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Lobbying Against UCITA: A Practical Guide
Let's start with Virginia. There, UCITA has been passed by the Legislature and is awaiting signature by Governor Jim Gilmore. But all is not yet lost. Skip Lockwood of 4cite.org says, "It is very important that the Governor, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate all hear from dissatisfied consumers. Virginia has really put the 'horse before the cart' with the passage of this law. Call, e-mail and fax so that legislators know what a mistake they have made." And UCITA isn't scheduled to go into force in Virginia until next year, so there may be time to undo the damage. It's worth a try, certainly, even though UCITA is backed heavily both by Microsoft and Virginia's own "star" online business, AOL.
In Maryland, UCITA is is by no means a done deal. As House Bill #19 and Senate Bill #142, it is still being considered by legislative committees. This means UCITA could conceivably still be stopped in Maryland even before it came to a vote, although the forces working to push it through are both mighty and well-financed. One state senator told me this was the first time he'd ever seen actual lobbyists from Microsoft, in person, in Annapolis (Maryland's state capital). Many highly-paid "local" lobbyists are also cruising the legislative halls, busily telling the politicians why UCITA is a must-pass piece of legislation.
But apparently the lobbyists and their masters never told Maryland legislators exactly what UCITA was all about. I called the offices of all 13 members of the House of Delegates who are co-sponsoring Maryland UCITA, House Bill 19, and not one of them or any of their staff members to whom I spoke could tell me honestly that they had read the whole thing. All most of them seem to have read was this synopsis:
Adopting the Maryland Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act; establishing provisions of law applicable to agreements to create, modify, transfer, or distribute computer software, computer data and databases, Internet and online information, and computer information and products; establishing provisions of law applicable to licensing of computer information; etc.
But the bill goes just a little bit beyond this. If you have time (it's about 85 printed pages), here's the entire UCITA text.
Quite a difference, eh? If you actually read all the way through the document, you now know more than most of the Maryland legislators who are tasked with deciding whether or not it should be made into law.
The way things work here in Maryland - and in many other states - is that the heaviest political leaders call lesser politicians to whose campaigns they have donated or for whom they have done other favors and say, "I'm sending you a bill I want passed." If the lesser politician knows what's good for him or her, he or she salutes and follows orders, especially on somthing like UCITA, which is not an issue most ordinary citizens either understand or care about.
In my opinion, the single most politically powerful elected official in the State of Maryland is Casper R. Taylor, Jr., speaker of the House of Delegates. He consistently has one of the largest campaign fund "war chests" in the state and freely shares lucre from it with other legislators who support him. Mr. Taylor has personally assured me that the large sums of money he solicits - and gets - from assorted industry groups and other big donors do not influence his votes or buy his support. (I did not laugh out loud when he said this only because I am a professional journalist and have developed the ability to listen to almost any kind of outrageous statement without showing emotion. Please don't try this at home.)
Wherever you live in the U.S. (or almost anywhere else) there is a primary power broker like Taylor, and it is this person upon whom the Microsofts and AOLs and the Business Software Alliance and the rest of the big-money crowd will concentrate their efforts (and lavish funds). But don't think that people like Taylor are evil. They usually aren't, down deep inside, and if they get enough reasonable citizen input that opposes the lobbyists' desires, they can often be persuaded to do the right thing.
Guys like Casper Taylor actually like hearing from citizens; if they weren't basically gregarious and outgoing they wouldn't have gone into politics in the first place. If you don't believe me, give Casper a friendly call. His office phone number is 410-841-3800. If you don't live in Maryland, consider this a practice call for the UCITA fight that is likely to take place in your state sometime in the next year or two.
There are several things to bear in mind when calling a politician to express your opinion. The first is that yelling and acting nutsy gets you nowhere. Be sane and have *real reasons* handy for your opinion - and no, "because Richard Stallman doesn't like it" is not a good reason, because RMS is not widely-known in political circles. You need facts like the ones on this page. The second is to make sure you don't just say "UCITA." You need to refer to the correct bill number, in this case House Bill 19. Even if you speak to the lowest of Casper's underlings, and they only give you the chance to say, "I just want to ask Speaker Taylor to please withdraw his support for House Bill 19 because it is bad for consumers and will inhibit open source software development," you have done a good and valuable thing. A hundred brief calls can be worth more than $1000 in Microsoft lobbying money even if you feel like you haven't done much or that you were barely listened to.
