Slashdot Mirror

It is said that if you like law or sausage don't watch either one being made.

The following will work best for those of us that are citizens of the US and are registered to vote.

A technique that works to find out if your lawmakers are listening to you is to write them a letter (snail mail) or to e-mail them.

The US House of Representatives has a page where you can send your memeber an e-mail and even help you find out who your representative is. The URL is:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

For the Senate go to:
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

The Senate does not have as much information about writting your senator as the House pages do but at least it is a way to contact them.

To assist them in replying to you always include your e-mail address, home address, and if you feel like it a phone number. If you know what precinct, parish, or whatever the number of your voting district is in your state/county/parish or whatever include that as well. Be brief but thorough enough to get your thought across. No more than a page and shorter if possible.

They do like to hear from you and I have yet to have my representative or senators abuse me giving them my information. Using the system when possible at least gives it a chance to fail and who knows, it might actually help.

This is true, but history has shown that it was little more than a pretext (one of many) used by legislators to pass the DMCA. The way things actually turned out, the DMCA has had little effect (positive or negative) on online music.

Instead, they used it to go after current on-line providers. Inside.com had an article several months back covering a hearing where Orrin Hatch took the major labels to task for the way they were using the legislation.

The only thing Orrin Hatch said about the DMCA was that he was disappointed that it hadn't turned out to be a fountain generating all sorts of wonderful intellectual property, as he had (supposedly) hoped. He never "took the major labels to task for the way they were using the legislation"; they weren't using the legislation at all. They sued Napster using conventional copyright law (as opposed to the nuclear copyright law of the DMCA).

Of course, this is the same Senator Torricelli who is being investigated for illegal donations to his campaign. One DOJ official called him the "most corrupt politician in America". And that's with some tough competition, I'm sure!

What a delight this guy is.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding confirmation hearings right now on Dubya's choice of the next director of the FBI, Muller.
So, do something about it and send an email to Senator Leahy, the chairman of the committee.
If this question is brought up before Muller, it will definitely get more media attention.

I got off my butt and wrote all three of my elected representative on Wednesday asking then to "repeal or amend" the DMCA. I highly recommend killing a tree and writing them a letter, as email is not treated as well in most circles. Send a letter to Washington instead of preaching to the choir...convince the people that can make the DMCA go away!

To find out who your Representative is, see: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

To find out who your two Senators are, see: http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cf m

Remember to be polite and clear but firm. Tell them why the DMCA is bad and how it upsets the balance between fair use and copyright holders. Make sure to spell and grammar check it (it won't be effective if it is full of grammatical errors) and make sure it is not inflammatory or threatening.

Lastly, donate a buck to the EFF. They are the ones that will help you speak louder then you can by yourself.

Do your civic duty. Stop complaining to all the people that can't help you (the /. crowd) and start complaining to the people that can (politicians).

How come nobody's mentioned writing their politicians about this? Try telling THEM how much you don't like sections 1201 and 1202 of Chapter 12 of Title 17 of the U. S. Code. It might be helpful to quote passages from it that you find particularly damning.

Tell them about Sklyarov and Felten v. RIAA and Universal v. Reimerdes and any other of the big cases I missed. Talk about how the law is being abused and violates the First Amendment. Mention that it could harm business. Keep in mind that neither they nor anybody they know actually read Slashdot (as hard as that may be to grasp).

Here's the President's address:

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500-0001

Here's the address for the Supreme Court:

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
Supreme Court of the United States
1 1st St. NE
Washington, DC 20543-0002

Your representative? The House maintains a site here where it will tell you who your rep is after you tell them what your state and ZIP code are. Don't know your ZIP+4 code is? Go to the USPS site and put your address in here to find out. After you find out who it is, their address is on their website.

Senators? The Senate's web site maintains a list of the addresses (and phone numbers) of all current Senators organized by state here

Too cheap to pay the $1.70 in postage to write all these people? E-mail them. I was amazed last week when Tauzin acknowledged an e-mail I sent him with a snail-mail response. Sure, it was a blanket form letter on the topic, but it's a sign that it got read. (I still reccomend paper mail, though, since it's harder to ignore).

