It only took me 2 minutes to find through Thomas.

It's a good analogy - the first time I saw it was in a book by Cliff Stoll called "The Cuckoo's Egg", which was released in 1989.

-- R

Ah. The reason he's not in the Senate database is because he's a Rep, despite both articles cited so far (go media accuracy! :). And according to his own website, he's not currently sponsoring this bill. Search the LOC site for "spam", the only bill that comes up is House Resolution 122, whose purpose is "To amend section 227 of the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit the use of the text, graphic, or image messaging systems of wireless telephone systems to transmit unsolicited commercial messages." It's a dupe.

Or maybe just horribly bad reporting (but probably not). The Library of Congress website has no record of either Senator Finbeiner (not to mention the fact that "Kirkland" is not a state) or of Bill 5734. I could also find no record of the author, Paul Queary, at the Associated Press site.

Here's a good one check out this about CORDS

" The U.S. Copyright Office Electronic Registration Recordation and Deposit System is the Copyright Office's system for registering claims over the Internet. Through the Internet, copyrighted works become available throughout the world instantaneously. As copying these digital works becomes easier, copyright protection is imperative."

Actually this could be cool, however following it to a illogical conclusion there are loopholes for massive abuse. A media file would have a locatable Digital signature that a filtering router could read. Check against a database for known bootlegs and you got your filter. (hmmm, run it on a linux box and finally get some RIAA/Evil use out of those longhaired geeks)

If no Digital sig is found then implant one and forward the file and new sig so the RIAA can add it to the registry for later review. Cause it could be a new burn of the latest N'Sync song or that one about Fred Durst telling Britney Spears to drop dead. you could plot the movement of files from user/site to user/site and show who gave what to who and when. You end up with a nifty tracking scheme.

This is a classic 'Man in the Middle' attack, one of those things the RIAA/MPAA wanted to do not so long ago.

Opps, You would have a way to hit them back. Say your ISP, the UofWhereEver goes and alters a music file with a fingerprint then they are subverting your property. If the file is legally obtained say self-produced then the original artist (you) will have a very clear case for copyright infringement. They will have created and distributed a reproduction of your recording for 'Commercial Gain' (acting as an agent for a speculative RIAA lawsuit), which is 99.94%, exactly the same as your copyrighted material.

So they have just violated Federal Copyright law by clandestinely adding a digital fingerprint. You can extract this new tag by doing a diff of the file against the orginal. Even a certain lackwitted judge in say Pennsylvania would be able to understand it then.

yes, this is three - The test continues and I get to offhandedly insult a boneheaded judge, daring contempt of court once more.

I would propose that the US discontinue any crew transport missions for the Shuttle to ISS and pay a significant portion of the money needed to keep Soyuz ships flying to ISS instead. If these ships cost 50 million bucks then there is a savings of about 400 million bucks for each transport (the Shuttle cost an estimated 450 million to fly).

Purchasing Russian space transportation for use by NASA is illegal under the Iran Nonproliferation Act.

Here's a good one check out this about CORDS [loc.gov]

" The U.S. Copyright Office Electronic Registration Recordation and Deposit System is the Copyright Office's system for registering claims over the Internet. Through the Internet, copyrighted works become available throughout the world instantaneously. As copying these digital works becomes easier, copyright protection is imperative."

Actually this could be cool, however following it to a illogical conclusion there are loopholes for massive abuse. A media file would have a locatable Digital signature that a filtering router could read. Check against a database for known bootlegs and you got your filter. (hmmm, run it on a linux box and finally get some RIAA/Evil use out of those longhaired geeks)

If no Digital sig is found then implant one and forward the file and new sig so the RIAA can add it to the registry for later review. Cause it could be a new burn of the latest N'Sync song or that one about Fred Durst telling Britney Spears to drop dead. you could plot the movement of files from user/site to user/site and show who gave what to who and when. You end up with a nifty tracking scheme.

