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CBDTPA Finds A Champion In the House
pshoemaker writes: "Wired is reporting that House member Adam Schiff of Burbank is seeking a co-sponsor for his House version of Hollings' CBDTPA. His 'Dear Colleagues' letter lays-out the same inspired thinking: that without copy protection there can be no broadband entertainment." Another reader suggests: "Be sure to also check out who's been paying him just so you know who it is he's representing..."
Oh, so THAT's why every single new movie release has its own full multimedia web site to promote it.
And here I thought they were hesitant because the uneducated are typically afraid of what they don't understand.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
...to my representatives on this one. Long, detailed letters, in fact. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Make sure that they're well and fully aware of how their own constituents feel on the issue.
Is this really a surprise, then?
Most of the time, I'm against representatives doing things like this, but I think he's one of the rare few who can claim he's representing his constituents...
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
NO!!!! Why Adam Schiff, why? I know times have probably been tough since you lost your job as DA of New York City, but please don't sell out to the Hollywood lobby!
Quick, someone get Ben Stone and Jack McCoy on the phone and tell them to talk some sense into the old man.
It hurts when I pee.
Don't email, don't write -- FAX!
h tml and fill out the brief form.
Go to this site: http://www.digitalconsumer.org/cbdtpa/cbdtpa-inf.
It includes a sample letter that you can editor accordingly and then it will automatically fax it to your government representatives, encouraging them to act against this bill (and potential law!).
I Personally Recommend monolinux
For anybody to lazy (or paranoid) to click on the link:
March 27, 2002
Promote Consumer Use of Broadband and Prevent Digital Piracy!
Dear Colleague
I invite you to join me in supporting legislation that would
encourage demand for broadband Internet service and protect
creative enterprise from the threat of digital piracy.
The promise of the Internet has not been fully met. While
consumers have unprecedented access to information resources
on the web, there is still a demand for more. Congress has
recently debated ways to better serve our constituents by
improving access to broadband Internet service, yet the demand
for this technology is severely lacking. This is simply
because consumers can't get what they want -- high quality
digital content like movies, music, and video games.
The reason for this has become very clear. Our nation's
creative enterprises have been hesitant to offer their
products over the Internet out of fear of piracy --
intellectual theft. And their concerns are justified. The
movie studios estimate that they lose over $3 billion annually
to piracy, yet private industry has stalled in developing
technology to prevent this illegal activity.
I would like to direct your attention to the following op-ed
written by Michael Eisner, Chairman and CEO of Disney.
Mr. Eisner points out the profound historical significance of
intellectual property rights and draws on one early and
aggressive advocate of protecting such property rights, the
16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
I plan to introduce legislation that would safeguard digital
content by spurring the rapid development of copyright
protection technology. Similar legislation, S. 2048, has been
introduced in the Senate by Senators Hollings, Stevens,
Inouye, Breaux, Nelson and Feinstein. I believe this is a
necessary step and I encourage you to join me in this effort.
If you have any questions or would like to become an original
cosponsor, please contact me or Jen Briggs of my staff at
5-4176.
Sincerely,
Adam B. Schiff
Member of Congress
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Well in California you can help unelect Feinstein. I wrote in a protest and got back a letter saying how important copy protection was. May she d**p d**d of a f**l disease.
You fill in the blanks, and the worse your guesses the closer you will be to my wishes.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Every day, they seem to be pushing this more and more.
People if you are going to stop this you better act FAST!!! we DONT have much time.
I listed ways to stop this in a previous slashdot post
Its time to take action, meaning schedule a mass protest, not a petition, but protests, on many college campus's, highschools, and online.
If this law passes we are fucked, open source will be killed, the internet will be practically killed, broadband wont be adopted, and neither will digital tv, people will be busy using VCRs, and busy on their 56k to check their email since besides trading files theres no reason to ever upgrade to broadband.
Previous post on slashdot, FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!
INFORM --- Tell the public what the SSSCA is!
