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Cringely On Civil Disobedience
Sauron23 writes "Robert Cringely over at PBS has his usual weekly Pulpit out. This weeks it's a follow up to last weeks discussion of one of the enforcers of the DMCA, BayTSP. He clarifies some of the issues surrounding a planned bust in October for P2P users sharing movies and makes perhaps an unusual request for civil disobediance from P2P users. I don't know what 10 million pirated copies of "Debbie does Dallas" would be worth either Bob. Probably more than the courts would want to handle. Worth the read." Some of the stronger parts of the column, IMHO, is the commentary on the e-mails people sent in.
This kind of civil disobedience is NOT going to be very effective.
With the civil rights movement of the 1960's, civil disobedience was very vocal and right in the public eye- this, on the other hand, will hardly be noticed by most people.
A more effective way to show your displeasure with the current legislation may be to protest in "real life" rather than in cyberspace.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
I realize everyone in /. is crapping themselves over the DMCA, but does every two paragraph article about need to be front page material?
If you want to learn more about the real enforcement, read here.
blarg.
Some how I dont think anyone is really going to be impressed by a bunch of nerds holding a virtual "sit in" on a P2P network.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This follows the simple principal that if you or I drive 100 miles-per-hour on the highway, we get a ticket, but if EVERYONE drives 100 miles-per-hour, they change the speed limit.
Everyone isn't going to do this. No way. I totally agree with his analysis of the problem, but unless some critical mass of lawbreakers were to be reached (chances being somewhere between fat and slim) you'd get the same result as you would if you were driving down the interstate in a pack of cars all going 100 mph: one guy would get nailed by the highway patrol and the rest would be ignored. The guy who pulled you over wouldn't care about the ones who got away... he got YOU, the rest are "job security".
But don't I WISH this would work!
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
What cringely suggests is great. I am a huge proponent of organizing to oppose certain laws that adversely affect me. How do you organize people to do something like that? If one was to become a leader in an organization that takes non-violent action against these laws, isnt it likely that our government would start to watch our every move and make our life hell? Couldnt anti-DMCA activity be perceived by some as terrorist activity. I would be reluctant to pro-actively speak my mind on this issue for fear of repercussions. There is a lot of money out there that wants these laws in place. Im sure they have some clout to ruin my life if I speak out.
--------- I have no signature
--If everyone hates the DMCA so much, why not actually try this?
;)
Short answer : because noone will want to be the first.
That's a nice little thing with human beings. Group actions are always welcome and overhyped and you always find everybody is ready to do it... until someone _has_ to do it, of course, and then the first one to actually act suddenly finds himself all alone while the others are watching "so ? did it work ? is he in jail ?".
Cringely is clearly aware of that, just like he knows the first reaction of many ppl is to flamemail him instead of getting something done about the problem at hand. Maybe he's trying to give us some kind of electroshock...
I may seem overpessimistic, but in that kind of action people are usually just all talk. Of course, I we had a leader things would be different, but clearly as a community we would never agree on a leader (flamewars, yes, leadership, no
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Money got this law passed and money will make it go away.
Counter the RIAA's dollars by making a contribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and earmark the donation for fighting the DMCA.
Take some of that money you're saving by not buying CD's and poney it up to those than can help.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
I think this DMCA craziness will stop with one "scapegoat": take a cute, innocent and doe-eyed teenager. Let's name her Jane Doe.Imagine said teenager has downloaded her very first MP3 Britney Spears song (shudder) from Kaazaa.
Have 20 armed-to-the-teeth RIAA goons kick down the door of her bedroom, drag her to court and prosecute her for 20 years for music piracy. If some high-powered RIAA lawyer claims US$ 20 Mil. for IP theft, from her hapless parents, that's even better. Lock Jane Doe in prison. Cut to Jane's parents crying over both the tragic destiny of their daughters and over the lawyer's bill.
Then, plaster her (cute, innocent, doe-eyed) face all over the net and all over CNN and every other TV network in the world and have Linus Torvalds himself explain that "this terrible injustice could happen to your teenager! And all this just for downloading a music file!!".