This is a classic 'Man in the Middle' attack, one of those things the RIAA/MPAA wanted to do not so long ago.

Opps, You would have a way to hit them back. Say your ISP, the UofWhereEver goes and alters a music file with a fingerprint then they are subverting your property. If the file is legally obtained say self-produced then the original artist (you) will have a very clear case for copyright infringement. They will have created and distributed a reproduction of your recording for 'Commercial Gain' (acting as an agent for a speculative RIAA lawsuit), which is 99.94%, exactly the same as your copyrighted material.

So they have just violated Federal Copyright law by clandestinely adding a digital fingerprint. You can extract this new tag by doing a diff of the file against the orginal. Even a certain lackwitted judge in say Pennsylvania would be able to understand it then.

yes this is a rerun

The best thing I can recomend for him is to spend some more time at the Free Software Society's web site, but especially this page. That "promise to give away innovations" is indeed kind of silly. The use of one idea to extract or deny others is the key sin the Free Software Foundation is fighting against. The notion that the free software people have a problem with anyone making money is also misinformed. The FSF site is a cure for the ignorance behind statments like this, which blemish an otherwise fine article:

Open-source software programmers say they're different from Stallman in one major way: They don't have a problem with people making money off their work--or making money themselves.

The free software foundation only has a problem with people screwing others, for any reason money making included. The Free Software Foundation stands against you using your own work and that of others to extract things from people. The kinds of things extracted for the use of software currently includes everything from money to limits on what you will tell others and who you might work for. The most repulsive thing non free software vendors do is attempt to keep others from understanding how to fix their own problems so that they can extract money perpetually for a problem solved by others long ago. Let's have a look at some of the good words on the above mentioned page:

However, certain kinds of rules about the manner of distributing free software are acceptable, when they don't conflict with the central freedoms. For example, copyleft (very simply stated) is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not conflict with the central freedoms; rather it protects them.

Thus, you may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies. ``Free software'' does not mean ``non-commercial''. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important.

In short, people are encouraged to work together to solve common problems like free men will. Using free software will no more force a company to give away confidential information than using manila folders requires people to divulge the contents of their files. The only thing you are really encouraged to do is share your impovements to other people's work, much as lawyers, doctors, engineers and all other professionals have always done.

Wow, nothing really radical there is there? Really when you think about it the restrictions created by modern publishers, especially comercial software vendors, represent the really radical departure from social norms. Telling people that they can't share their expertise in a field? That you can't share your books or even sing a song with your friends that was originally dedicated to your cause? It all starts with a non disclosure agreement, an end user license agreement, a 100 year long copyright and that little "submit" button.

no, not trying to be touchy, its just how can I take your opinion of the US Constitution seriously when you havn't read it?

It has been the inspiration for many other nations. The US is the longest standing democratic republic. Perhaps there are some pearls of wisdom in that "piece of paper". It should be important to more than Americans, it should be worthwhile reading to anyone that loves freedom, simply because it was the first of it's kind.

I have a deep respect for the Constitution not because of just what it says, but what it stands for. We American's aren't perfect. We make mistakes. But we have shed alot of blood to help others discover the same freedoms outlined in that document. For us to be willing to die for it, it must contain some powerful stuff.

Here is a copy of the constitution Please bookmark it and read it sometime. It has links to the Bill of Rights, plus other Amendments.

" The U.S. Copyright Office Electronic Registration Recordation and Deposit System is the Copyright Office's system for registering claims over the Internet. Through the Internet, copyrighted works become available throughout the world instantaneously. As copying these digital works becomes easier, copyright protection is imperative."