Explain ---- Tell the public whats wrong with the SSSCA
Results ---- Tell them what will happen if the SSSCA passes, and what kinda society it will lead to if the trend continues
Solution ---- Tell them how to stop the SSSCA, tell them a msg similar to what I'm telling you, explain to them not to just stop the SSSCA, but to promote absolute freedom of speech online, meaning no one can control what you do with your computer, if the RIAA and MPAA does not want us to pirate stuff, they should make it impossible to pirate or undesirable to do so, if this means lowering the price so its not worth buying a CD or DVD burner, or if this means locking the DVD up, they have options, what they shouldnt do is take away our freedoms, its like saying you cant use your hands to draw a copy of a picture you like.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
errr he is from Burbank..the home of half the bloody movie/TV studios in existence. The amount payed to him is minor considering he does represent their district. I am from California and would happily see this guy sweeping streets but can't find fault with him accepting money from his home district. Now the "REAL" Senator from Disney, that goofy guy from Carolina, should NOT be deriving money from the movie industry at such a rate but, he has things to offer them and is in FACT being bought...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Why is it *their* Internet all of a sudden? Just downloading an ISO of Redhat 7.2 takes a miniature eternity on my gigabit backbone with 100mbits to the desktop, because that's not all *my* traffic - can you imagine the sudden and continuous drain in bandwidth when anyone in my subnet decides to turn on the tube to watch Glitter?
Okay... bad example...
You hear about telecomm companies putting their own special networks together all the time. The entertainment industry needs to do the same. HDTVNet (or whatever they call it) can then be tightly controlled, with high-security copy protection devices all down the line, right down to the decoder on the TV. Make them completely inaccessable to the desktop - freaked out connectors, bizzare syncing and decoding strategies, whatever. No special legislation required - just technological consistancy in their own products.
The reasons they don't do this, of course, is two-fold. One, it would be hideously expensive (although will all that piracy suddenly gone, they'd suddenly be overflowing with revenue... right?), and two...
Well, I can't think of anybody who would go for it. Re-purchase every bit of audio/video equipment I own just to conform to the new services? I don't think so.
Of course, it's not like I won't have to do that in the next few years anyway... Thanks, incompatable HDTV standards!
GMFTatsujin
Only 60,000 of us would have to pitch in $5 to make our very own pro-digital consumer senator a reality.
Matt
this, or are they that corrupt ?
The 'industry' estimates it lost 3 billion...based on WHAT ?!?!?! Figures they had surgically removed from Sen. Hollins A$$ ??
What is the basis for this absolute dollar value ??
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
So tell me... What makes more sense? The CBDTPA? or this?
Can cartoons vote in California? It might explain some things...
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
When will people get it through their thick skulls that petitions dont work.
Lets look at DMCA, did petitions stop it? Hell no.
Lets look at Napster, did petitions save Napster? Hell no.
Why isnt marijuana legal? People have been petitioning for it by the millions for 20 years or more now.
Face it, Petitions have never solved a thing.
Tabacco was made Legal because people didnt obey the laws, civil disobedience by the millions, and there arent enough jails to enforce it, alcohol? Alcohol was illegal once, it took the mafia and illegal activities, corruption and control of the government through the mafia, essentially terrorism tactics to make alcohol legal.
SSSCA, you arent going to stop this unless you fight, you dont have to be violent to fight, you can fight with your intelligence, programmers should write unstopable programs like freenet, rich people should support lobby groups on our side, people who are good writers should write books, articles, editorials, and give as much media attention as possible to this, public speakers should host rallies along with musicians at local colleges where other intelligent people are. Contact churches, libaries, civil rights groups, and convince them how important it is to protect our rights. Contact patriotic groups, anti government groups, and anarchist groups and explain to them how the government is trying to control them not just offline but online as well.
Contact the elderly, contact teachers, and highschool students, explain to all of these groups whats going on, hang posters in front of highschools, near libraries, near sam goody and HMV, Blockbuster and other stores which tell people about the SSSCA, use clever images, such as comparing the SSSCA to Nazism, Explain how unfair it is, use images of jail and rich CEOs, show images of locks on their computer.
If all of the people reading this did this in their towns seperately, meaning true activism on a LARGE scale, Well its simple to break it down into parts.
INFORM --- Tell the public what the SSSCA is!
