Slashdot Mirror
Ask A Tech-Savvy Lobbyist About The Politics Of Computing
Morgan Reed is a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. with the law firm of Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti. He has represented a wide range of clients, from the International Pizza
Hut Franchise Holders Association (really) to the Telecommunications Industry
Association and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM). That means he's paid to personally persuade (not to mention cajole and
badger) lawmakers with real shoe-leather tactics, on issues that few lawmakers have the time to personally spend years
learning about. He's also a Slashdot reader and Linux hacker, with work on the Linux Router Project (LEAF/ LRP). Morgan has volunteered to expand your
knowledge about the intersection of technology and politics. Ask Morgan (one question per post, please)
about how clueful politicians are when it comes to technology, what tactics are likely to impress your representatives
to make intelligent tech-related decisions, and what you can do to steer the course of legislation which could affect
your freedoms. We'll pass your questions on to Morgan, who will get back with answers shortly.
What is the political future of the internet sales tax exemption?
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
If you could give one piece of advice to this group, what would it be?
Since our government represenatatives seem to be somewhat lacking in basic know-how of technology, is there anything planned to somehow educate them of the existing and future technology (in layman's terms, of course) and the implications of laws restricting it?
I like fire ants. They are very spicy!
Given that politicians who may not understand technology are continually trying to regulate it, and that interested parties (like the RIAA and MPAA) are going to push their points of view (with lots of money)...
What are the best ways for people to communicate with their politicians to inform them of their views and opinions on proposed legislation?
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
Everyone here is aware that more and more broadly-worded laws are getting passed, making all sorts of formerly innocuous computer activities "criminal." I've just emailed my representatives regarding the "hacking is terrorism" nonsense that's being looked at, and I've informed them that laws like this cause me to re-evaluate, on a yearly basis, whether or not I should continue working in IT, or find some job in a safer field which is not under seemingly continuous legislative attack. My question, after all that, is do you think the representative will look at that and care? My state is trying very hard to draw technology workers here, which I'm sure is the case in every state in the union except California and Oregon. Would an appeal to the simple "I'm afraid to do this anymore because it's becoming legally dangerous to work in computers" be of any use, or did I waste my breath?
Outside of congress, what do you believe the president's current take on technology and freedom is?
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
I was curious as to what Morgan that the chances were of the SSSCA (Security System Standards and Certification Act) actually becoming a law?
I know that polticians have a lot on their plates right now and I'm worried that it might slip through with little discussion. As a canadian, I'm not very intimately familiar with the legislative process in the US, but US laws invariable affect me.
-Derek
Did any (or most) of the politicians that voted for the DMCA know what they were doing, or care? Or were they just persuaded by other lobbyists that it was a good idea?
How clueful are politicians when it comes to technology, what tactics are likely to impress my representatives to make intelligent tech-related decisions, and what can I do to steer the course of legislation which could affect my freedoms?
324006
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Considering the growing technical nature of our society, with the ever-increasing complexity of information and copyright laws, is there hope of better-educated lawmakers making important decisions that will affect not only our current lives, but the way our near-future society grows?
I know that Alaska's reps (Ted Stevens and Neil... I mean, Don Young) are just good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm. But, they are also rather ignorant about technology and information. Is this changing? Are lawmakers *choosing* to become educated about the topics on which they make important decisions?
Or, do they react only to questions and concerns of money? (Does it all come down to the dollar, in the end?)
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
What would you say are the top five issues that *need* an effective lobbying effort at the moment ?
Do you think Democrats or Republicans have a better grasp of things? Or are they equally clueless?
When actively lobbying on behalf of a client, do your personal views on technology issues ever get stepped on ?
Many slashdotters expect the government to regulate spam and Microsoft, but remain hands-off with things such as encryption, free speech and copyright. Do you think that it is reasonable to draw a line like this and expect Congress not to cross it, or should we take a more consistent stance and push for the government to stay further away from the Internet and technology all together?
As technologists, we appreciate the international scope of the Internet, and its constituent components, e.g. Linux was originally developed by a European, Mandrake and SuSE are both produced outside the US. The communities that have built up around these technologies are non-geographic, as is the readership of Slashdot.