At the absolute least, you should realize that bitching and moaning to Slashdot about all this is about as effective as bitching and moaning to a brick wall.

Oh, and one last note: If you DO write them, don't flame them (unless you want another note added to your FBI file and possible surveilance/wiretaps/etc.).

Maybe if you want to prove him wrong, you should go read up on the Congressional testimony taken around that time to see if those statements were really made before Congress by that KGB agent? You can probably find links to this kind of thing at www.house.gov or www.senate.gov.

To the topic at hand though-- I think getting a nuke into the US (be it van sized or suit-case sized) is FAR too easy, be it from Mexico, our own Pacific or Atlantic ports, or Canada. Never minding the thought of ICBM's raining down on us.. I do support Bush's push for a 'defense shield' however, because honestly it's the best solution for the current problem:

Rogue states, be it North Korea, Iraq, or any other, can purchase on the black market (or elsewhere) or manufacture ICBM nukes capable of reaching our shores, but only in SMALL quantities.

Now we're supposedly disarming anyways, right? That's what all of the treaties thus far are for, disarming and not proliferating new nuclear weapons, right? So why not allow the design and deployment of a 'shield' to defend against small-scale attacks (5-10 missiles, maybe a few more, but less than 100)?

It seems our greatest threat isn't from Russia or China (who either have treaties with us, or simply don't want to face a full reprisal if an attack is launched), but from smaller nations that use one of the tactics above to acquire nuclear weapons technology and a launcher that can hit our country. We need to defend against this, and I fully hope Bush plows ahead with it.

Now one thing that hasn't really been suggested by either the media or the President has been possibly quelling some of Russia's issues with the shield by sharing technology with them and perhaps even installing (or helping install) a similar shield in Russia. I think this would prove to be a good faith builder, and hell, maybe they'll like the idea enough to add their own expertise to the equation, making a more reliable and safer shield overall.

The only problem with this is the thought of Russia selling or sharing the technology with China and/or Iraq or any other nation we view as a 'rogue' state, or have set to an unfriendly status currently. Plus it doesn't help that Russia has this habit of having technology sold by it's scientists to the highest bidders behind their leaders backs..

For those of you who took the time to read the tech law journal artical, you probably also saw the introduction of the location privacy bill from Sen. John Edwards. I find this equally interesting news for nerds given the typical slashdotter paranoia.

Under the bill, "any company that monitors consumers' physical location will be prohibited from using or disclosing that information without express permission from the consumer. And third parties that gain access to the information cannot use or disclose it without the individual's permission first."

Instead of writing a reply here, write one (on paper) here:
Senate Address Lookup and House of Representative Address Lookup
We heard about it, read about, whined and cried about it. What about doing something about it? Like singing to the choir we complain about how the government is letting big business get away with.... Everyone is taking our rights....yada yada yada... If we do not care enough to actually put pen to paper, we are not really serious. If we are not serious why should we be taken seriously?

Wake up, smell the JAVA and act!

Send your comments directly to Ron Wyden. Also, please send him a bunch of SPAM.
e-mail:
senator_wyden@exchange.senate.gov
web mail:
http://wyden.senate.gov/mail.htm

--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner

bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com

Send your comments directly to Ron Wyden. Also, please send him a bunch of SPAM.
e-mail:
senator_wyden@exchange.senate.gov
web mail:
http://wyden.senate.gov/mail.htm

--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner

bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com

Wait, wait, wait - you're joking, right? Have you ever gone door-to-door? That's hard phucking work, and it's for piss-poor pay. Get real - my e-mail address is for my communication. Unless I opt-in, I don't want you e-mailing me. The poor person who gets me over the phone gets a very simple "I don't do business over the phone" and a hangup. I wish there were an easier way to do that with e-mail. However, there are a few solutions:

SpamCop, which I use regularly.
The DMA, has its E-mail Prefence Service, which you have to renew each year, but seems to work (at least for me).
You can also contact Senator Wyden and tell him exactly what you think of his statement, and, while you're at it, send a message to each of your reps, too.