Explain ---- Tell the public whats wrong with the SSSCA
Results ---- Tell them what will happen if the SSSCA passes, and what kinda society it will lead to if the trend continues
Solution ---- Tell them how to stop the SSSCA, tell them a msg similar to what I'm telling you, explain to them not to just stop the SSSCA, but to promote absolute freedom of speech online, meaning no one can control what you do with your computer, if the RIAA and MPAA does not want us to pirate stuff, they should make it impossible to pirate or undesirable to do so, if this means lowering the price so its not worth buying a CD or DVD burner, or if this means locking the DVD up, they have options, what they shouldnt do is take away our freedoms, its like saying you cant use your hands to draw a copy of a picture you like.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I dont see you guys trying to stop this.
I dont see you all protesting in the streets on a massive scale, because thats what its going to take. Once it passes your protests wont work, it will be War on Sharing.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
3) Everybody thinks that their product is 10 x cooler the second it's on the Internet. They think that they are 1337 h@x0rs or something. They think that sales will go through the roof because they are a .com.
.bombs? Yeah, but with senators in their pocket and the pocketbooks of all of their consumers to spend, they can make a bad business model work if they want to.
...perhaps they should have learned something from all of the
Also, I don't think that setting up a network is outside of their reach, I think that most people don't seem to understand that there are networks outside of the internet, or that you could use a web site to control a tv show shown on a diff network. Oh well, so much for infrastructure.
lets flood the local news papers with letters. If Hemos is still reading this, why not post up a list of emails of news people, lets get this issue on the Oreilly factor, MSNBC, and as many highly watched shows as possible, also lets write as many news papers as possible, how about a list.
While i dont think petitions will stop this, if you are going to petititon, do it seriously, a flood of letters to hundreds of diffrent news sites and shows may work.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
From what I have read, he doesn't understand this bill fully. He's just taking it on fait that it will do what the movie companies tell him. If he actually read it and saw that it would not only be impossible to enforce, but it seems morally inexcusable from a business sense to force the technology sector to come up with methods to save content from the evils of the consumer. Then again, he may have read it and just truly agrees with the movie companies. Coming from that area in CA - I guess I could understand that. +sigh+
But I'm preaching to the choir...
There were 60 million users of napster, 80 million users of fasttrack, and most likely hundreds of millions of file sharing people from hundreds of countries.
Do you think it matters? EVEN if 90 percent of the people on the net share files, and even if 90 percent of the people who got broadband got it so they could share files, THEY DONT GIVE A DAMN
These guys just want to pass the law because it benifits them, disney and others have bribed them with money or gifts, most likely enough money to ruin their polticial career and they obviously dont care.
IF they cared, they wouldnt be changing the name of the bill and using weird names to make it difficult for you to protest.
You act like this is a democracy, as if every voice counts, surprise this is a republic, if every voice counted, BUSH would not be president right now, after all he didnt win the popular vote, and he didnt really win the recount either, but the electoral college (THE JUDGE) and the system made him president.
Its not what the people want that matters, its what the special interest groups, politciians, court system, and powerful elite whats that matter.
The only way to get what you want, is to fight for it, asking for it wont get you anywhere.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I have yet to see this covered in any meaningful way in the popular media (CNN/ABC/MSNBC, etc)
Does anyone have links to existing news coverage?
How can we get this to be covered at all? Suggestions / links / emails?
In a letter to the Washington Post, Jack Valenti wrote:
My unpublished reply:
Mr. Valenti's claim that "not much (legal) material is out there ... to create the need for a cable modem or a digital subscriber line (DSL)" is laughable.
Obviously, Mr. Valenti hasn't attempted to download a 650 MB Debian Linux Install CD.
Perhaps Adobe's After Effects video editing software is more his style. A 30-day trial version weighs in at a hefty 109 megabytes.
To put it in perspective: downloading this would take over four and a half hours on a "normal 56K computer modem" -- if you're lucky enough to live in a neighbourhood with good phone lines. If, like most people, Mr. Valenti is stuck at 33.6 Kbps, it would take closer to eight hours to finish. That's enough time to watch Erich von Stroheim's Greed in its entirety.
Paul
USE BUSH!!!!
Even if you don't like him, use him as a second line of defense. This abomination has to be signed to become law...
Write (or fax) to Bush, and tell him to actively oppose this legislation, and to veto it if it gets passed.
Use his biases against him:
"Unwarranted intrusion of government into business"
Supports the "Liberal" Hollywood Elite at the expense of our innovative tech sector
He himself said that "I prefer innovation to litigation".