How is this factored in to legislative decisions which will undoubtedly affect this international culture? I'm speaking specifically about matters of encryption, privacy (currently with Echelon and Carnivore the US is in violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at least Article 12), censorship, online trade, free speech, and the recent Voyeur Dorm case in Florida.
What is the best way for a "normal" person to convince/persuade their representitive to make the "right" choice.
That's a good name--ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?
I do not ask this question as a joke. It is very common for the people here on slashdot to assume that since there have been no strong laws to protect users rights in cyberspace that congress does not care and does not listen. Occasionally we win a victory by getting a law knocked down or not passed but I have never seen a "User rights in cyberspace" bill. So I ask if the people in congress that you get to talk to discuss peoples rights in cyberspace or if that is just add-on-feel-good filler for campaign speeches while they are in california.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
Like many (most?) /. readers, I live outside the US, and am not a US citizen; in theory, US laws should not concern me as long as I remain outside US jurisdiction. Reality proves otherwise, however (witness Jon Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov, for example.)
My question is this: can non-US citizens help to influence US decision-makers for the greater good, and if so, how?
The DMCA and other recent legislation place a great deal of power in the rights of license holders at the expense of the greater population. It also seems to limit research and intellectual freedom to study security and encryption such as the recent Skylarov (sp?) case. I think that most of us on /. believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction in regards to these issues.
Why is this? I can think of a few reasons:
1. They are following the money. Philosophical arguments are great but they have to raise $xx,xxx per day for the reelection campaign.
2. They don't spend much time thinking about these things and the license holders who benefit from such legislation do a very good job of informing and educating the legislators to encouraging them to think their way.
3. The legislators have thought about these issues, understand the arguments and are well informed. Their philosophical beliefs lead them to believe that this is the right thing to do.
Why do you think that this type of legislation has been passed and do you agree that it will be harmful to the country in the long term?
I just always thought it would be cool to be a tech lobbyist. How did you get your job?
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
I would love to know how we the Public cane gain back or right to have a say in our own govenment when it comes to the issues we believe strongly in. What should we do to convince the govenment, and out law makers that they have gone the wrong way with recent legislation that does not benifit the American people and only seems to benifit the American people. My Question is specifially related to the DMCA, SSSCA, and other such acts that have been passed or are in danger of being passed. How do we convince them to take another look, and do something to reverse these terrible laws? The letter, and spirt of some of this legislation threatens the very community we have formed here, some ways of reading the laws could very well be used to build walls against open source development.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Films are full of hackers who sit in from of brightly colored GUIs and watch as graphical representations of doors open to them as they break into secret computer systems. Out here in the real world, we know that cracking a system can take days, weeks or even months (that's cracking a system, not hacking a VB worm), and the work is boring text.
In the real world, criminals can easily use one-time-pad, unbreakable encryption that'll never be broken in the 30min allowed for a Hollywood plot, and they would never resort to public key technology that the rest of us want to simply make it harder for the gov to spy on us.
Do our representatives have any concept of what real computer work, and real cracking consists of? Do they have a clue of how encryption can work? How would I educate my reps that killing public key tech would do nothing to hurt mafia/Bin Laden types?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Does an email carry the same weight as a paper letter?
As a professional lobbyist, you probably have a better idea of what it takes to be heard in Washington than most folks here do.
What advice would you offer to those trying to organize the "Slashdot Lobby?" How can they best go about forming their organization, raising money, and then turning that money and human capital into actual political influence?
It is dominated (according to the cartoon) by powerful rent-seeking corporations, spending big money to defend big interests, manipulating legislators who are desperate for ever more campaign contributions and ever more local feel-good stories.
So:
A lot of /.ers like email and tech forms of communication. Can you give us any insight into which methods work best? I've provided what I think might be a ranking order, from best to worst, in terms of methods of communicating with a legislator on a bill, based on my experience, but could you give us any ratios?
An example might be: 1 personal appearance at his office = 2 conversations at a house party = 100 handwritten letters = 200 handwritten postcards = 1000 typed letters = 50,000 emails.