Note that I mention phone calls, not e-mail. Politicians are generally more receptive to calls than to e-mails. They also like faxes (Taylor's fax number is 410-841-1138), but e-mail is still valid, as long as you only send one or two polite ones to each elected official you want to reach. (If you want to use Casper for a practice e-mail, send it to casper_taylor@house.state.md.us.)
So we've contacted the most powerful guy. Fine. But there are other leaders who should also hear from you. In Maryland, in this case, some of the most important are Governor Parris Glendening, Senate President Mike Miller (to whom you should mention Senate Bill 142, not House Bill 19), and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer. All of them have complete contact information on their Web pages, as do almost all public officials everywhere.
If you live in Maryland, besides these people, you'll want to contact the representatives from your district. Find them here. If you live in another state and want to find out if UCITA is about to become a burning issue there, check this page. And, no matter where you live in the U.S., here's a list of state and local government Web sites that can not only help you fight UCITA, but help you find out what your elected officials are up to in general, and who to contact if you have a beef or want to get something done.
Dealing with politics and politicians can often make you feel like you're pushing into a wall of warm fuzz, especially if you spend most of your time dealing with machine-style logic where each specific cause has a specific effect. And I don't know about you, but reading the lawyer jargon in which most proposed laws are written gives me a headache.
But if you and I and a bunch of other people don't take the trouble to go through this headache over UCITA and other legislative actions that directly affect our lives and livings, rest assured that Microsoft and the other companies and industry groups on "the other side" will keep slogging along, making sure their views get heard as loudly and strongly and often as possible.
And when your legislators hear from the industry groups and lobbyists over and over, and hear nothing from you, they will not only pass UCITA and other laws you don't like, but they'll be perfectly justified when they smugly say, afterwards, "Almost everyone I heard from about this matter was in favor of it!"
Money DOES talk...but the whole reason politicians want money is to get re-elected. Most politicians will NOT vote for something when a large number of constituants call in opposing it, even when a large company like Microsoft is lobbying hard for it. It doesn't matter how much money they have if no one will vote for them.
So, we not only have to call and write (I still think with policitians, real mail is much more effective than e-mail) but we have to VOTE. That's the single most important right we have, and people use it far too infrequently.
Don't just call your state Senator and tell him/her you don't like this bill. Tell him/her that his support (or lack of ) on this bill will heavily influence how you vote. If enough people do this, that's the one thing that politicians will listen to more than money.
It the legislature unfortunately it comes down to who has the most money behind the lobbyists. The lobby for whatever side has the ear of the lawmakers, they contribute via PAC's and soft money and the payback is that the legislators listen. The other side to this is, at least at the federal level, one constituent hour equals something like 100 lobby hours. This is one of the strongest ways to get a message out. With the Open Source community, we just can't compete with the big dollar lobby groups and PAC's, so getting in front of the legislators is one of the best avenues we have. Take a look at the Linux Advocacy guide to get the right flavor and tone for either a meeting, a phone call or a mail. It is very important to note that the lawmakers DO NOT respond well to Spam, flames or mail bombing. Please be clear, polite and most important direct and to the point with any written or verbal correspondence. Grass roots efforts like this do have equal muscle with the legislature if they are done properly.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
face it - there's the iron triangle of business/lobbyists/legislators to deal with - when push comes to shove over personal freedoms/rights vs business and jobs, bb wins everytime because people need jobs and the last thing a politician wants is hordes of the unemployed marching on their office. Maybe when folks were self sufficient farmers who could support themselves, then human rights and freedoms were at the forefront but now that the democratic masses all depend on some business/employer for daily bread, that's the squeeky wheel what gets the funding and protective 'incubator' legislation. These guys just want to create a friendly climate where bazillionair software moguls can setup shop in their tax district too!
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If a state passes a law giving software companies big incentives, there will be a trend for those companies to move there. I don't know if this can be enforced in all cases, but most contracts specify a court where any legal disputes relating to that contract will be tried.