Then stand back, relax, and watch the public outrage, roused by the suffering of poor cute little Jane Doe, sweep away the RIAA, the MPAA, the DMCA and whatever else is bothering you.
This is very effective. But not very nice for the poor "Jane Doe"...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If you are someone that WISHES that his suggestion could work, but isn't going to perform civil disobediance for one reason or another, then try this:
Think of the time it would take to find and download this movie, and instead spend half that time writting a letter to your representative.
If you've already written your representative, then write somebody else.
In the article it talks about the company hiding behind a PO box because of 'death threats'. Well, I wonder if they know that you can walk into the post office in question and tell them that the PO is being used for business and ask them for the forwarding address. They will give it to you. Ive done it before when trying to get an answer about a product that was being advertised thru a PO in my local city.
I just joine and put my money where my mouth, err, keyboard is. EFF now has an additional $65 to help fight this crap.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in with an MP3 of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-DMCA Movement, and all you got to do to join is rip it the next time it come's around on the guitar.
I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd
Civil disobience has its place, however his suggestion doesn't reall work in the long run...
all one will really accomplish here is get fined, possibly have their equipment conficated...
and end up with a criminal record, this will not change anything...!
The Question becomes what will change things...?
What I think...give this issue about another year or so and its going to start to divide people....
Digital Rights are going to end up being an issue like Abortion rights, what I would like to see is it reach the level of slavery. We all know what happened then, and while I don't advocate that kind of outcome, not by a long shot...I think it needs to reach that kind of level of awareness in peoples minds.
The corporations need a wake up call....
Organize a strike against the offices of big music/movie studios...block the entrances so they can't go to work, and produce thier wares then they will start to listen...you have to impact the bottom line in ways that have a public eye showing. No Vilolence people...I can't stress that enough, just protest.
You can't win through boycott either, because little suzy's parents are always going to buy her the next Disney DVD no mater what the issues...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
No, when the speed limit was 55 and everyone drove 70, the police could pull over anyone they disliked. They didn't try to pull over everyone all at once. But speed limits are very different than copyright laws. When some of us started driving 55 (I kept right), the road became dangerous and they had to raise the limit.
The DMCA is only selectively enforced already. We can't make them enforce it.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
The term civil disobedience was made popular through a speech by Henry David Thoreau which later influence MLK and Gandhi. Gandhi took a slightly different approach which he also gave a separate name.
The best way to explain civil disobedience is with the words of Thoreau himself:
"If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth. Certainly, the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring or a pulley or a rope or a crank exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy is worse than the evil. But if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another then I say break the law . Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I must do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn."
Obviously, not being able to copy movies surely doesn't constistute as making you "the agent of injustice to another." Instead of breaking the law, go out and vote for god's sake. How many of everyone hear complaining has 1) voted in the previous presidental and congressional elections and 2) attempted to educate fellow voters about the evils of laws like this?
If you really care, do something about it. Don't try to pretend that you are doing something about it by breaking the law.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
A fine idea, but not necessarily the moral one:
Something the **AA and all artists should keep in mind, for it is a battle we are losing ground to on many fronts:
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
BlackBolt
I believe he hit the nail on the head with:
/. does get mentioned it is usually with the word "hacker" or that some site was "slash dotted" like it had been subject to DOS on purpose. [and please let's not even start about the difference between "hacker", "cracker", "Blackhat", "Whitehat and "Grayhat"]
"But don't blame me for it. Most readers had never heard of BayTSP and had no idea how the DMCA was enforced until last week's column, "
We talk about the DMCA just about weekly here and in other forums, never seen by mainstream Americans. When
If we want to change the DMCA, we need to start talking to mom, dad and the neighbors. They need to understand that shortly they will be buying a CD of their favorite music that will only play on registered devices. That these devices will require replacement on a regular basis and they will will be paying for it. That the DVD they bought their grand-daughter forces her to watch more commericals before she can seen her movie, than a network Saturday morning. That the networks consider video taping programs theft and are working on making it illegal to fast forward through commericals and the device will prevent it and keeping the current vcr will not be an option.
They are soon going to hear Britney Spears tell them that downloading songs is a crime. They are going to hear it on TV and they are going to believe it is a crime (the distinction of ownership, and fair use is not going to be made by RIAA or MPAA).