Actually this could be cool, however following it to a illogical conclusion there are loopholes for massive abuse. A media file would have a locatable Digital signature that a filtering router could read. Check against a database for known bootlegs and you got your filter. (hmmm, run it on a linux box and finally get some RIAA/Evil use out of those longhaired geeks)

If no Digital sig is found then implant one and forward the file and new sig so the RIAA can add it to the registry for later review. Cause it could be a new burn of the latest N'Sync song or that one about Fred Durst telling Britney Spears to drop dead. you could plot the movement of files from user/site to user/site and show who gave what to who and when. You end up with a nifty tracking scheme.

This is a classic 'Man in the Middle' attack, one of those things the RIAA/MPAA wanted to do not so long ago.

Opps, You would have a way to hit them back. Say your ISP, the UofWhereEver goes and alters a music file with a fingerprint then they are subverting your property. If the file is legally obtained say self-produced then the original artist (you) will have a very clear case for copyright infringement. They will have created and distributed a reproduction of your recording for 'Commercial Gain' (acting as an agent for a speculative RIAA lawsuit), which is 99.94%, exactly the same as your copyrighted material.

So they have just violated Federal Copyright law by clandestinely adding a digital fingerprint. You can extract this new tag by doing a diff of the file against the orginal. Even a certain lackwitted judge in say Pennsylvania would be able to understand it then.

The fact that we can sit here and freely discuss those being held, debate whether they should be held without representation, and that we even *know* they're being held is proof that we are not what was depicted in "1984"

Being allowed to discuss it is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that a great injustice is being done. Lets not forget the AMERICAN being denied rights that at the very least the constitution grants americans. I find this to be greatly disturbed. Whats next, are they going to arrest me b/c my neighbors have an arab friend?

as far as libraries, the federal government is required to get a subpoena to obtain records, and the person has to be under active investigation. what's wrong with that? sounds like the way they're supposed to get records from any source.

Wrong, they DON'T require a subpoena, nor does the person have to be under active investigation; suspicion is enough.

no, i don't think so. civil rights as we know it far exceed what our forefathers coded into law

Try reading what they wrote; and not just the bill of rights or the constitution.

allowed slavery

They wanted to create a state the protected people's freedom. Had they insisted on no slavery, the south wouldn't have joined the union, and its likely that all of the colonies would be easily defeated. They knew that in order to have a chance they had to conceed, and hopefully fix things later.

women and non-landowners weren't allowed to voted

See above; also find where it says non-landowners aren't allowed to vote. here's a link: http://memory.loc.gov/const/const.html

as far as civil rights, that wasn't codified by our forefathers either

See the bill of rights. Also note that amendments 8-10 talk about not needing to enumerate anything.

the "constitutional right to privacy" touted by many is based on interpretation of the constitution this century by the supreme court

See above. Just because they didn't list it, doesn't mean it wasn't important.

if it was a big sticking point for our forefathers, they wouldda probably explicitly put it in the bill of rights.

Sure... again, read what they wrote...there isn't a point system were some rights are more important to others.

Invest in spam! Go to the Spam Festival. Love Hormel! Learn to prepare spam deserts. Buy lots and lots of spam. (Wait, can't you get free spam?)

I wonder if this bill will be the real deal. Skimming over it on Thomas, the bill is merely what they call an 'implementation' act. Both the FCC and FTC are to submit suggested reglations for the do-not-call list. Apparently the FCC is given precedence, and AFAIK they haven't come out with any proposed rules yet. They may not be as tough as those already proposed by the FTC.

What I do know is that a few weeks ago, Rep. Billy Tauzin was all-fired against the FTC regulations. Yet, in the article I read on a service supplied by AP, he was very supportive of this bill passing. Perhaps, because the devil is in the details. Sen. Fritz Hollings, proponent of that wonderful "Fritz chip" we've heard so much about, also was mentioned as lauding the passage of this bill.

I sense that if consumer advocates don't keep their eyes on the ball, do-not-call advocates will get rolled by Tauzin and Hollings, who have a reputation for standing up for big business interests in Hollywood and among the telcos. I am sure they will be ready to assist the telemarketers, if the price is right.

