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That sounded familiar, like something I have heard of before called GeekPAC. I thought they had a website, but I can't find it. However there are stories about it on linux journal and Lisa Rein's blog. I don't know what happened to them.

You should realize there are a lot of congressmen, so "donating" 9k or so to each one would cost somewhere around $100k or $1M+ (you do the math if you want to know the exact amount), that isn't exactly cheap. I suppose if a hundred thousand geeks get together and pay $10 each, you'd have the million you need. :-)

Let's see what we have here, viewed from an open standards/FOSS perspective, from someone with no prior knowledge of anyone in the group:

Technology Working Group:

Chair, Charles SteelFisher, New Media Director, Deval Patrick Committee
Creative director at ALIPES CME. Original Flash site that takes a few minutes to figure out what the hell is going on. I like it and hate it all at once. Wife(?) is director of Strategy at Cogent Research. Verdict: Not promising, but who knows.

Chair, Richard Rowe, CEO, Rowe Communications
Not a lot of info there!
More info in the bio here. Looks like an interesting guy. "He is the author of numerous articles and frequent speaker on the impact of digitization and the internet upon society with a particular focus on access to and preservation of academic, scientific, technical and medical knowledge." That could go either way, but sounds good.

Brian Burke, Microsoft
For what it's worth, this is a broad technology working group (not just on, say, standards), so I don't think it's insane to have MS at the table. But there are software companies with deeper MA roots...

John Cullinane, Principal, The Cullinane Group
Was a trailblazer in the proprietary software industry (a href='http://www.softwarehistory.org/history/culli nane.html'>Cullinane Corp), which is kinda sorta threatened by FOSS. That said, who knows where his head is at today.

Louis Gutierrez, former State CIO and Director of ITD
Former as in about a month ago. He's our man!

Keith Parent, CEO, Court Square
Let's see, found here that they have "Extensive experience with Wintel, Unix, Citrix and Linux platforms" and "Successful migration projects include; VMS to NT, NT to Unix, NT to Linux." Sounds reasonably OK to me, though a little dated!

David Lewis, Private Consultant
I presume this is him. On the board at the Mass Tech Dev Corp, and has done a lot of state IT work, so he's certainly relevant. Can't find anything about him re: ODF.

Larry Weber, Chairman, W2 Group
This talk suggests that Larry "gets it", but I haven't listened to it yet. IT Conversations is awesome, by the way. find the Clayton Christensen talk on open source. Here it is.

All told, as someone sympathetic to FOSS, who thinks FOSS is good for most businesses, I find this group to be well qualified, and apparently with a diverse set of viewpoints on standards and such. Diversity is good. I'll be watching this group as closely as I can.

. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex.html

10. Diebol

For a (slight) glimpse at the stakes of a game like this, consider the recent Robin Williams film "Man of the Year". The movie was okay, but the truly frightening thing was how likely a scandal like a rigged election, purposefully or otherwise, might take place. However, before I go into some facts I found through surfing about Diebold and electronic voting, I wanted to point out that even if it was demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush was elected through vote fraud of some kind (not that many of us need any further convincing), it doesn't mean Kerry automatically gets to take the White House and Bush is out. What would most likely happen, along with a series of investigations and lawsuits, is the Supreme Court court would invalidate the election results and declare a new election, at a reasonable time period. Dennis Hastert would assume the throne until the new election results were confirmed but nothing Bush has done would be invalidated, at least, not right away. Even if he was fraudulently elected, he was still the de-facto sitting President and so his actions would be legal (in a manner of speaking). Congress could take some action to reverse some of his doings, but that assumes they want to in the first place. Now, on to Diebold. Found via a Google of "Diebold facts": 1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold 2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886 5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines. http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html 6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee. http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26 http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p 7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candid

20 Amazing Facts About Voting In The USA
by Angry Girl of Nightweed.com

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines. http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee. http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26 http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates. http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes. http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex.html

Geez. I've already gotten use to the spider-goat pointing device used for navigating the Web and butting into blogs. Now I have to get used to this new horse-mouse!

my fave vidblog is this one that chronicles the daily show with jon stewart...

Oh wait....

What like the Energy Policy that Enron wrote? The Whitehouse has been fighting tooth and nail to prevent the notes from Mr.Cheney's consultation with the energy giants.

Or that Schwarzenegger met with Ken Lay and other republican plutocrats to let arnold in on the fleecing of California..

The US Government is as bought-and-paid-for as any other third rate dirthole. You people *really* need to wake the hell up -- legislation is LITERALLY being written by industry.

Ok, their machines may be a bit flaky, but do you have any evidence of "draconian agendas"?

How about their CEO publically stating he would do everything he can to secure a republican victory in 2004? Sound enough like an "agenda" qualify?

You can read more about it here.

• "Yes, and send machine/software info to Microsoft, lock down my machine in DRM and 'update' my OS without asking me while you're at it".

Also the radio markets are still limited to a max. of 8 in markets of 45 or greater stations.

via boingboing.net:

The one thing that stood out to me was the point people kept making that Clear Channel is already abusing existing regulations. Why on earth would the FCC ever relax them further when Clear Channel doesn't even respect them now?

So the problem is not only what could happen if these rules are further relaxed. The problem exists now, with the rules the way they are. Clear Channel owns nine stations in the SF Bay Area market, for example, while the legal limit is eight.

(emphasis mine)

The "big media monopoly" isn't a myth at all; what you're stating is, however--that the media is owned or controlled by one group. In fact, there are several very large groups that own or control different parts of the media, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

However, each of these may constitute a local monopoly in a given area of the media or region of the world. And even if any one giant corporation doesn't have a monopoly on a given area of the media or region of the world, that media is most likely still owned by one giant corporation or another, which--ultimately--is what people object to the most.

It wasn't always like this, you know. There once was a much larger place for small businesses and innovation in radio, music, TV, and newspapers, where people could get in on the ground floor, and offer something new, interesting, and unique. But those days are over, and the sort of power that the big media corporations hold is absolutely stunning. They have more power to censor now than the government ever had.

Ultimately, some big corporations are evil; it has to do with the amount of power they have, and how power corrupts. If you have lots of small companies around to keep them honest, then you can expect fair competition. But if you don't, well then you have the mess we have now.

So what? Since when has prior art stopped a really good patent?

Does anyone think that this page is maybe a little ironic?
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">

The guy should be careful. The Microsoft FrontPage 2000 license forbids you from disparaging Microsoft, MSN, Expedia, [blah, blah, blah] or any of their products or services. Don't want to get secretly arrested at midnight or anything like that.

I believe this was covered on Slashdot previously, and other places as well, but I have not yet fully mastered the sophisticated skills necessary to use Google. And I'm lazy.

I would expect their next move would be to work a bit faster with MS, and get DRM pushed out there. While looking through Windows Update, I noticed Windows MediaPlayer v7.1 has DRM - and you can't uncheck the box for it. If you want Media Player 7.1+, you have no choice but to install the DRM portion along with it, or not install the player at all. Perhaps MP v7.1 is non-reversable - once you install it, you can't downgrade. I dont know if that is the case, but I'm not particularly in the mood to be a guinea pig, at the moment.