I think it's obvious to us all that spam is not equivalent to regular advertising - the First Amendment is designed to protect speech that is designed to be unpopular - in a political, religious, social and economic sense. For example, I despise the KKK, but they are protected by the First Amendment, and I respect that. I don't see spam falling under any of those categories, unless you view "Sarah Michelle Gellar Caught Giving Head" as a call for opporessed workers in Third World nations to unite (and, if you do, I think there's a serious problem with one of the two of us, and it ain't me).

For Wyden to say such a stupid remark is beyond me...and, I think, beyond the vast majority of us who understand "the new economy," spam, and the First Amendment (some of us did pay attention in school, Ron). So, I say, "Enough already."

A quick "view source" on Senator Ron Wyden's contact page shows an email of:

senator_wyden@exchange.senate.gov

try it and find out :)

Heh. Look at Wyden's HTML... there's an e-mail address specified as part of the form action.

So that's senator_wyden@exchange.senate.gov, it looks like.

Gephardt, unfortunately, seems to require users to go through the "Write Your Representative" cgi-bin, which isn't nearly as revealing.

Wyden: is a dick and doesn't even want to hear from anyone outside of Oregon. Too bad for him. Doesn't post his email address online, but hit his contact page and leave a note.

Gephardt: is actually a house member, not a senator. Also resists communication from citizens outside the 3rd district of MO. The only way I found to email him is to start at his contact page, click the "email" link, and pretend you're from that district.

Jesus! Anyone know an easier way to get through to these folks via email?!

---

Spam search engines, please take these two email addresses and imortalize them in your hallowed database of infamy --> gephardt@mail.house.gov gephardt@mail.house.gov

Senator Wyden will be holding town meetings in Oregon. Surely enough Slashdotters livbe within a few hour's drive?

senator_wyden@exchange.senate.gov
gephardt@mail.house.gov

Gephardt's got a page here. Same deal. No public e-mail address given.

My senator may care about the AMA. Sen. Frist (I believe) is the only practicing physician in congress.

espo
--

One politician who deserves to be recognized is Russ Feingold, the idiosyncratic senator from Wisconsin. Best known for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill (and one of the few politicians to refuse PAC money in a campaign for national office), Feingold has also long been one of the few tech-savvy people in a notoriously over-age, anti-tech government body. His finest hour in this regard was the Leahy-Feingold bill to overturn the Communications Decency Act, which was left to the courts to litigate; but he's often spoken out on issues near and dear to the EFF, with support for encryption freedoms and online privacy.

The only Senator who really outstrips him in this area is Patrick Leahy, D-VT, who takes the lead on more tech issues (Feingold often being a co-sponsor), especially since Feingold has put so much effort into the campaign finance issue.

But especially in those early days around 1995, when hardly anyone really knew what the internet was, Feingold said on the Senate floor,

Guaranteeing the Internet is free of speech restrictions, other than the statutory restrictions on obscenity and pornography which already exist, should be of concern to all Americans who want to be able to freely discuss issues of importance to them regardless of whether others might view those statements as offensive or distasteful. Shifting political views about what types of speech are unsuitable should not be allowed to determine what is or is not an appropriate use of electronic communications. While the current target of our political climate is indecent speech (the so-called "seven dirty words"), a weakening of First Amendment protections could lead to the censorship of other crucial types of speech, including religious expression and political dissent. I believe the censorship of the Internet is a perilous road for the Congress to walk down. It sets a dangerous precedent for First Amendment protections and it is unclear where that road will end.

