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You seem to understand some things about the process. Maybe you can tell us how the damn committee hearings are scheduled? I've been checking Capitol Hearings every few days now since June 22 when the bill was read (twice in one day? doesn't that remove the check that multiple readings are supposed to ensure?).

Capitol Hearings is the only place I've found with free audio of committee hearings but you have to grab it live. (I use Total Recorder)

FedNet archives audio of hearings, but only makes a selected few available for free and then only for a few days. FedNet's audio quality is also inferior to CapitolHearings'.

I used the audio from the "Fritz Chip" hearing for a song. I'm always looking for more material, though it's hard to beat a Hollings, Eisner & Valenti cage match.

They collected prepared testimony and flew in the witnesses, so they planned for this. Why couldn't they pre-announce it by more than two days???

-Morgan

Here's a mirror. I was going to moderate parent as informative, but thought I'd do this instead. File doesn't seem so big, but I guess there are a lot of /.ers.

coincidental circumstantial evidence, with no prior record or other connection to the crime, and you'll be eliminated from the police's enquiries in a flash,

This, for me, is one of the major problems with TIA-esque systems.

The abuses are:

1) a cop harrasses his ex-wife's new boyfriend using TIA data

2) government critics are harrassed

3) innocents are convicted using a "web" of circumstantial evidence

Maybe I watch too much Law & Order & C.S.I., but I do worry that someone with my general description and some other minor similarity: same brand of shoes or car, same point of debit card usage) along with proximity to a cell site near the crime at the time it's committed could be enough to lock me up. Means and opportunity, leaving only a thin motive to fabricate: pysch history, associates, financial issues, high school "permanent record" (corroborated with testimony from a vice principal).

They seem to be able to get bank records phone LUDs and FastPass usage without subpoaenas and use this probably cause to get search warrants.

#2 is what I see as the greatest threat to society at large, but I'm not that outspoken, so it's #3 I worry about personally.

if taken to an extreme it would appear to prohibit people from telling other people how to do patches

I see this as prohibiting people from distributing patches to GPL'd code privately and telling the recipient that they may not pass the patch to others. Just posting a patch, no matter how egregious, in a "public" place, should be OK, though it seems the patch would have to be GPL'd.

Hey Joe Buck! I remember you from the old days on comp.dsp. Remember this thread? I was so much younger then....

-Morgan

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Eisner vs. Eisner

The casual user will not be able to do this. One guy in a thousand will (like almost everyone who reads /.)

Michael Eisner:

"DVD has been hacked, I believe. But, but, 10%, 5% of the people hack it, they have it on their T-shirts, they have the code, you know, they have to be a genius to figure out how do it. NORMAL people just put it in and say 'I'll pay the money.'"

Eisner also decried Apple's "Rip. Mix. Burn" campaign at Hollings' hearing, but said he's "addicted" to his iPod at the Disney earnings conference call a month later.

Disney says slashdotters are abnormal.

How about letting the heads of corporations (and their bootlickers in Congress) portray themselves.

I can't figure out if they are evil or stupid. It's hard to be manipulative & devious if you were shortchanged at the neuron dispenser. I'm drifting towards the opinion that it's all an act to ingratiate know-nothings who are suspicious of technology.

Congress doesn't just pass laws. They also threaten to pass laws.

That's what happened in the PMRC/porn rock mess: with a threat of a requirement from Congress, the record labels adopted "voluntary" labels. That one was a bizarre public/private issue: If Congress had really gone ahead & mandated labels, there was a good chance it would be ruled unconstitutional, but not only did they not introduce legislation, they had the Washington Wives in the PMRC hold the cudgel over the music industry's head.

In the Commerce Committe hearing on the CBDTPA, Hollings & Stevens made repeated reference to the fact that they were trying to resolve deadlock between the content pimps union vs. the consumer electronics & computer manufacturers.

They're trying to stay two steps back from mandating copy controls. If everyone makes nice tomorrow & agrees on the Broadcast Flag, the Analog Hole, a industry-wide DRM solution and what to do about P2P, Congress can go home. If they don't get to it soon, Congress will pass the bill, giving 'em another year to get around to it. After that, Congress picks the tech.

Hollings made reference to Macrovision: the movie studios said they'd distribute movies if they had Macrovision on 'em, the VCR mfg.'s said they'd put it on the VCRs, then Congress ratified the monopoly with legislation.

The problem is that some of the issues the various industries must agree on are unsolvable. Eisner wants some way to protect movies on a screen in a theater from videotaping, divxing and p2ping (he showed a clip of Black Hawk Down downloaded from Morpheus while the film was still in theaters). He was nearly foaming at the mouth he was so worked up about these crazy hackers (he made reference to the DeCSS t-shirt!) and their evil networks (maybe Disney should buy the Internet & do for it what they did for Times Square) copying unprotected content in the "ether."

The rep from Intel, Vadasz, seemed bewildered with Eisner's requests. I think Eisner knows there's no way to protect against this kind of stuff without turning computers into VCRs (after bitching about Rip.Mix.Burn. billboards encouraging piracy, he mentioned he's "addicted" to his iPod in the Disney earnings conference call). Valenti wants "two nerds in a garage in San Diego" to figure it out if big tech industry can't.

Hollings, Eisner and Valenti sing the copyright blues.mp3

music.lockup.org

Copyright Wars featuring the Senate Commerce Committee on vocals

-and-

Rip-Mix-Scratch featuring Michael Eisner on turntables

Also search Google for
Eisner
Valenti
Hollings
DMCA
and watch for the "Sponsored Links"

Shameless self-promotion, I know, but we've got to get the message out in ways other than forum postings, websites, peitions and email to congresspeople.