We need Americans to start looking at the DMCA, the RIAA and the MPAA with the same eye they used when the tabacco companies told us "Smoking is not addictive." We need to do just as much to show them that if they are not concerned, their representatives will go to the mine and leave them with the shaft.
Let me be blunt. It is 2002. Post 9/11.
You cannot and will not get the PR and imagery of the 60's with the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam Protestors. Accept it and move on.
Today, DC was scheduled to be 'shut down' by IMF protestors. In the preceeding week, thanks to the media's constant drumming the the Chief's press conferences, John and Jane Public consider the protestors to be a big annoyance while driving to work, and thanks to the police for keeping those nasty people from disrupting my work routine.
If Cringley's so-called mass protest is pulled off, I suspect that the authorities will use the media to pass along the mantra: "These are hackers. These are thieves. These are bad people. We put bad people away."
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
It is a copyright infringement under the "traditional" copyright laws.
Sending all your friends a copy of DeCSS would be such violation. Or giving people on the street floppies with DeCSS - this one would be more public and likely to get some media and authorities' attention, which is the goal.
a link to debbie does dallas. I want every assistance to start my civil disobiedance
We should figure out some way to make our P2P apps notify the law enforcement whenever we've downloaded a copyrighted clip. I am thinking about some kind of plugin into Kazaa and gnucleus et al.
It would be such a massive wave of honesty that their mail server would probably collapse.
Stop the brainwash
I can't believe how many half crazed lunatics I've herd saying that if you don't like the law - vote and write your congressman. What a crock (thank God Rosa Parks didn't listen to that crap). Finally there is someone suggesting a workable solution, civil disobedience. This hits them right where it counts and gets straight to the core issue - it is wrong to derive value by restricting the copying practices of others.
I can't believe how many people actually try to treat copyrights like some kind of enlightened incentive property right. What a bunch of garbage - what if I came along and said "There is no incentive to grow cotton without slave properties, c'mon - don't you care about the farmers? If you free them, you're a dirty little thief!
Perhaps someone should write a Windows trojan that pops up a dialog box explaining the situation (and consequences) with "click Ok to engage in civil disobedience". The application would download some unauthorized digital content, then print the "Turning Yourself in to The Authorities" HOWTO.
slashdot broke my sig
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What I propose is a national gathering (perhaps in 2-4 locations simaltaneously) where folks can come together en masse to explicitly violate terms of the DMCA collectively in a public manner.
Would have modded you up, but then couldn't give you my email address =)
schlachtavius _at_ yahoo.com
Are you proposing it, or are you "proposing" it? Because if you're indeed proposing it, I'm in if it's well done, and I'll help organize. I'd probably be in for a California location. Perhaps we should throw up a site to direct people in this conversation to...
Okay, done. Check out the new Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy group, at yahoo groups. We can start there as a place to gauge interest in a national act of civil disobedience.
If you're an armchair activist for tech issues, consider subbing our new group. The first thing we're gonna do is figure out who we've got, what issues we want to focus on, and how we might stage a massive protest. So sign up! We need you! I'll bring the Hi-C and rice krispy treats.
--schlach
The difference is that Cringely isn't asking people to smash Citibank windows and throw smoke bombs at the cops. Playing a DVD on Linux (say) doesn't piss off the neighbors quite in the same way, surprisingly enough.
sulli
RTFJ.
Cringely's may be right in his suggestion that we may need mass protests in order to get rid of a totally absurd law that tilts the balance of power between producer and consumer completely in favour of the former. But if you think about it, it's also quite alarming that mass protests are needed to remind the government to work in the public interest and to consider one of the most important principles of democracy--freedom of communication--before writing a law.
A democracy should be a government of the people, by the people, for the people, as Lincoln put it. The US have gone quite a long way since then. It has gotten a government of the people, by the industry, for the economy.
Of course, the economy is very important. The primary needs of people are food and shelter. If those can be most efficiently provided by a healthy economy, and if a healthy economy can best be established by private companies that only need to act in the monetary interests of their shareholders, then humanity has found a nice trick to profit from greed instead of suffering from it, and it can be said that it is indeed in the best interest of the people to create a legal system that supports those institutions of canalized greed.