Very impressive. Remember, this was nineteen-ninety-five, TIME magazine was running cover stories suggesting the internet was some sinister force creeping into our homes, and most people still had to have the word explained to them. In those days, it was difficult to find anyone who would stand up for the rights of internet users, who were seen as a fringe group of suspicious characters, hackers, pornographers, terrorists and worse -- rather than today's view that the internet is a basic utility to be enjoyed by all citizens. Fortunately, shortly after this I attended a Rotary Club meeting where he spoke (we are from the same home town), and in the Q&A time I stood up and let him know that a lot of people online considered him a hero.
----
lake effect weblog

One politician who deserves to be recognized is Russ Feingold, the idiosyncratic senator from Wisconsin. Best known for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill (and one of the few politicians to refuse PAC money in a campaign for national office), Feingold has also long been one of the few tech-savvy people in a notoriously over-age, anti-tech government body. His finest hour in this regard was the Leahy-Feingold bill to overturn the Communications Decency Act, which was left to the courts to litigate; but he's often spoken out on issues near and dear to the EFF, with support for encryption freedoms and online privacy.

The only Senator who really outstrips him in this area is Patrick Leahy, D-VT, who takes the lead on more tech issues (Feingold often being a co-sponsor), especially since Feingold has put so much effort into the campaign finance issue.

But especially in those early days around 1995, when hardly anyone really knew what the internet was, Feingold said on the Senate floor,

Guaranteeing the Internet is free of speech restrictions, other than the statutory restrictions on obscenity and pornography which already exist, should be of concern to all Americans who want to be able to freely discuss issues of importance to them regardless of whether others might view those statements as offensive or distasteful. Shifting political views about what types of speech are unsuitable should not be allowed to determine what is or is not an appropriate use of electronic communications. While the current target of our political climate is indecent speech (the so-called "seven dirty words"), a weakening of First Amendment protections could lead to the censorship of other crucial types of speech, including religious expression and political dissent. I believe the censorship of the Internet is a perilous road for the Congress to walk down. It sets a dangerous precedent for First Amendment protections and it is unclear where that road will end.

Very impressive. Remember, this was nineteen-ninety-five, TIME magazine was running cover stories suggesting the internet was some sinister force creeping into our homes, and most people still had to have the word explained to them. In those days, it was difficult to find anyone who would stand up for the rights of internet users, who were seen as a fringe group of suspicious characters, hackers, pornographers, terrorists and worse -- rather than today's view that the internet is a basic utility to be enjoyed by all citizens. Fortunately, shortly after this I attended a Rotary Club meeting where he spoke (we are from the same home town), and in the Q&A time I stood up and let him know that a lot of people online considered him a hero.
----
lake effect weblog

Now, is this because her constituents are big corporations like Microsoft, or is she genuinely interested in the tech world? Who knows, but she's a million times more likey to help us geeks out than G.W. "I'm not gonna use E-mail" Bush.

Senator Orrin Hatch (see a statement about Napster) has always seemed to have a clue (and an anti-Microsoft one) about these matters. This seems to be because of geography as well -- he's served in the Senate with Novell located in his state.

Senator Orrin Hatch (see a statement about Napster) has always seemed to have a clue (and an anti-Microsoft one) about these matters. This seems to be because of geography as well -- he's served in the Senate with Novell located in his state.

Senator Orrin Hatch (see a statement about Napster) has always seemed to have a clue (and an anti-Microsoft one) about these matters. This seems to be because of geography as well -- he's served in the Senate with Novell located in his state.

If you're really fed up, do something about it.

Write your Congressmen.

For all of the highly-moderated comments here, your Congressional representatives do not read Slashdot. They do read your letters. (But not necessarily your email.)

Look up your House Representative at www.house.gov/writerep/ and your Senators at www.senate.gov. Write a letter, and address a copy to each of representatives.

Be clear, concise, and non-technical. Explain how the DMCA affects average citizens and consumers. Use examples from mainstream news sources to back up your argument. Keep it down to a page.

The ACLU has more tips for writing effective letters to your Congressmen.

Unless you write your representatives, you are one of the ones who stood by and did nothing.

Sometimes the court system works like it's supposed to. Sometimes it doesn't. This Supreme Court has made LOTS of 5-4 decisions, and it's hard to say which way it will go on any given case.

That's why we have to make this a legislative issue RIGHT NOW, before the law gets any older, before people become even more complacent with its effects.