Here's my list of methods I can think of:
A. talking with legislator when he's gardening or fixing the car on a bill;
B. lunch or coffee (one on one);
C. personal appearance at his office (phoned in ahead, as a constituent);
D. personal conversation at a house party or fundraiser (more than 1 minute);
E. question at a constituency open house (as advertised in local papers) (usually have 20-40 people);
F. handwritten postcard with cool pics on other side;
G. handwritten postcard found free in coffee shop or movie house;
H. handwritten letter, hand addressed;
I. typed letter, hand signed, with hand P.S.;
J. typed postcard, hand signed, with hand P.S.;
K. fax, hand signed;
L. actiongram faxed letter like on EDF or EFF;
M. actiongram email, modified from boilerplate in own words;
N. actiongram email, boilerplate;
O. wierd knick knack gift, like a techie toy we have tons of, wrapped up in a box and sent;
P. wierd knick knack gift, connected to issue;
Q. boring gift, like stapler remover from local Kiwanas
Anything I missed?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
It seems to me that a proper long term solution is in the education of the lawmakers. I don't mean too sugest that we take an old fossil like - name any long term legislator - and attempt to educate them. It's too late for that. Consider - most lawmakers are lawyers or at least collage graduates. Let's start the process early and require much more CS work as undergraduates in Poly Sci or whatever degree that goes into goverment(pre-law?) and in Law Schools. Good idea or will this process take too long?
zenray
Do rational explanations by a few educated people have much effect on the opinions of lawmakers, or is the only way to get heard to form a large coalition to lobby for changes?
Last post!
Some U.S. congressman said recently that we shouldn't consider outselves to have any expectation of privacy regarding the e-mail address and URLs we use. Does he realize the implications of this, and does precedence back him up?
k nowledge_pulls_the_mask_off_1.html (to pick fairly benign examples in both cases).
He was probably thinking of sites, rather than URLs. It's one thing to worry about whether I visit dailynews.yahoo.com; it's another to worry about logging something as specific as http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20011004/tc/zero-
The example people are citing is "LUDs"; the ability for police officers to get a list, without a warrant, of all the phone numbers of people I've called or who've called me. Any legal theories on which is closer, sites or URLs?
This whole thing strikes me as fairly bizarre. I think there are legal precedents about my expectations of privacy for the videotapes I rent, or the books I borrow from the public library. I don't know how accessible they are to law enforcement, but no one can publish such a list in the newspaper. (Right?)
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
But I live in the United Stated under an H1B visa. How can I sound my concerns and help steer the legislation or simply give my opinions? Can I write representatives? Will they listen if I say I'm not American?
After all, I do pay taxes. Even Social Security.
It seems to me that one of the main reasons ridculous tech-related laws are getting passed is that lawmakers know that the voters are just as ignorant on the issues as they are. They can pass/not pass legislation based on their own self-interests (money), confident that the voters will bend over in blissful ignorance.
That said, should not the education of the general populace be a high priority in getting reasonable legislation passed? After all, if peeople really understood how they were being affected, would they then not put more pressure on their congresscritters?
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Is it possible to successfully convince lawmakers that mandatory backdoors in encryption software will never work? To me, ideas like this are just absurd. Just like gun control laws. They have absolutly no effect on criminals and only serve to hurt law abiding citizens. Just as the gun control laws are not going to prevent a criminal from obtaining a gun, government backdoors are not going to prevent the bin Ladin's out there from using strong encryption. While a criminal mind is at work, they are not going to stop and say, "Gee we better not break the law and use the encryption that the U.S. government has a key to and we better post our images with the 'this image contains a secret message' label."
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
I have been told that the best way to talk to someone on the hill about legislation is not to, that it is better to talk with a legislator's staffers instead, as they tend to be the people who choose what bills to give attention to, and how said bills are written. Is this true, and if so, what is the best way to contact and work with the staffers of Capitol Hill?
Mr. Reed:
When the RIAA decides to pursue a service for copyright infringement (first Napster, now Grokster and MusicCity) they have the ability to amass untold financial and legal resources which cannot possibly be matched by the creators of the software or their allies. Since the RIAA's lobbying power is so strong, they can prosecute, seek court injunctions, pass more stringent laws, etc. The inevitable result is the destruction of that service.
Yet, GPL'ed code is ripped off all the time. However, those writing such code rarely have the resources needed to pursue what is usually a large corporate entity that has pirated free or open source software and incorporated it into their own proprietary products.
As a lobbyist on the front lines, how do you see this situation changing for the better in the future? How will the open source community ever be able to compete with the vastly more powerful corporate lawyers and lobbyists who care only about protecting proprietary software and services?