But greed in itself only respects the law of the jungle, and does not value democracy's principle of every citizen's vote being equally important. Instead of 'one man, one vote', private enterprise works according to the principle of 'one dollar, one vote', and where the dollar comes from, it really matters not.
Therefore, a democracy cannot work by allowing the economy's fuel, greed, to flow unchecked, because the even distribution of power among all people would merely become an even distribution of power among all people of equal wealth. And if democracy does not choose to distribute wealth evenly, its only other choice is to minimize the power of the wealthy over the poor.
To stay a democracy, I think that a government must at least respect these two laws: 1. guard the freedom and the vote of all citizens against the concentrations of (economic) power in society, and 2. serve the (economic) interests of the people, but only where that doesn't conflict with the first law.
The ordering principles of the economy do not lead toward democracy, they lead away from it. Democracy and economy can co-exist, but only if the former is in charge. It kills itself if the economy becomes more than means to an end.
The USA is definitely heading away from democracy, and it's not hard to see why. People who haven't heard from you won't vote for you. Reaching people through mass media costs money, even for politicians, so the politicians with the most money can reach the most people. In the US, that money may come from donations by private entities, making politicians susceptible to the obligations that tend to come with gifts. Of course, the bigger the gifts, the bigger the obligations.
Therefore, the system already leans towards 'one dollar, one vote', instead of actively working against it, as a democracy should, in order to maintain itself. Every law that favours existing economic interests at the cost of the freedom of the individual citizen is evidence of that. We know the DMCA and the CBDTPA as particularly painful examples, but they may not be the only ones.
The only way to defend our freedom is to fight for real democracy, the 'one man, one vote' type, and against its perverted brother, the 'one dollar, one vote' type. We can only do that only if we take every step necessary to remove the influence of money from the government.
Power alone already corrupts enough. Let's not add money to it!
All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)
What it needs is a series of PSAs (Public Service Announcements) or similar ads that reach the general public...
And how, exactly, do you expect to get the to the public? Buy airtime on TV networks? I'm sure Ted Turner would be all giddy to run your ads.
The problem with fighting the people that control the media in the US, is that they can keep you from getting your message out. And don't be fooled for a second that the news organizations will do much to help your cause. That's the one flaw in this whole protest the DMCA idea, the news people covering it. They are going to spin it right into the dirt. I can hear it now, "Today, 300 people were arrested for illegal hacking. They were protesting laws that were enacted to protect computer systems from the threat of cyberterrorism." at this point they roll the interview with the geekiest looking 16 year old they could find, who, of course, is missing half his brain that day and says, "We're fighting the Man! They're trying to keep us down! Hacking Rulez!" Back to the reporter, "This just goes to show how widespread this problem really is. The children of today belive that stealing and trespassing are ok, and its all being done on the internet." Camera pans protest area, "The protest was held here, and was largly a forum for trading illegally coppied CDs and movies. Just about anything you want could be had here, and of course, in the spirit of this hacking fest, it was all free." Roll film of someone handing out burned DVDs "Any film you wanted could be had either free or very cheap. We even found videos of movies that are still in theaters, like this summers blockbuster (insert big movie here)." Back to reporter, "in all this was less a protest and more a meeting place of pirates and hackers."
Back to the studio "Wow. Thank you Jan, amazing how so many young people can be so misguided. And in other news..."
I wish people luck, but, other than Alan Greespan, they are fighting one of the most powerful forces in the US today.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
It's been all over the news lately.
Lonely Mission Stephen Donaldson Wants to Stop the Sexual Abuse of Inmates by Inmates
Chicago Tribune (CT) - FRIDAY, June 23, 1995
In a comfortable downtown Chicago restaurant, Stephen Donaldson is suddenly silent, his face turning a deep red, his eyes staring at nothing. Donaldson is trying to describe something so horrible, so sickening, so painful that it almost destroyed him.
It is very difficult for me to talk about it, Donaldson says, taking a deep breath and pushing away his plate. This is a good way to lose an appetite.