This means that UCITA is relevant to citizens of Mexico, or Denmark, or Angola, or anywhere there is a person likely to buy software.
Does anybody have an idea on how an out of state or a foreign citizen can bring pressure on those legislators?
Shouldn't somebody tell the spokesman quoted here that this is the proper configuration?
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
First, if you're one of the many adult Americans who doesn't bother to vote, you have no one to blame but yourself for letting corrupt politicians get into office and stay there. And even more important than voting is getting involved in party politics in between elections, which is where and when future candidates and policies are picked. So few people get involved at this level that your single voice can make a *huge* difference, and I mean a bigger difference than 100 lobbyists with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes... excuse me, I meant to say campaign contributions ... available to them.
Second, you are absolutely right. "They" will keep coming up with Bad Things. It's a "political process," not a single "political project."
Think software development. And think what would have happened with Linux if Linus had said, "We have kernel 1.0, so we're finished now."
Now apply the same thinking to politics. Messing with politicians is not nearly as much fun or as rewarding as messing with software, but sometimes it's a necessary evil, especially if you want to go on messing with your computer without the government telling you how to do it.
- Robin "free citizen" Miller
I always think of a line from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest whenever I hear a "but what good will it do?" type answer/argument;
"At least I tried, dammit, at least I tried."
Roblimo is right - if people don't fight now, then they have little right to complain later if/when they get bitten by it.
Also, don't forget that the rest of the world's software associations are more than likely going to be watching this with a great deal of interest. If it is widely adopted in the US, then the rest of the world's governments may well come under heavy pressure to follow suit. It may not just be your freedom that you fight for...
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Thank god for the sale of goods act and the high court in the UK.
A couple of years ago the high court came to the conclusion that this sort of act would be illegal as it goes against the already established principles of fair trade. So if something like this act was bought up here the software companies would be most wary of taking it to court.
In my opinion the best approach to fighting this type of act in the US would be to let them enact the powers contained in the act. the moment they take the first individuals software off their computer. or wreck the first persons business. then they have instantly provided the open source movement with a billion dollars of free tv advertising. all we have to do is let the news media in on the event and whatever large software company tries it gets ripped apart. you shut down a business and straight away youre facing a pile of angry voters who'll yell for repeal and the destruction of the copyright system for software.
Whatever happens we win
The reason that money has such a loud voice in American politics is that by and large the citizens do not particpate. Money and those who hold it simply fill a void. If you actually take the time to write well thought out and crafted letters, those make a big difference. Heck you might even get invited to be part of the offical's policy advisory group. Granted my rep in hte house is a lot more progressive than most. The cynicism of the American citizen kinda dooms the whole process. A lot of us look at the state of affairs and take it as a given, thus losing the fight before the battle is even engaged.
You want to see an example of a successful grassroots campaign that did not have financial power? Look at the whole Christian politcal movement of the past two decades--Christian coalition etc... Love 'em or hate 'em you can't argue that they have been effective in pushing their policy. And, until the last half of the decade here, that haven't had all that much finanicial swing--and still don't compared to others. What they do is: 1) turn out to vote, and 2) communicate with their reps. And 3), they run for office. With or without money, the basic premise of American government, no matter which state you live in, is that the government is of the people, by the people and for the people. If the people don't participate, they don't get the government they want. So, look who's participating in government right now. Its the monied interests and the small organized groups with well defined objecttives. They're setting the policy the rest of us will live with.
The lawmakers I've spoken with are all pretty much in agreement. Although we may find e-mail a great tool, it is all but ignored by politicians. When e-mail is considered, staff members just tally up the for and the against numbers and your well written, carefully considered e-mail is reduced to the same value as, "It's a commie plot I tell ya!" In other words, e-mail ranks at the same level as an unscientific poll.
Here's how the politicians I've talked with weigh constituent contacts (from least effective to most).
1. Petitions, e-mails, form letters, polls (unless commissioned)
2. Personal letters, phone calls and faxes. (Many consider personal letters slightly more effective than phone calls and faxes because they take more effort and stand a better chance of being evaluated as 'representative commentary' instead of tallied as a yea or nay)
3. The number one attention grabber is a small group of well-spoken individuals paying a personal visit.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
There, UCITA has been passed by the Legislature and is awaiting signature by Governor Jim Gilmore.
