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Usenix Takes Stand Against ATA and SSSCA
Davin writes: "The Usenix Board of Directors has emailed all Usenix members,
suggesting that they contact their Representatives to oppose
ATA and SSSCA." And I've said it before, but lick a stamp. Representatives aren't tapped into the wired quite yet (Hello ... Navi)
Well, I'll admit I run SCSI or Firewire when I can, but ATA is still a pretty decent hard drive interface. At least it's cheap.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I e-mailed my Senators and Congressman (Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Phil Gramm, and Kevin Brady) twice each. Not a single response. When I took the time to snail mail a letter to each of them, I got a form letter response from Hutchinson and Gramm, and a real response from Brady. The fact is true... they simply don't read e-mail. Sad but true.
I doubt that my single letter would have an effect, but I would bet that 100 letters on paper would have a much greater effect than 10,000 e-mails.
I faxed all of my congressmen a week ago.
Helms wrote back saying he supported Ashcroft in every way. Edwards sent back a photocopy of some unrelated speech he gave on the Senate floor.
Price wrote back a relevant response in which he promised to be mindful of civil liberties, and shared my concerns about 'backdoors' in encryption- his was the most relevant response I received. I spoke very briefly with him this morning at a community meeting, and am going to try and schedule some face time with him to talk about PATRIOT ( H.R. 2975, the House version of the ATA) - I don't want to mix messages and bring in the SSSCA at that time, but if I can establish a rapport, then I can bring up SSSCA at a later date.
He seemed to indicate that roving wiretaps might pass, but that indefinitely detaining a non-citizen wasn't going to be passed.
Time is short. Freedom needs to be the priority since that is what we are defending in this war. If we allow our freedoms to be taken away in the name of terrorism, then the terrorists have already won. Fax or call your local legislators today and let them know how you feel before it is too late. Time is running out, these bills will be voted upon soon. Letters may be too slow at this point to stop this bills so please call or fax ASAP! See www.eff.org for more information.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
It's because it's too easy to send an email. Representatives don't have the time to go through 100's of emails a day and see peoples opinions, they need the peoples input to be filtered so only the important messages get through. Snail mail takes more effort to send and thus the person sending it is more likely to spend more time expressing theirs and others opinions.
It only takes a second to send a worthless email saying "SSSCA SuXoRs!", but if you take the time to write out a paper letter and post a stamp on it and mail it out, you are probably going to spend more time writing what you think.
Also, sending it with restricted delivery or a return reciept will make it stand out more from the other mails that get sent in.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
is that Congress will sell out the entire technology sector and presumeably everyone and anything else to protect the profits of one sector -- the entertainment sector.
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McCarthy did some fucked-up stuff, besides going after those who could be connected with Communism in some way.
If you opposed some despotic statute which was designed to get the Communists, you were "soft on Communism."
Consider what would happen if a new, digitally savvy McCarthy used the fears of terrorism, which are amplified by our wartime action, to push through legislation such as SSSCA.
Any legislator who opposes such a figure could be labeled "soft on terrorism."
The law is swayed by politics, and war is a juggernaut in politics. Maintain your own security, privacy and anonymity, regardless of these laws; whether they are passed or not, there are always people waiting for the excuse to tighten surveillance.
Goat sex free since 2001
Goto senate.gov And search for Bill "H.R. 2975"
If only 10% of the readers were to send a real letter this would be squisked in a hearteat.
But as normal Slashdotters are way too lazy and really care much less than they really say here.
Underage? who cares! write a genreal letter anyways, they dont cross check your name with the social security branch and then run a background check. I wrote my letters over a month ago, got a nice reply from both of them. as far as the senators and house of rep. members are concerned, if they dont hear from you in mass then what they want is what you want.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is a very low signal to noise ratio, in the wrong direction. Low Signal, High Noise.
Being a Representative is like being an Offical Spam Recipient for the US Government. They are automatically opted-in for everything, with no ability to opt out.