It began Aug. 9, 1973, when Donaldson--by then a college graduate, Navy veteran, journalist and Quaker pacifist--participated in a pray-in at the White House on the 28th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.
Donaldson was arrested for trespassing and sent to the Washington, D.C., jail, where he refused on moral grounds to post a $10 bond. Donaldson believed the bail system discriminated against poor people and minorities.
At first, Donaldson was housed in a section of the jail reserved for older and non-violent detainess. He spent an uneventful week playing chess and talking with other inmates.
But Donaldson said jail officials began pressuring him to pay his bail and get out. I refused, Donaldson recalled. I said I was going to stay until trial.
Soon after, Donaldson was transferred into the jail's general population--something officials evidently hoped would force Donaldson to pay the bail. Almost immediately, a young inmate who introduced himself only as Baseball approached Donaldson and said a group of inmates wanted to talk to him about his politics.
Not suspecting any threat, Donaldson followed Baseball into the inmate's cell. Eight men were waiting for him.
They blocked the exit and told me to take my pants off, Donaldson recounted. I said, 'Like hell.' They picked me up and began ramming my head against the iron railing of the top bunk. They sat me down on the toliet seat and Baseball stood in front of me.
Baseball ordered Donaldson to perform oral sex. Donaldson refused. He started punching me, Donaldson said. There just wasn't any way out. I was totally surrounded. I was terrified. They said if I said anything about it, they would kill me. At that point I gave in.
Donaldson was forced to have oral sex with Baseball. A second inmate demanded anal intercourse. When Donaldson refused, the inmate tore off Donaldson's pants, shoved a pillow over his head so that he couldn't scream and raped him. It was excruciatingly painful, said Donaldson.
For the next four hours, several dozen inmates dragged Donaldson from cell to cell raping him.
Baseball collected two packs of cigarettes from each inmate who raped Donaldson. That was the price of sex in the D.C. jail. This is just the way we welcome new kids on the first night, one of the rapists told Donaldson.
You won't have to go through all this again. The inmate lied. The next night Donaldson was gang-raped again. It was devastating psychologically, says Donaldson, his voice almost inaudible. It seemed like I was going to spend the rest of my life . It was like the end of all hope.
Donaldson managed to escape his attackers and run to the nearest guard post, where he collapsed. The next day, after posting bail and being released, Donaldson held a press conference to tell the world about what had happened to him.
Since then, Donaldson hasn't stopped talking about the problem of prison rape, which he estimates affects more than 300,000 inmates each year at juvenile centers, adult jails and prisons nationwide.
As president of the New York City-based Stop Prisoner Rape--the nation's only advocacy group dedicated to the problem--Donaldson speaks to state legislators, law school students, psychologists, private attorneys, correctional officials, talk show hosts and just about anyone else who will listen.
Working out of his New York apartment on a shoestring budget, Donaldson corresponds with about 300 inmate victims of sexual assault and wrote a friend of the court brief in a landmark 1994 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that holds correctional officials liable if they fail to protect inmates against sexual assault. Donaldson also helped put together two groundbreaking audio tapes and manuals used in prisons to educate inmates and correctional officers about prison rape.
Hitting rock bottom
For Donaldson, it's been a lonely, difficult and bitter personal struggle. Donaldson, 48, has been imprisoned four times since his first jailing and raped repeatedly during each incarceration.
He dropped out of two graduate schools, bagged a promising journalism career and drifted from one job to another. He was briefly homeless, arrested twice for drug possession, started carrying a gun, and suffered through alternative bouts of rage, paranoia, helplessness and depression.
For years, Donaldson said his whole body would shake uncontrollably for no apparent reason. He suffered panic attacks when there were a lot of men around. He has suffered chronic insomnia and he attempted suicide in 1977.
Donaldson hit rock bottom in 1980 when he fired a handgun in the emergency room of a New York City hospital after he was denied treatment for a cut on his hand. Nobody was hurt, but Donaldson was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
He was released after serving four years, started therapy for rape trauma syndrome and eventually became a rape counselor. Donaldson also intensified his efforts to publicize the problem of prison rape--something he describes as his mission in life.
But that, too, has been a difficult and frustrating experience.