Take an hour or two to draft a one-page letter (not an email) to your House Representative and your Senators. Present the fair use and free speech issues clearly and as concisely as you possibly can. Be as non-technical as possible. Use examples from the news where this law has affected real people (other than music pirates). Include copies of relevent articles from mainstream publications like The New York Times. And proofread your letter, then let a friend proofread your letter.

As has been noted on Slashdot before, you can look up contact information for Senators by state at http://www.senate.gov/ and for House members by state at http://www.house.gov/writerep/.

This was well played on their part. Everyone seems to have heard about how the evil RIAA is using the DMCA to block academic research. Heck, even my Mom has heard of it, and she doesn't know how to turn on a computer!

Now, we need to take the next step! Take 10 minutes and tell your Senators and Representatives how you feel about this!

You can find out who they are, and how to contact them, over at:

• Search For Senators by State
• Search For Representatives by State

Yeah, yeah, same thing every story, but I find it useful, so here are the links:

Write your Senator.
Write your Representative.
Remember, snail mail only-- e-mail really doesn't do shit. And include that return address everywhere, so they know you're in their district. And finally, if your state is considering other similarly draconian measures such as UCITA, write your state government as well (site at www.[two letter state code].gov).

This legislation includes $535 million in pork-barrel spending. This is an unacceptable amount of money to spend on low-priority, unrequested, wasteful projects. Congress must curb its appetite for such unbridled spending.

Pork-barrel spending today not only robs well-deserving programs of much needed funds, it also jeopardizes social security reform, potential tax cuts, and our fiscal well-being into the next century.

enhance digital information security by publishing an advanced encryption standard and guidance for federal agencies on its use; by extending the public key infrastructure testbed to support industry development of interoperable digital signatures and encryption applications; and by developing, extending, and disseminating standard reference guidelines for emerging biometric authentication techniques;

support business use of electronic commerce by developing and disseminating a software translator that will convert a company's internal dictionary of product terminology into the industry-standard format, thus enabling engineers and designers to compare products and check their compatibility.

Emphasis mine, which I doubt is something the RIAA wants to put on their site.
--

Completely untrue, actually. When Ashcroft was in the Senate, he led a group of singing Senators. If one searches hard enough, one can find some of his tunes on the Net in MP3. I've heard worse.

And BTW, if anyone wants to read the transcripts of the hearing, here they are.

According to this page from the US Senate, it costs four cents to print a dollar bill. Look in the section on "seigniorage."
BTW, the reason no one forges a dollar bill is because the risk of getting caught is the same and the payoff is much, much lower. In other words, if you can pass one fake $100 bill, you have something worth $100 bucks and your risk of being caught was low- you only had to pass one bill. Passing 100 one dollar bills is much more difficult (greater odds of being caught) for the same payoff.
~luge

I don't think I've ever seen an allegedly representative body so disconnected from the group it represents.

What about this one....or perhaps this one.

The DMCA (PDF), however villified it is here on Slashdot, was not intended to turn out as it did. Sen. Hatch's intent was a law that would allow digital copies to be made. The no-circumvention clause that we're all familiar with was supposed to be a pot sweetener to prod the recording industry into releasing digital media. Unfortunately, we all know how the law was abused by those it sought to protect.

Sen. Hatch's office has links to a number of letters and opinions regarding his true stance on the issue of digital media copying. I don't doubt he will bring this issue back up, and as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee the old media companies will be in the hot seat for what they have done.

So get moving! Do something that will have a real impact. Write your represantitive! Many of them were elected on non-technical issues and don't really know about the topic. Maybe it will be your letter that shapes their opinion.

The DMCA (PDF), however villified it is here on Slashdot, was not intended to turn out as it did. Sen. Hatch's intent was a law that would allow digital copies to be made. The no-circumvention clause that we're all familiar with was supposed to be a pot sweetener to prod the recording industry into releasing digital media. Unfortunately, we all know how the law was abused by those it sought to protect.