Therefore, the old hand written letter with a stamp is uber-effective, because it sort of proclaims itself as a not spam.
Of course, there is nothing like a personal visit by a civil, literate, but angry constituent to their office, followed up by a letter citing the visit.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Yes, I mailed snail-mail--with a stamp (though it's a self-adhesive; I don't know if that makes a difference). If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to do so NOW! It's easy--I mailed the EFF's sample letter because they pretty much summed it all up. It took ten minutes to do the whole thing. (It would have been cool to print out the 11,000 some odd signatures (mine is in there) on the petition and mail that with the letter. But in the words of my intelligent employer, "Oh well.")
I'll try to locate mailing addresses for others who might send letters as well. You might try talking to folks who own small businesses or even mail letters to large companies, telling them about the catastrophic consequences of such legislation. This isn't about music. I suggest you don't even mention music because that causes folks to think you're an MP3 pirate or some geek or something. This is NOT about media or any bullshit like that. This is about policeware on YOUR belongings. This is about your computer making decisions for you. This is about your fair-use rights going down the tubes. This will have an enormous effect on small business owners who make "digital devices" for a living, who will probably be put out of business by defective legislation like this. (Rest assured there will be an ENORMOUS price on certification. Only companies the likes of Sony could afford it. And best of all, this won't benefit the individual artist--it will fill the pockets of beaurocrats and RIAA executives, empowering them to come up with more innovative legal solutions. What, did you actually think the artist would benefit?!)
This is about our rights and our responsibility to protect those rights. It's NOT the responsibility of government to do that, contrary to what most people believe.
Let's talk about the consequences for a moment. Where do you draw the line on what contains policeware? Will industrial automation systems (these are digital devices) contain policeware? (How about the position readout (digital device) for the lathe?) Don't forget the computer in your car--that thing is a full-blown digital device. Or aircraft control systems--I'm sure there's something digital in those. Don't even mention medical devices--on second thought, I think those should be the first to receive this technology. The patient has a song stuck in their head, so the life support systems turn off and kills them. Hey, thinking about a song is a copyright violation! How about business computers? (I'm not talking about a Dell desktop, I'm talking about computers the size of refridgerators.) What about ICs? Like 74F373 (latch/flip-flop)--that's a "digital device." Oh, I know, let's put Microsoft DRM software on every transistor. Will wristwatches (digital devices) need to contain government-mandated digital rights management? Will it be illegal to "traffic in" Swiss watches, which don't contain this compelling enterprise solution? Think this is funny? Think again. This is DEFECTIVE, but someone somewhere will go to PRISON for it if this gets passed. It could be you. I suggest you mail that letter ASAP. Either that, or buy some open airline tickets and have a suitcase packed and ready at all times. Better yet, just move out of the country while you have the chance.
Oh yeah, and let's see... the SSSCA is a sort of "extension" to the DMCA. I wonder what kind of law they'll come up with five years from now? Oh, I have a good idea: How about a law that states you have to mail $100 to the RIAA every time you get a song stuck in your head? Yeah, let me write up a draft and mail it to Congress.
Take a picture, put it in a safe. The world will change if SSSCA is aproved.
Imagine if technology development becomes much more bourocratic in US, with lot's of government licenses and taxes and bourocracy. Will the big corporations, that already keep their production in foreign coutries, spend money in development in the US? I don't think so.
What are the reactions? Try to imagine it? The developement will be done in foreign coutries (like Brazil or India, or even China, Cuba), and these countries will have a big economy growth, and will be a solid growth, because the technology development will be done there, where there's no bouracracy.
What about US? The high investments in University will stop, it won't be interesting for big corporations (like Sun, IBM, HP) to invest in Amaricans Universities. So the college education will lower quality, which will take a step back for US economy in a long term.
There are many and many companies that has born in garages. Companies like Sun, HP, and many others we all know. They will stop appearing, they will appear where home-made technology is possible. That's horrible for US, but wonderful for the rest of the world.