Even if you don't personally believe these things, remember that he supposedly does. Use his biases to our advantage! The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Petitions do nothing, writing people who dont listen to you will do nothing, you have to show them you disagree, begging gets you no where
/sarcam **
** sarcasm **
Thats right, we'll stop at nothing less than violent overthrow of the government. Or maybe we can get a few hundred of our closest friends to run for congress and win. Or maybe we can leave and start our own country. With blackjack and hookers!
**
Or maybe those of us who are not listed in Forbes or People can attack the bill by spreading knowlege and letting our congress people know that our money and our votes will go elsewhere.
You sir, are an dumbass....
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Don't be so sure about that... maybe he hasn't gotten money yet... but if he pushes this bill through, I'll wager that the entertainment industry will be lining up to hand him checks.
"You know, congressman, it sure would be helpful to us (wink wink) if you could sponsor this legislation. It's for the good of the country! Think of the children! We owe it to our ancestors!"
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
I think the words of the immortal Thinkgeek can pretty much sum up the /. reader's attitudes towards 90% of senators.
"Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script"
Where? When? Set it up! Make it happen!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Following on the heels of the CBDTPA or SSSCA, the vast tentacle of our great leader is set to launch the Comprehensive Tract Harassing Unclean Loathsome Hacker Underground or CTHULHU.
Referred to as an indispensable requirement of all future digital broadcasts, especially sporting events, popular HBO series, and anything with nude girls in it, the representative from the north-eastern Massachusetts district, Nyarla Thotep(D), went on to state that, "...all cryptic (sic) messages can only be protected by this new law."
Speaking in a private symposium on the campus of the Miskatonic University Thotep went on to say that premature revelation of encrypted messages constituted the greatest threat to our future.
Opponents of CTHULHU point out that Thotep has long been known as a spokesman for the secretive author of the soon to be published Necronomicon, but Thotep has put off any investigation of her backers for now saying that "Soon the truth will rise from the sea drowning out the unbelievers!". When called for elaboration, Thotep refused additional comment.
However, it misses out on one point that I think is a valuable addition to the letter. If you are going to send a letter to your reps, please consider adding this!! Here's what I wrote...
If everyone has suggestions, please post them there!
Why bother.
"This is simply because consumers can't get what they want -- high quality digital content like movies, music, and video games."
I think the consumers that want to get movies and music get them easily.
It is quite telling that Rep Schiff does not say the true purpose of the bill, but chooses instead to conceal it in a broadband promotion language.
Lay off the crackpipe.
There are no Napster people protesting anything. What you are calling a protest is, in fact, illegal copying. People know it too. They don't care. Just like they don't much care about driving 65 when the road is posted 55. But they're not going to go to the polls to get these things they see as petty crimes made legal.
Even if you *could* get the non-voting half of the nation to vote, they'd just end up voting for the lesser of two evils because they don't want the other guy to win. And in this case, they'll probably vote for putzes like Hollings, because he's a Democrat which means he is probably a feminist, pro-choice, supportive of gay rights, not fanatically pro-military, sensitive to racial issues, and says lots of nice things about spending money on schools and helping people live when they're out of work (those are just examples, real liberals aren't fooled by the Democrats, we recognize that the root of the word "liberal" is the Latin "liber", "free").
Protest away, but you're not going to be changing the world by ranting in the streets-- you're better off communicating as directly as possible with your elected officials (and don't start at the top, start at the bottom, the people at the top do go to party events, and they do have colleagues). I doubt most Americans are going to understand this one until it's too late. These are the same people who generally support the war on drugs, because how can you possibly support drugs, unless your doctor gives them to you so that you can cope with being so unhappy about your pathetic American life.
You really want to make a difference? Run for office yourself.
I do not have a signature
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. This has nothing to do with party affiliation! There are Republicans backing it and Democrats opposing it. It's all about money, not politics.
And in case anyone is wondering why this is so important, it's bacause you cannot count on one party or another to be for or against this. If you don't understand the dynamics of this, you can't fight it effectively.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
The abortion right, the gay marriage right,(the end of slavery took a complete war) the vietnam war protests,
all of these required marching in the street, people get beat up and hosed down on national TV, and all it did was make more people join in.
Believe me, if a few million people are in washington protesting and marching down the street people begin to notice, more people begin to march, more people begin to notice, it becomes a trend that no one can ignore.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
instead of writing congress, try writing the media.