Dictionaries are for loosers.
Why are politicans so clueless when it comes to government-held, key escrow encryption? Has no one told them what a futile move it would be to outlaw "regular" crypto? I'm curious if you can shed some light on the extent of their pie-in-the-sky mentality. Has no one told them that public key encryption is already in the public domain and installed on literally tens of millions of computers worldwide? Are they honestly so deluded as to believe that they can just make all that just go away by the sheer force of their own will?
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
/EJS, do they *really* understand how the very nature of a "press" has changed in the past 5 years?
Have you ever been hired to lobby a position that you knew to be tech ignorant? If yes, why did you take the job?
What can be done (either by organizations such as the EFF, or by citizens acting individually) ro raise the 'cluefulness' of our legislators? Do they listen, or are our voices simply overwhelmed by political reality? How can we get our message through?
This brings up a simple (and probably naive) question from me - what factors have made "intellectual property" law so convoluted?
In this case, my first thought is that "Mickey Mouse(tm)" and the various representations thereof, are, taken together, one form of "intellectual property" called a trademark. Personally, I DON'T have a problem with TRADEMARKS being owned by a company for as long as they are in use (after all, should Microsoft be allowed, for example, to call some future version of Windows "Windows LINUX" even if it has nothing to do with Linux, just because the trademark on Linux expired?).
On the other hand, "Steamboat Willy" (as I recall, the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon from sometime in the late 1920's(?)), as a specific work, ought to definitely have entered the public domain years ago [but for good old Sonny Bono and his 'Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act' (as I heard one IP lawyer call it), as it falls under "copyright" and not "Trademark."
'course, this then gets complex - if it were in the public domain as it should be, you would be legally allowed to make as many copies of it as you liked, create derivative works, etc...but you still couldn't take an individual image of Mickey from it and use it as a "label" since that would infringe on the Trademark....
And, of course, if we throw the DMCA into the mix, if Disney Corp releases "Steamboat Willy" on an encrypted DVD, even if Disney misses a payment to the legislators and Steamboat Willy is finally allowed to hit public domain, we'll still be flung in jail if we try to GET the public domain copy of Steamboat Willy from it...
So, in short, my question is - who's fault is it that the simple principle of "don't make unfair use of someone else's work" has resulted in this mess of rights-restricting and near-incomprehensible mass known as "intellectual property law"?
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
It seems that some of the congressmen (and women) view rights online as a "second rate" issue. Others seem ignorant of the implications of their powers in this realm (Jud Gregg comes to mind).
Who are the main proponents of Online Rights in congress, and do you feel they represent the minority or majority of these people?
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
I've heard it said several times that our (US) legislators are sincerely trying to do good on behalf of their constituency, but that most tech lobbyists work on behalf of groups with specific agendas. What hope is there for 'White Hat' tech lobbyists to make their mark in Washington's political scene, and what would you suggest to anyone with thoughts of becomming a lobbyist?
In twenty-seven parts.
Knowing that there is virtually no way to guarantee direct correspondance to our represenatives my question is how many of our elected officials keep tech-savy staff onboard to advise them? What has been your experience with these people? Is there a way to communicate our concerns to them and get a more direct line to our elected official?
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
It seems to me that this is simply organised corruption. We see the results every day in the DMCA and similar broken laws. In your opinion, is this really democracy? At what point should a nominally democratic system be seen as a facade?
(DISCLAIMER: I am a defendant in the California deCSS case.)
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
- Script-kiddies, Worms and Viruses;
- Corporate security, protection of customer information, professional crackers & industrial espionage, encryption.
- Personal security, privacy rights, safety of personal information, security of off-the-shelf products (responsibilties of vendors)
- Internet infrastructue - bandwidth costs, redundancy, reliance on international parties
- Internet politics - ICANN & IANA, IP and tradmark rights, accountability & responsibility of overseeing bodies,;
- Pros and cons of open source vs closed source for business, for government, for education, for consumer;
- ISP's and telco's legal and ethical responsibilities, spam.