Imagine US without linux. Without BSD, how secure will be US internet? IIS? Apache will be outlaw! Imagine all the servers around US infected with Nimda, and nobody but M$ can do anything to change this.
What will you choose, the present or the future?
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Make sure you do all three. I know personally that all my representatives read their faxes. E-mail has worked too (I do get a response from every e-mail, every time).
./'ers are against: they advocate total personal privacy, abolishing the current copyright laws to the Constitutional definition (7+7 years maximum, ending Intellectual Property ideas), and all Libertarians want to end the limited liability that goes along with becoming a corporation -- this means that CEOs and other officers will be held personally responsible for their actions governing the company.
The second thing to do is ALWAYS visit your rep during their visits to your state if they have an open forum for constituents. Get them to remember you by name.
The third thing to do is try to visit Washington once per session and take advantage of their constituent coffee or breakfast forum. You'd be surprised how thankful and how strong such a visit is.
Lastly, and definitely the most important, is to vote Libertarian each and every time you can in a Congressional or Senate election. Each and every Libertarian is vehemently against many of the things that
Also, Libertarians want to make Congress so weak, campaign donations by large corporations and the rich won't do anything because Congress won't have the power to enact any subsidies.
What exactly are you basing this conclusion ("Email don't do dick") on?
I have emailed my Senators and Representative in the past, and have received replies from all of them. Both Senators replied with an intelligent response, and the Representative sent a return email. None of the responses were "form letter" type.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
...and a campaign contribution
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
I'm not sure if you are aware, but the US already can detain non-citizens indefinitely. They also do not have to tell detainees what they're accused of.
Three laws passed in 1996 together allow this... and have led to over 3500 people indefinitely detained. The laws are: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, The Anti-Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act, and The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
The ACLU has more information on these laws.
Please do not construe my post to be an opinion on anything, just information.
A roommate of mine used to work in the office of a rather prominent senator. Part of the work he did was responding to the huge amount of mail that the senator recieved. He informed me that if you want your senator to actually see your letter, make sure you write in the letter "I want (insert politician name here) to read this letter personally". Otherwise, you will likely recieve a response from a staff member.
There are some good links to finding names, addresses and phone numbers for your reps/senators in D.C.
THIS LINK has Senate information.
THIS ONE leads to House of Representatives information.
AND THIS ONE at Project VoteSmart is about the only central repository for FAX numbers.
We need a database of all this information in some easy-to-use format like MySQL or Access (shudder) so that popping off letters and faxes is as easy to do as possible. Email is easy. Snail mail is most effective. If we can't get rid of paper entirely - and this would appear to be the case for effective communication with congresscritters - we need to make it as painless as possible. I have found that the biggest pain in snail mail is NOT the cost of the stamp or the tedious activity of putting folded paper in envelopes. Instead, it's collecting all the relevant addresses and/or FAX numbers in one place. I can't believe no one has done this yet. I've made a small database for maybe a dozen people in Washington, but to do it for every elected rep. and senator would take more than a week. If we could agree on a common format (or formats) then one person per state could get it done in no time at all.
Special interest groups and political action committees have these tools. It's basically targeted spam, but it gets the best results.
Just last week, I received a letter from one of my state reps thanking me for my input regarding Dmitry Sklyarov and the DMCA.
So, even if the topics were just punched into a database in order to pump out form letters, somebody read it. It wasn't just deleted.
Do both. Fire off a well-written e-mail now and follow it up with a well-written snail mail later.
Well, two points come to mind: (a) if you don'tcontact them, you can be sure that your concerns won't be heard (b) it can't hurt.
In theory, Senators (more so than Representatives) are supposed to look after the interests of the country as a whole, and some do take quite a bit of interest in the world outside the USofA. So I would say that you should identify the chairman of the Senate committee responsible for your area of concern, and write to that person with your views. (Note that you will of course have to write in English; no Brussels-style translator corps at the US Capitol that I am aware of!).
sPh