Despite the publicity his case initially generated--hearings were held in the District of Columbia City Council in the early 1970s--Donaldson says his words have fallen mostly on deaf ears. The D.C. jail guards, who he alleges allowed him to be raped, were never punished. And Donaldson can't remember how many letters he's written about prison rape to politicians and prison officials that were never answered.
The public also hasn't been too interested in inmates being sexually abused behind bars. And correctional officials nationwide tend to downplay sexual assault in prison, saying that sex behind bars is rare and more often than not consensual.
I don't want to minimize the problem, but I think that the number is relatively low, says Tom Metzger, speaking for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs 81 institutions with about 97,000 inmates. There are a number of individuals who suggest that this is a much greater problem than we think it is.
But research tends to support Donaldson's contention that prison sexual assaults are not infrequent. A 1982 study found a 14 percent sexual assault rate in one California prison, while a 1984 study reported that 28 percent of the inmates in six New York state prisons had been the target of sexual aggression at least once.
A 1994 study found that 22 percent of male inmates at three Nebraska prisons reported they had been pressured or forced into sexual contact ranging from grabbing the genitals to oral or anal sex. Only 29 percent of the Nebraska inmates who had been sexually assaulted said they reported the incident to prison staff, the study found.
This problem needs to be addressed, said Donaldson, who held a series of meetings in Chicago in May. Even those members of the public who don't care about the humane treatment of prisoners need to understand that prison rape is a serious public safety issue.
The rape system is an assembly line which takes young, non-violent newcomers and efficiently fills them with rage and a desire for revenge and then deposits them on our doorsteps, Donaldson added. If they've also been infected with HIV, we've given them a death sentence which they in turn will spread. That will come back to haunt us all.
---
Criminiologists say prison rape has been around as long as there have been prisons. It has nothing to do with sex. It's an act of aggression, power and control.
The whole idea is to force someone--to take away someone's manhood, said Wayne Wooden, who co-authored the California study and is coordinator of the Criminal Justice and Corrections program at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Calif.
Wooden said that new inmates usually are targeted by sexual predators within three days of the newcomers' arrival in prison. The predators, called jockers or studs, primarily go after young, attractive, heterosexual men.
Most of the victims are non-violent offenders who are unfamiliar with the Darwinian rules that govern life behind bars, criminologists say. And most of the targeted inmates are not affiliated with powerful street gangs that dominate life inside many prisons.
Wooden says that unless the targeted inmate fights back and wards off the attack, he will get a reputation that he can be taken and he will be victimized. Predators also use a variety of tricks to lure weaker inmates into sexual relationships.
As soon as a fish walks into prison, all the normal issues of survival come to the forefront, said Michael Mahoney, president of the John Howard Association, a Chicago-based prison watchdog group. Weaker inmates have to hook up with stronger inmates or with a gang and part of that may be for sex. In other situations, they just decide they are going to rip you off for sex.
The perfect target
In many ways, Donaldson was the perfect target. A middle class kid born into a military family in Norfolk, Va., Donaldson was valedictorian of his high school class in Long Branch, N.J., and a graduate of Columbia University.
Before he was jailed in D.C., Donaldson had had only one brush with the law: He had been jailed for one night in 1968 after being arrested for trespassing during an anti-war protest at Columbia. Donaldson was also very spiritual, placing his trust in God to protect him.
I was very naive. I wasn't prepared for anything monstrous like that, said Donaldson, referring to his jailhouse rape. I knew that there were fights in jail, but I had never heard about gang rape.
Inmate Michael Blucker also says he wasn't prepared for what happened to him at Illinois' maximum-security Menard Correctional Center. Blucker, who filed a lawsuit last month in federal court against the Illinois Department of Corrections, alleges he was repeatedly raped by gang members between May, 1993, and April, 1994.
Blucker says he contracted the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, after being sexually assaulted--and that corrections officers failed to protect him even after he reported the attacks. A former resident of Crystal Lake, Blucker is incarcerated at the Dixon Correctional Center and is serving a 10-year sentence for residential burglary and automobile theft.
I became a gang slut, said Blucker, 25, in a telephone interview. I became my cellie's sex slave. He sold me for cigarettes, coffee, sometimes for nothing. You can't get over something like this. Everyday I think about it. Everyday I dream about it.