For those who want to read the full text of the bill, it's H.R. 395. You can go to the Library of Congress's Thomas website to look it up but I've also pasted a copy here.

And for those who don't understand how laws work in the US, this just means that now it gets to go over to the Senate, who then may or may not approve it, who can then approve it with amendments, send it back to the House for further approval in a committee or two, and eventually send it off to the President to sign into law.

And this has little to do with H.J.Res. 2 which is the Omnibus Appropriations Bill that is currently in committee. Well, other than dealing with money.

AN ACT

To authorize the Federal Trade Commission to collect fees for the implementation and enforcement of a `do-not-call' registry, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Do-Not-Call Implementation Act'.

SEC. 2. TELEMARKETING SALES RULE; DO-NOT-CALL REGISTRY FEES.

The Federal Trade Commission may promulgate regulations establishing fees sufficient to implement and enforce the provisions relating to the `do-not-call' registry of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)), promulgated under the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (15 U.S.C. 6101 et seq.). Such regulations shall be promulgated in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United States Code. Fees may be collected pursuant to this section for fiscal years 2003 through 2007, and shall be deposited and credited as offsetting collections to the account, Federal Trade Commission--Salaries and Expenses, and shall remain available until expended. No amounts shall be collected as fees pursuant to this section for such fiscal years except to the extent provided in advance in appropriations Acts. Such amounts shall be available for expenditure only to offset the costs of activities and services related to the implementation and enforcement of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and other activities resulting from such implementation and enforcement.

SEC. 3. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION DO-NOT-CALL REGULATIONS.

Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Federal Communications Commission shall issue a final rule pursuant to the rulemaking proceeding that it began on September 18, 2002, under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. 227 et seq.). In issuing such rule, the Federal Communications Commission shall consult and coordinate with the Federal Trade Commission to maximize consistency with the rule promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission (16 CFR 310.4(b)).

SEC. 4. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.

(a) REPORT ON REGULATORY COORDINATION- Within 45 days after the promulgation of a final rule by the Federal Communications Commission as required by section 3, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission shall each transmit to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate a report which shall include--

(1) an analysis of the telemarketing rules promulgated by both the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission;

(2) any inconsistencies between the rules promulgated by each such Commission and the effect of any such inconsistencies on consumers, and persons paying for access to the registry; and

(3) proposals to remedy any such inconsistencies.

(b) ANNUAL REPORT- For each of fiscal years 2003 through 2007, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission shall each transmit an annual report to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate a report which shall include--

(1) an analysis of the effectiveness of the `do-not-call' registry as a national registry;

(2) the number of consumers who have placed their telephone numbers on the registry;

(3) the number of persons paying fees for access to the registry and the amount of such fees;

(4) an analysis of the progress of coordinating the operation and enforcement of the `do-not-call' registry with similar registries established and maintained by the various States;

(5) an analysis of the progress of coordinating the operation and enforcement of the `do-not-call' registry with the enforcement activities of the Federal Communications Commission pursuant to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. 227 et seq.); and

(6) a review of the enforcement proceedings under the Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 CFR 310), in the case of the Federal Trade Commission, and under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. 227 et seq.), in the case of the Federal Communications Commission.

Passed the House of Representatives February 12, 2003.

Attest:

Clerk.

2. if you aren't willing to defend the civil liberties of those who you disagree with (or disagree with you) then you're probably not committed to the concept in the first place. it's easy to defend the right of expression for people who say things you like. or as dr. chomsky puts it "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

3. state sponsorship of christmas is an explicit support for one religion by the u.s. government. "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" and so on. if you are an american citizen you should read jefferson's treatise on this issue (the letter to the danbury baptists) to get the full grok on the seperation of church and state.

personally i find it amazing that with all the high-falutin' talk about the us gov't being secular and non-discriminatory that the bible is still used in the court house and religious organizations continue to receive preferential tax treatments and other "special rights".