Only the Legislature has passed the bill. The Senate is still reviewing it. You can find bills and amendments at this site by searching for UCITA. The bill in the Senate has been referred to a committee which is to report back no later than December 1, 2000 (as of Valentine's Day). IANAL, but my understanding of Virginian law from reading the VA constitution is that both houses (the Legislature and the Senate) must pass the bill before it can become law, and they must always go through a committee before they can be voted on.
This doesn't change the need for calm activism against UCITA, but the situation is not as dire as it appears to be. Please, please, check your facts before posting a story.
I've been thinking about this for a while. For a long time, there have been foreign aid groups to help protect the dignity and rights of people in countries ruled by oppressive governments (viz. Albania, Chechnia (sp?), et cetera). Generally, this aid has come from the US, which has been traditionally considered the "bastion of justice and freedom in the civilised world".
However, if this trend towards big-brotherism in the US (and other places) continues to reinforce itself, it may come to the point where people will need protection from the oppressive US government and corporations. Furthermore, I think the first group to feel this in their skins is the American hacker community - the thousands of very misunderstood, freedom-loving tech workers, CS researchers and independent programmers who live and work in the US. The way of life of these people is at high risk, and it may come to a point where the only way to protect them from the grip of Big Brother will be mass evacuation to a country without extradition treaties.
Considering this, I propose the creation of Hacker Aid, a not-for-profit, privately funded NGO dedicated to the protection of the hacker class worldwide, by any means necessary. If the situation in the US (or in any other country) comes to the point described in the above paragraph, the members of Hacker Aid in other countries will organise the mass relocation of the oppressed hackers to other places in the world where they will be able to live and work freely. This may mean paying for the refugees' air fare, providing shelter and food, and helping them find jobs. In the extreme case that the US goes postal and decides to officially, once and for all, become the One World Government, Hacker Aid will be charged with the task of stopping them; and then we shall see if the corporate Powers That Be can stand up to a legion of techies.
</rant>
Comments, criticism and suggestions are welcome, and can be sent to the email above.
(Notes: (1) I'm only half-joking, and will do my part if necessary; (2) as made painfully clear by my email address, I'm in Brazil.)
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Actually, this is not about open or closed-source software at all. It's about making a distinction between shrink-wrapped distributed software and otherwise distributed software.
It does not even change a lot for shrink-wrapped software: most EULA's already waiver all liability and have odd clauses. The damning part of the UCITA is that liability is default and without a shrink-wrapped distribution you cannot dismiss that liability and distribute "as is".
Perhaps you should not be so lazy and read the text, or Richard M. Stallman's reaction to the UCITA.
This will take away consumer *and* developer rights. And there will be no turning to free software because the UCITA could possibly make some of the foundations of the bazaar model or open source idealism impossible or illegal.
"AOL grants to you a non-exclusive, limited license to use the Software, pursuant to the terms hereof, to connect to the Service only, and you may not modify, reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software."
2 03&cid=201 ]. It's a good thing that companies throughout the country will be contributing to the campaign funds of opposition legislators throughout the country, because that's the mandate of their shareholders [ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/02/14/22212 03&cid=192 ].
"The laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, excluding its conflicts-of-law rules, govern the Agreement and your registration, and you expressly agree that exclusive jurisdiction for any claim or dispute arising from the use of the Service or Software resides in the courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia."
Rob wrote that UCITA is supported by, and I quote, "Virginia's own "star" online business, AOL."
Thanks, Rob! I can't believe I didn't find out about this 'till now!
According to the AOL Instant Messenger page, "45 Million People Can't Be Wrong." Looks to me like 45 Million People Are About To Be Wronged, and AOL is *lying* to their legislators to do it.
Yep, you heard me. Lying. How much you wanna bet those lobbyists that AOL is paying all sorts of money to are mentioning any of the "pork"(the term isn't really applicable; pork refers to extra stuff slagged on, not the true intention of the bill masked in Happy E-Commerce Friendly Language) that this bill will implement?