Media contacts
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
In the interests of maintaining "closer ties to the community" (ie getting reelected), many Senators and Representatives have local offices in their home districts/states.
How hard really is it for you to look up their number/address, and pay them a phone call/visit? When you call up, ask questions about the bill, is: "I have certain reservations about this bill", or "could you clarify what exactly this clause means, as the way I read it, it could inadvertently affect the sale of software by small businesses."
The staffer will generally be clueless, relying on public statements by the senator/representative to phrase a reply. If no statement exists, this means you have an opening to shape that future statement, by having them take down some of your concerns to be addressed by your congresscritter.
For example, I called an office of one of the CBDTPA co-sponsors, asked for clarification on the bill, and failing that, asked them to take down a few concerns I had. I intend to follow up on this later, maybe with another phone call, or a personal visit to the local staffer's office.
Calling/faxing/mailing, just before a vote is pretty much useless, since they know it's a spur of the moment, inflamed by pseudo-grassroots thing - it doesn't matter for squat. However, if we get involved in the actual debate, and make our presence known then, it will be much easier to get staffers and representatives on our side, informed on the issues that we want addressed. The best way to get involved is to touch base with them, in an interactive manner, before they get swamped and start blowing people off.
It's sad sad sad. It's like watching somone dig his own grave, but not knowing it's for him. Broadband is the very LAST thing the Distribution Industry wants, becuase it will allow non "approved" artists an easy and quick way to compete with them. What they DO want is a huge stumblng block in the computer indistry that will slow down the adoption and progress of new technology.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
"instead of writing congress, try writing the media."
I agree with you 100%. We're a small group here, and what we think will only count if we convert others to our side. Writing to the media is a great way to do that. In fact, I'd posted a list of newspaper directories to another post in this thread. Here they are again.
And I'll issue my challenge again. If everyone here will walk away from Slashdot long enough to write to your local newspaper, we can start to make a difference. No, not all letters will get published. Maybe most of them won't. But someone there has to read them, and they'll be educated in the process, so they will be more familiar with the issue when they hear about it again.
Just one letter. That's all I ask. If you want to write more, that's great, but at least write one.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
You're exactly right. Although the politicians like to paint anti-globalization protesters as a bunch of troublemakers, these protests seem to have started an undercurrent of dissent about the supposed benefits of globalization. Getting an issue in the media seems to get people thinking about an issue that they never even knew existed.
What I'd like to know, and what everyone here needs to consider, is how long it was that the anti-globalization folks were discussing this on the Net before the issue went mainstream. I wasn't involved in those online discussions, so I can't say, but this is an important issue to consider. Right now, the CBDTPA isn't mainstream, not at all. Our first priority has to be to make it that way.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
At least your opionion is informed (at a minimum you clicked on the links and read something) - But your interpretation is wrong. While its 1/12 of his funding, his funding comes from a wide variety of places, each wanting something in return, and there is not much if any overlap. You said it yourself, the 3 groups above #4 have nothing to do with TV/Movies/Music. Therefore no one group out there is contributing more money to Schiff and representing an opposing view. If one had, they would be above #4 on the list and he would be sponsoring a totally different bill and writing a totally different letter to his colleagues.
As for old people... well, I don't know about you, but very few of the very elderly people I know careed a great deal about aquiring wealth - if they already had it, there was no point in getting more, and if they didn't it was too late. They were more interested in preparing a legacy, and a great work of art certainly is that.
I think it's a fallacy that you need long term copyright to get people to create, anyway - in fact, it's obviously false. It's astonishingly difficult to make any real amount of money by creating art, unless you're willing to sign all those rights over to a corporation, who are the only entities that really gain from long term copyrights.
You know, the first time I heard comedian George Carlin say during a performance that "this country was bought and sold a long time ago", I laughed it off as no big deal; an idea from an individual trying to entertain. When the DMCA came around, I thought, "well it's ok, it'll have amendments attatched to it to ensure nothing like the original actually makes it to law". The DMCA is now used to prosecute law-abiding people now. Now we come to the CBDTPA.
;) ) No, the war is fine. The support for the war and the President has been great. But they still won, in that they managed to allow our most basic freedoms to be either taken away or put up for review.
