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SSSCA Editorials
idiotnot writes: "This editorial from the New York Times, by Jonathan L. Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School, urges legislators to exercise caution in regulating the PC. Eisner, et. al. want to limit the PC's capability, which will limit what PC users are allowed to do. See this earlier story about Eisner's testimony to Congress. '[W]e should beware the haste with which some would sacrifice flexibility for control.'" Other readers submitted a story in Hardware Central and an AP article. Seems like the ruckus over the SSSCA is finally reaching the mainstream press.
Have you? It takes just a couple of minutes, and might mean a lot. This law scares the bejesus out of me, and I hope it does the same to you. Let your Senators and Representatives know.
I'm very glad to see all the mainstream press that this proposed legislation is getting.
Hopefully, as more and more editorials criticize this law, the general public will begin to see what is at stake and demand that Congress abandon this Disney law.
It is not the role of the government to protect the revenue streams of industry; but somewhere and somehow this has become their sole occupation. In a democratic free-market, the government should ensure fairness (I'm not a libertarian, I have no belief in an entierly market-based system) - unfortunatly in our system the government seems only concerned with appeasing the largest corporations, with no regard for the people they are presumed to serve.
If we all stand up, and let our politicians know that "enough is enough" hopefully they will change their ways. And it seems like more and more "everyday" people are beginning to make their voice heard (witness protests in Seattle, etc.), but the corporate media does its very best to quiet this dissent.
Unfortunatly the American idea of freedom has been transformed, and what remains is solely a concern with the freedom to make money.
I thought the article missed the point. Many people are going to come away from reading it thinking, "I don't want one of these crippled computers, so I won't buy one, no matter how much I see ads for them." They aren't going to appreciate the fact that the media companies don't want this to be a choice we have--they want to ram these things down our throats. They know damn well that, given the choice, no one will want them, so they want to pass a law like the SSSCA to force the issue. That is what people need to understand.
But this article is a great opportunity for anyone interested to write a letter to the editor of the Times. Getting published won't be easy, but it's possible, now more so than ever, since the paper has given this issue publicity. So if you want to write, here's your chance. They have an e-mail address for submissions:
letters at nytimes dot com (munged to prevet spam)
I wasn't able to locate a postal address on the Web site for letters to the editor, but maybe someone else will have that available and post it here.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
This SSSCA is certainly legislatable, but hardly enforceable. Ya can't stop people from owning compilers. The US IT economy would stifle itself so fast that foreign heads would spin, no other country would enact similar legislation, and the US IT infrastructure would collapse. That's IFF they actually tried to enforce such legislation.
I do not fear this legislation. Part of me hopes the bozos actually pass it and enforce it, even though it would make me a criminal, just for the sheer fun of watching all the resultant confusion build up as various deadlines approach.
I gather one of the goals for terrorists from Timothy McVeigh to al Qaeda is to sow so much confusion that the target system gets more and more restrictive and finally collapses from within. Sort of like carrying any argument to the extreme just to show how ridiculous it is. This SSSCA is just the ticket to make a mockery of all intellectual property.
Infuriate left and right