Sen. Hatch's office has links to a number of letters and opinions regarding his true stance on the issue of digital media copying. I don't doubt he will bring this issue back up, and as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee the old media companies will be in the hot seat for what they have done.

So get moving! Do something that will have a real impact. Write your represantitive! Many of them were elected on non-technical issues and don't really know about the topic. Maybe it will be your letter that shapes their opinion.

I live in Maryland (specifically Montgomery County directly boardering DC on the NW). Our county government sells all the liquor and most of the beer. Every buisness owner can have only one alcohol license. Hence, you can't own two bars, and only one grocery store of each chain sells beer. Further it is illegal for women to be on top during sex, and our state sport is Jousting (though that's kinda cool).

I've concidered North Carolina and California as places I could move to for jobs. But I've rejected the idea cuz they have crazy politicians/politics.

The morons who live in california screw everything up by letting fads run their political system. How many stupid propositions do the dumb califonians get conned into every election cycle? Look at their utility deregulation and three-strike laws. I agree with both on principle, but California screwed the pooch on implementing both.

North Carolina. Can you say Jesse Helms. The man introduced Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister of India before the full congress (she was the prime minister of pakistan; for the americans^W^W^Wthose clueless about international affairs Pakistan and India have been voted most likely to nuke each other in the 21st century). Further Jesse is on Chairman of the Foreign Relations Commitee (or as he renamed it "Killin' Fereners Commitee).

So I live blissfully in the Socialist Republic of Maryland. Resting safely in the knowlege that my power will stay on, my roads will be paved, and the worst thing you can say about my senator is she's 5' tall in heels and might be a lesbian, but I bet you my senator can kick your senator's ass.

Perhaps now the bleeding hearts that make up
so much of the /. community will wake up and
smell the coffee - Clinton/Gore oversaw the
largest erosion of personal privacy ever. The
so called 'champions of the people' did nothing
more than bring Orwell a very large leap closer
to reality, thru action and inaction.
Your privacy was tossed out by executive orders
and sponsored legislation, not to mention the
wink of the eye to companies like Sun. Reminds
me.. isn't Sun about to cut a big check to Clinton
to speak? Maybe somebody from the audience will
have the balls to standup and interrupt Scott and
Bills great adventure to ask about this. But I
think they will be way to busy fawning over them.

Maybe now those of you who don't care about
politics will get a clue and write your reps and
senators about these (and other) things. But
since many of you probably have no idea who your
elected representatives are, let alone how to
contact them...

House of Reps.
Senate

The full house hearing stuff is at http://www.house.gov/commerce/hearings/telecom0208 2001.htm.
And the full senate hearing stuff is at http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/issues/telco.htm#H earings. [NOTE: visiting the Senate committee's web site will produce a noise like a modem retraining. This is a feature, for no explainable reason, and just a sound effect. It's not your modem.]

I had the dubious distinction of testifying at both hearings...Since some of the above is in .pdf, here are links to HTML versions of my House and Senate prepared statements.

Dear Senator Frist and Senator Thompson,

I'm aware of all the hype surrounding the proposed Tax Cut, and see the inevitability of some form of tax relief. However, all these plans ignore that all future surpluses are all hypothetical , and could evaporate with even a minor recession. In that event, the government would be faced once more with deficits, just when the economy most needs help. This is obviously financial lunacy, but the sentiment on the Hill is such that tax relief is a political inevitability. How do you reconcile these two drives of political advantage and fiscal responsibility?

The answer is simple: use a Tax Refund instead of a Tax Cut. Then one knows the size of the surpluses, and avoids the likelyhood of spending money that we haven't earned yet. Moreover, a Refund could boost the economy in the current short term better than a Cut, and might be more feasible for the tax year of 2000 than a retroactive Cut would be. One doesn't spend money one hasn't earned in real life, why should the government be any different?