By this point, I've lost virtually all hope for the government of my great country. I've watched as my rights have been stripped away at an unbelievable rate in the last 5 years, and it leads me to believe that all we've fought for since breaking away from Brittain in the 18th century is almost gone. In the wake of Sept 11th, our privacy has been ripped away, our innermost secrets about our supposedly private lives demanded by our government. Communications are snooped, our own spies have turned their eyes and ears on us, and our government, while becoming more secretive, has simultaneously informed us all that we, as of now, are no longer allowed secrets; at least not from them.
And now we come to the CBDTPA, formerly known as the SSSCA. Assuming this bill makes it into law without serious modifications, we will soon see the end to entertainment as we know it. But much, much worse, we will finally know for certain that our government has been purchased from us while we weren't looking - sold to a few large corporations who will, from now on, dictate when, how, why, and if (yes if) we may lead our lives.
This sounds so outrageously apocolyptic that many reading this will have already dismissed my posting as meaningless. However, consider this for a moment - if I told you 5 years ago that you could be jailed for informing an audience of people about a security vulnerability without ever having helped to or supplied the tools to exploit that vulnerability, would you have laughed? For anyone who works in law, if I had told you 5 years ago that making a speech that was neither slanderous nor the cause of (in the words of the Supreme Court) 'clear and present danger' (such as yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre) would cause a person to be arrested, would you not have pointed out all the reasons why this could never happen in America? How about this - if I told you 10, 20, 50 years ago that a person could be arrested and jailed for nearly four years without a trial, would you have not been outraged? (Regardless of whether he was right or wrong or whatever, he is supposed to be protected under the Constitution, and therefore is supposed to have the right to a "speedy trial".)
Now what really concerns me here is the fact that when you look at the people in Congress who are the most supportive of the CBDTPA, you find that they are the same people who receive the most money from the entertainment industry. "This makes sense" you say, but my question is simply this - when an elected official passes bills contrary to the public interest and desire to serve the ends of his campaign contributors, how is this any different than a judge taking money from a defendant in exchange for a lighter sentence? Are they not both saying, "if you give me alot of money, I will use my power in office to ensure your interests are furthered, regardless of the public interest."? In this case, the CBDTPA continues where the DMCA left off, stripping away at what has been declared by the courts to be 'fair use'. This serves only to maintain the profit margains of the entertainment industry, while forcing yet more money out of the pockets of consumers. This most certainly doesn't help more than a few people in all of South Carolina, and certainly helps almost no minorities anywhere. Yet a democratic (democrats generally champion the rights of minorities and individuals) Senator from SC has been attempting to force this bill into law, even threatening to use his position on the appropriations and budget committees to kill funding for anyone who stands in his way. Why would a democrat from SC want to throw every bit of weight he has into such an anti-individual, pro-corporation bill? Money. The entertainment industry has, year after year, been one of Senator Ernest Fritz Hollings biggest campaign contributors. This is a simple equation folks, money for laws. You give me money, I give you laws. If a group of people raised more money for Hollings' next campaign than the entertainment industry, we could get the DMCA repealed in no time and be on our way to getting whatever laws we want on the books. This, ladies and gents, is completely pathetic. Someone ought to make an Ebay user name EFHollings and start auctioning off laws in a dutch auction; as it's what he does every day.
While this annoyed me when I first realized it, it didn't really hit me nearly so hard as when I read this latest article, and others like it, outlining the support for this bill throughout Congress. When you look at the people pushing this bill, one by one you see they're getting most if not nearly all of their money from the entertainment industry. Carlin was right, this country is being bought and sold. The worst part is, the average person is either too stupid, too ignorant, or too apathetic to see where all this is heading, and just how far it's come in the last 5 years.