Lemme tell you something. The moment that the company that's about to buy Time Warner, A.K.A. one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world, exposes a significant portion of the populaiton of this country to tremendous, unnegotiated, and unconscionable breach of contract liability, and doesn't mention this to the legislators they've communicated with, AOL's got a huge local problem.
Because lemme tell you something else: If UCITA passes in Virginia, I'm donating cash money to any party that promises to get it repealed. Remember Taxation without Representation? Pass a law without even going so far as to analyze the national implications of such a drastic overhaul of basic commerce law(which, incidentally, traces back long before the birth of this country), and this California geek is gonna Represent.
It's simple, really: If Virginia is going to expose me to tremendous risk from any Virginian software I use, I'm going to boycott Virginian software. And I'm gonna start with AOL, because they're doing their damndest to get this passed.
After all, why should I trust a company that's trying to make it illegal for me to complain about their service?
You best not say how many times AOL net service broke down on you; that's a prohibited unauthorized benchmark. You talk, you walk--to another ISP because your AOL has just been terminated...better hope you can get DSL, by the way, because the AOL Road Runner cable modem service you depend upon is being terminating. They'll be sending you a bill, by the way, for that early termination of your service. Incidentally, don't expect to find anyone else able to give you cable modem service--isn't that convenient, AOL has all their lobbyists working on UCITA, and just took everyone away from that "Open Access" push. So, if you can't get DSL, better enjoy going back to 56K. Complain about service, will ya?
You better not talk to anyone about privacy, or even look into it for that matter. If you start accessing a bunch of sports sites just to determine whether AOL is selling your browsing interests to outside companies to spam you...guess what, you're making an unauthorized attempt to reverse engineer propietary backend routing code, and your service is terminated and you're getting sued for breach of contract. I wonder what will cost more...your lawyers, or your flight to Virginia...
But don't worry, you have nothing to worry about in terms of security, because they've already chilled any speech or research that might cause you to be scared that your AOL Instant Messenger might pose a risk to your home, your work, or your data. "Accidental buffer overflows that let anyone on the Internet take over your computer" hidden within AOL's software will be unheard of, because the force of Virginia's Expressly Agreed To Laws will make it Expressly Illegal to exercise electronic self-defense by making sure there's no time bomb ticking within your computer or the computers of millions of others.
Heh, at least the next time Yahoo gets taken down, you can get the warm and fuzzy feeling that your box might have had something to do with it, but you don't have the right to find out.
Any Self-Defense is just another one of those stupid little Magna Carta era common law things we can throw away. You know, kind of like "The product you're being sold should do what it says it does.", which UCITA also removes. It's the Thousands, folks. Who needs those crufty consumer protection truth in advertising lemon law product liability rules anyway?
Boy, I'd really be worried about this UCITA thing if it didn't expose so many very large non-computer related corporations to so much financial risk, like the fact that they won't be able to get untainted evidence about which products to buy or even to pull their data out of a remotely disabled database(disabled, of course, because one of their employees breached dared breach the company's contract with the software supplier by stating that the present software solution was costing too much money for way too little speed)[ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/02/14/2221
For once, companies are screwed just as much as the average citizen is going to be. [ http://slashdot.org/yro/00/02/01/211222.shtml#36 ] So really, I have no reason to be concerned.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
- UCITA makes the authors of software legally liable if it doesn't work right.
- Consumers can be forced to waive this right as part of a shrink use have shrink wrap licenses.
See the problem?How does UCITA affect active components in web pages?
Consider, a Java or JavaScript program is downloaded to your computer, may be cached several times on your hard-drive, is loaded and executed. Furthermore, it may be stored and redistributed by proxies and web caches.
So presumably such programs are considered public domain. Does UCITA create license conditions for public domain software? Does it force a warrenty on such software? If so, then you could be liable for a bug in your java applet, unless you want to claim that the fault was with the VM security.
Plugins and ActiveX are even more problematic. I believe IE will download these automatically (but I haven't tried this), in which cases there is no opertunity to agree to a license.
What about interpreted languages? Who is liable, the author of the interpreter or the author of the interpreted code?
What about programs which use libraries?
Despite not being a US citizen (and only rarely paying US taxes) I have relicensed all my scientific software so that its use is illegal if the `No Warrenty' clause is invalidated by local legislation. I've contacted MA and VA officials with this information.