I'm aware that my idea has problems; Would the administrative costs be higher for a refund than a cut? Will it be reviewed every year for renewal or last for several years at once? Will the proposed refund be accompanied by a reduced tax cut or will it stand alone? Is there still time to change the idea from tax cut to tax refund? However, despite these burning questions, I believe that a refund is the more sensible approach, and hope that you consider it as you help guide this great nation of ours.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.
A concerned voter,
Jonathan Fisher

Change my name to yours, the senators names to your own, email them, and tell the rest of us what state you're from. That last part is so that the senators don't catch on to the fact that you're just cutting and pasting someone else's words, though the sentiment may be your own. Let's get them all to embrace the idea of a refund over a cut!

Oh, and here's the Senate's web page so you can look up your senators yourself. You know, /. has made me a lot more politically active, you know?

-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
-----

I posted this earlier in the Belgium thread, but the full text of Orrin Hatch's statements on the subject of Naptster can be found here.

- idiolect

In today's Washington Post - click here - there's a story about how US Senator Orrin Hatch, among others, are contemplating taking action *against* the record labels to strip them of some copyright privileges. Apparently Hatch is miffed that the recording industry has done next to nothing to adapt to the Internet... worth a look.

Also see Orrin Hatch's page for Hatch's complete statement on Napster.

- idiolect

Any comments you send to the FCC I would include a CC: to Sen. John McCain since he is the one that put the language into the Appropriations bill December. You can email him at john_mccain@mccain.senate.gov.

I mean, how long does it take someone to download the main post at 56K? Good thing I've got DSL ...

Basically, what Jon's saying is Ashcroft is a liar, we should phone our senators and congress members, and we should stop the right wing.

Damn, hate it when Jon's right.

Now, the problem is that most of us are lazy, and seem to think that Bush is a goofus, not realizing he's a vindictive bastard out to get back at us for deep-sixing his dad. So, it's highly unlikely we'll contact the US Senate Judiciary Committee and actually take our destiny in our own hands, because it's way easier just to post on /. and do nothing.

Me, I asked my two US Senators. In person.

Because the battle is not in some far off distant time, it's now. If we fight back for privacy, fight back for at least moderate appointments, Bush will be forced to back down just like Clinton was at the beginning of his first term.

Or you can just let them sell your private info to the highest bidder ...

Even if this is true, so what? I couldn't care less about the number of people employed by the government. What I care about is how much of my money they spend. As I said previously spending is at the highest percentage of GDP since World War II and Gore's proposals would substantially increase it.

Bush wants to cut taxes big time for the richest people, he's explicitly admitted that.

Correct in a very narrow sense. You left out that he also wants to cut taxes for the poor and the middle class. He wants to cut taxes for everyone, without requiring them to jump through bureaucratic hoops to prove that they "need" to keep more of their own money. Gore's repeated statements that half of the benefit goes to the richest 1% is a flat-out lie. In fact, Bush's tax cuts actually make the tax structure more progressive, since the rich get a lesser percentage cut than the poor. Of course, from the liberal perspective the possibility that any rich person might in any way benefit automatically renders the plan unacceptable, regardless of its other merits.

And I can't believe anyone seriously would be willing to try the Social-Security-in-the-stock-market scheme.

I can't believe anyone wouldn't. Over the long term, stocks have consistently outperformed other investments. But if you're paranoid about stocks, there's always CDs, bonds, or money market funds, any of which would produce far greater benefits than Social Security promises and would not require huge taxes on future generations. (See Cato's Social Security Calculator to estimate how much you could make with privatization, or more directly, how much you are losing with the current system.) And you're conveniently forgetting that Bush's plan is voluntary; you would be free to continue to throw your money at Washington and hope they hand you some of it back, while I would be free to accumulate real assets instead of unenforceable promises from the government.

Asked about the President's plan to put approximately one-quarter of Social Security funds into the stock market, Greenspan said, "Let me just say it's not so much a trade-off of benefits versus costs. I'm frankly just hard-pressed to find any benefits there are in doing it."