And so on...b) How are their decisions on technology issues affected by foreign countries? Are there some areas where policy is home grown, and others where they look for others to lead? How can non-US people affect US policy? How do the international organisations such as the World Trade Body affect policy?
c) How important is the role of non-elected state employees and consultants. Are there maybe some policy areas that, due to technical copmlexity, the politicians will just do what they're told. If so, how do lobbyists take this into account?
d) Only if you're really bored... run through a Geekcode generator, and imagine how the average politician would answer.
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
In the early days of the automotive industry, GM was effectivly immune to lawsuits (what's good for GM is good for America!). In the earliest part of this century, there was an attempt by the publishing industry to prevent the resale of books. Similar events are now happening in the tech sector with attempts by the BSA to ward off liability issues related to software, laws against software resale, and even new problems such as patenting of genes and other expansions of IP law inconsistent with the goal of moving information into the public domain while rewarding its creator.
My question is; will the influence of the software industry fade as these new technologies become less new or will these trends, which seem to contradict legal precedent, only gain legitimacy as they establish a precident of their own?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Honestly, I've written letters to my Senators and Representatives about increasing choice in computing, and although I get friendly replies on occassion, nothing seems to make any difference.
If anything, Microsoft seems to be strengthening on all fronts...home, professional, embedded. They're rolling over the planet, with no end in sight.
I know software is expensive to make, and techies are tough to deal with, but do our careers really have to be so extensively deprofessionalized by this horrid mixture of Government and Corporations?
Let me put it this way: When your opposition is a Corporation or other powerful entity, do you ever win or even get significant concessions?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I wonder if there are equally capable committees or subcomittees in the house or senate, that are good forums for hard problems...
In Canada, where our Senate is appointed for life (and is "called the house of cronies" by the sarcastic), there are some very capable standing comittees, but they have limited powers to write legislation...
In effect, I'm asking where in the U.S. government one applies pressure by bringing forward facts, not just opinion or numbers...
davecb@spamcop.net
I'd like to know why some congressmen think that hacking is an offense that should be punishable by death, or rather why do they seem to consider computer related offenses more criminal than criminal offenses? Is it because they are so ignorant of the technology that they fear it and its capabilities?
Are they only given examples of worst case senarios of the abuse and misuse of computers? How do we make sure they know the purpose things like hacking serve (sometimes its for good!), how many people do these types of things, how easy it really is in most cases, etc. or even why its done.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
How often to you see someone trying to twist or stretch technical issues to push the issue to one side? IE: How many companies/lawmakers do you find trying to pull a fast one on non-technical people in office?
The increasing number of overbroad patents in the software/internet area does not promote innovation, it stifles it. I don't think it's true any longer that patent applicants have incentive to police their own applications to avoid future patent invalidation - most patents are issued or owned by major players who merely wave the patent and make a big noise, confident the other guy will go away without a fight.
Is there any support in government circles for an overhaul of patent office procedures, to address the anti-competitive effects of making things like "clicking" and "linking" patentable?
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
As some other readers have pointed out, one of the biggest reasons that poor technology regulations get passed is that our Congress-critters don't understand the technology. However, the real issue behind this is one of priorities; if the Congressmen thought it was important to know what was going on with the technology, they'd at least take the time to learn the very basics.
Our world shapes itself around the technology that we develop. Ten or twenty years ago, you could not have even begun to imagine the shape of the world today, and it will continue to change at a rapid pace in the years to come. It's vitally important that those who lead have an understanding of some of the basic concepts of modern technology, even if they don't understand the nitty-gritty details.
How can we convince them of this? And is it worth spending the effort to convince our leaders that technology should be a priority issue, rather than fighting individual battles for every issue that comes up?
I would be interested in advancng the usage of free software, for several reasons.
First, it reduces favoritism of the government to particular private parties. Second, it puts the work of the government in publicly documented file formats (how many agencies have old MS backup files?). Third, it creates support for non-proprietary standards. This will increase competition in government contracts by cutting the chain of proprietary dependencies: file formats to desktop OS to network environments and apps to consultign services. Finally, as a taxpayer, I believe we can save a bundle in licensing or rental fees.
I expect that many people are using free alternatives in government agencies, but I also know that government agencies are also some of the most policy-bound entities in the world. How can citizens make it easier for people in the government to use free software?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Who are the top five or ten Senators on the hill that the MPAA have doing their bidding? This would be useful to have for the next election so we can vote these guys out of office.