It doesn't get much better when you look elsewhere either. In the wake of the absolute horror of September 11th, I see something even worse washing up behind it. They won. That's right, I mean the terrorists; they won. What could possibly make an American who loves his country and wants to see it become the greatest unified nation in history say such a thing? Policies, laws, etc, etc, etc. It's not the war, mind you; I'm all for wiping out all who had anything to do with what happened that day or would like to see things like it happen in the future. And I'm certainly all for turning bin Laden over to the Israelies so they can have fun with him. (Our laws just don't allow the things I want to see happen to him; they on the other hand, have no problem turning his existance into the closest thing to hell on Earth any twisted imagination could possibly come up with... gotta love Israeli intelligence
Who would have objected to a strip search every time you walk into the airport 5 years ago? My goodness, such an idea would have brought outrage and shock. But since September 11th, people want to feel warm and cozy and safe, and they seem to think all this new security, like this x-ray machine that allows screeners to do a virtual strip search of you. Most people seem to be under the dillusion that in 10 years it'll all be back to normal and we'll all go about like we do now. I can only hope so, but once this technology is widely available and fairly cheap, I can see everyone from government to corporations, to schools putting this in and refining it further. Personally, I'm extremely offended by the idea of any fool off the street (yes, the security personnel at airports are usually but not always lacking in the mental dept.) being able to get a pretty graphic shot of my entire body. Why? Well, invasion of privacy is the easy one. But how about this one? In this country, we work under a system that you are innocent until proven guilty. Now, in this situation, I fully understand that increased security must allow for a bit of elasticity here. In this case, feel free to xray the hell out of my luggage until my underwear bakes if it makes you happy. As for me, I'll happily go through your metal detector if it makes you happy; it'll certainly make me a little happier to see everyone else going through it. And feel free to run my name against a list of known terrorists. If something comes up funny, pull me aside and we'll have a chat. With none of this do I have a problem. Want to put armed air marshals on every flight? By all means, hell, I'll pay a little extra on my ticket if it ensures there's a couple on my plane. Just make sure they're not psychotic, stupid, incapable or unwilling to perform as needed, and not themselves terrorists. I'm sure there are many other wonderful security ideas we can come up with that don't involve Sgt Ricky and Officer Mickey staring at my unclothed body when all I want to do is go to Cali for a holiday trip.
Other examples of this include carnivore, which was pushed up after Sept 11th, and this stuff I keep hearing about the government using trojans to extract (or possibly inject) incriminating evidence from computers of US citizens. I'm reasonably confident that my paranoid security setup will insulate me fairly well from this silly toy (I hear it could have been better coded by a 12yo) but for all the clueless users out there (5 9's of them.. ie. 99.999%) I feel it's an outrageous violation of their right to privacy and their presumed innocence. Not to mention the fact that the potential for abuse is so extreme, it boggles the mind as to how in the world this wouldn't get all FBI/CIA/NSA folks having anything to do with this arrested immediately. You can hack into my computer and plant evidence and I'll go to jail for 10+ years, but if I hack into your computers and do nothing more than type ls/dir for 6 hours over and over, I'll go to jail for 10+ years. Hmm... do as I say, not as I do?
So in the last 5 or so years, we've seen fair use, freedom of speech, presumed innocence, privacy, and many, many other basic Constitutionally guaranteed rights disappear. And now it looks like our government officials could be spending half their time in eBay private auctions to see who gets the laws they wanted for christmas.
I think I'll move to Holland now. Dutch people are pretty cool.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
..is that the very products they peddle are NOT integral parts of our lives. Their output is something I (we ALL) can do without. I have more CDs and VHS tapes than I know what to do with, and quite frankly, I am ashamed I bought as many as I did. But what Valenti, Eisner and others fail to realize is, WE DON'T HAVE TO HAVE THEIR "content." It's not food, water, or shelter they are providing. They should think about this before they start trying to strangle the life out of their ONLY customer base.
...now as long as I don't break my glasses like Burgess Meredith, I'll be fine. *GRIN*
I can think of plenty of things to do which don't involve movies or music. With the books I've accumulated from book clubs and second-hand shops (the "I'm gonna get to those someday" pile of books), I could read 1 book a week and probably die before I finished them all. I have enough music that I can cycle through the CDs until hell freezes over before I listen to a CD twice. *grin*
So you see, I am certainly writing my senators, congressmen, local newspapers, and just about any person who has an interest (or even unintentional interest) in this legislation. I am not optimistic I am getting through to ANYONE , though. So, if this passes, I have my old computers, my old TV, my old VCR, my old Dreamcast, and all those "unprotected" books, CDs and classic movies. I just won't buy any more crap. So what? It's not hurting ME that I don't buy their junk.
---- James
Keep in mind that these contributions are hard monies.
"Play by our rules and we'll run issue ads and give tons more in soft money."