Bzzt! Thanks you for playing. Greenspan was referring to Clinton's "scheme" to have the government directly invest Social Security money in the stock market. That was a horrible idea for too many reasons to count and it died a quick and well deserved death. For Greenspan's comments on real privatization, see http://www.senate.gov/~gramm/policy/grnspan.html, in which he is supportive of transitioning Social Security to a market based system.

Of all the people on Slashdot who bitch about what the MPAA and RIAA are doing to consumers and how horrible the DMCA is, how many have actually written law makers, MPAA, RIAA and associates there-of about how you feel?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WILL CHANGE WITHOUT YOU! period, don't expect the rest of the world to fight your battles. It's time we start pushing congress to balance the laws. Copyright laws need to be revised. It's time lawmakers start asking if such laws infringe on the rights of consumers. For those of you who have written these people don't stop. This is the first step to changing something and nothing changed without action.

Once the letters start coming in Officials will have to pay more attention to the issue. Once we can show them that many americans do feel that XYandZ are wrong they will have to take such things into consideration. If they choose to ignore it we will just have to be louder.

need to know how to contact your senator or rep? House of Representatives
Senate

Now don't give me any of that crap that this is off topic because this is Direct TV's decision. It's obvious that the MPAA's anticopying tatics are to blame. This is what happens when we stay quite. It's all been trickling down from the DMCA.

That's easy, here's a few examples:

Gore initiated the National Performance Review. The 1993 report from his office asserts, "The answer for every problem cannot always be another program or more money. It is time to radically change the way the government operates--to shift from top-down bureaucracy to entrepreneurial government that empowers citizens and communities to change our country from the bottom up." I'm sure you'll dispute the $108 billion that its analysis shows to have been saved by the federal government. The report.

The Committee on Governmental Affairs of the US Senate filed a report in 2000 analyzing the Clinton administration's "Reinventing Government Initiative". Among its findings: "Substantial downsizing of the federal workforce has in fact occurred--but substantial issues remain. Federal civilian employment is now at 1.8 million, its lowest level since 1960. During the Clinton administration, it has dropped 19 percent. The reductions are unquestionably real." The report.

Did you sleep through the entire campaign? The only reason Gore even came close was by blatantly lying about Bush's tax cuts (the "over half the benefit goes to the richest 1%" bull***t) and Social Security reforms (it's a "risky scheme" to invest in money market funds, far safer to hand it over to the government and hope that when you retire they'll give you some of it back by taxing the hell out of your grandchildren.)

I wish I had slept through it! Come on, be serious with this stuff. Bush wants to cut taxes big time for the richest people, he's explicitly admitted that. And I can't believe anyone seriously would be willing to try the Social-Security-in-the-stock-market scheme. The whole point to Social Security is that it guarantees a certain payment, not some unknown speculative value! I suppose you need support for that as well... here's Al Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, on the subject:

Asked about the President's plan to put approximately one-quarter of Social Security funds into the stock market, Greenspan said, "Let me just say it's not so much a trade-off of benefits versus costs. I'm frankly just hard-pressed to find any benefits there are in doing it." -- WH Bulletin, 1/20/99

"There is really no strong evidence to suggest any positive aspects of moving Social Security funds into equities," Greenspan, the chief architect of the government's last major revisions to Social Security 16 years ago, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee. From the Washington Post.

While you're writing checks, send one to Russ Feingold (D-WI), the cosponsor of McCain's campaign finance bill. He's one of the few politicians I really like.

...this would be a fantastic avenue for issues with broad public support but little chance of congressional action, for example, Campaign Finance, Line-Item Veto, Same-Subject Legislation, or Term Limits. Unfortunately, it could also be a fast track for less constitutionally-appropriate, but popular, "hot button" issues like Internet Porn or Flag Burning.

Your latter point, whether the scary issues are defined as porn, flag burning, abortion rights, cross-species marriage, or whatever, is precisely why most people (including me) wouldn't support a constitutional convention.

I do, however, support single subject rules. The House and Senate at the start of each session adopt rules for each body. Usually, they carry over rules from the prior sessions with a few minor modifications. One of the rules they should add is a single-subject provision. That's worth writing to your representative or senator about.