Blucker, a non-gang member, said the first rape occurred several days after his arrival at Menard when three gang members cornered Blucker in his cell, brandished homemade knives and wrapped an electrical cord around his neck. In another incident, several inmates beat Blucker over the head with bricks before gang-raping him in the shower room.
I didn't do nothing unless my gang member told me to, Blucker said. I feared for my life. I'd seen what they had done to other gang members. I wanted to come home alive, not in a box.
Howell of the Illinois Department of Corrections refused to comment on Blucker's lawsuit. But Richard Ahmad, executive director of the Prison Action Committee, a Chicago-based group that aides ex-cons, said it is highly likely that Blucker could have been sexually assaulted.
The officers often leave the cellhouses totally unattended, said Ahmad, who served 17 years in six state prisons--including Menard--for murder. The guards really don't have control over the cellhouses now.
A. Nicholas Groth, a Florida psychologist who has worked in the Massachusetts and Connecticut prison systems counseling victims of sexual assault, said the most traumatized rape victims are inmates like Donaldson.
In Donaldson's case, he was not a hardened criminal who had adopted that value system and lifestyle, Groth explained. To him, it would have been much more devastating psychologically than someone whose life has been marked by abuse, neglect, mistreatment, and institutionalization.
---
Donaldson is walking down Michigan Avenue and people are staring at him. With his Lincolnesque beard, thick glasses and white baseball hat that reads, Stop Prisoner Rape, Donaldson does not fit into the crowd. He looks and acts like an outsider. Rape does that to a person, Donaldson explains.
You feel alienated from everybody around you, said Donaldson. I became extremely alienated from all power structures. Rape is ultimately a power issue. I started feeling like an outlaw--being outside the shelter and protection of the law.
In recent years, Donaldson has sought spiritual solace in the Buddist and Hindu religions. And he has found an outlet for his anger and rage in the punk scene, where Donaldson spends most weekends listening to jarring music and slam-dancing. He writes for several alternative music magazines under the byline Donny The Punk.
But like many survivors, it is Donaldson's cause--stopping prison rape--that has given him a reason to continue living in a world that has brought him so much pain and suffering. With an IQ of 180 and boundless energy, Donaldson has become a walking encyclopedia on the issue on sexual assault.
I don't know anybody who is more knowledgeable about this issue both intellectually and through experience, said Fay Honey Knopp, former director of the Safer Society, a Vermont-based group that hired Donaldson to produce the audio tapes and manual about sexual assault in prisons.
During his two-day Chicago visit, Donaldson was in perpetual motion. He spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times' and Chicago Tribune's editorial boards, held a press conference with Michael Blucker's mother and the mother of another alleged Illinois prison rape victim and talked to psychologists at the Midwestern Psychological Association meeting.
He also met with a dozen private attorneys, American Civil Liberties Union officials, Mahoney of the John Howard Association, and State Rep. Cal Skinner (R-Crystal Lake), who is sponsoring legislation requiring state prison officials to inform new inmates how to avoid and prevent sexual assault, provide literature and tapes to inmates on rape and rape trauma and allow access by rape crisis counselors to inmate victims.
The bill, which Skinner says has little chance of being approved by legislature this year, also would require all prison officials to receive training on how to identify and prevent prison rape, and require guards notify the warden when they recieve a report about an actual or threatened sexual assault.
Donaldson supports the legislation, though he doesn't believe it goes far enough.
He is encouraging lawyers in Illinois and nationwide to file class action suits against correctional officials to force them to house weaker inmates away from sexual predators. Donaldson also wants prisons and jails to distribute condoms to inmates to slow the spread of AIDS behind bars.
It's an ambitious agenda. Donaldson is doing most of the heavy lifting himself. But Donaldson feels optimistic.
I feel like I am finally able to get something done, said Donaldson. To feel that somebody is listening to me, that gives me self-confidence. I don't feel as vulnerable as I used to.
CAPTION: PHOTO: Stephen Donaldson, president of Stop Prisoner Rape, estimates that more than 300,000 inmates are abused each year. Tribune photo by Walter Kale.
Seastead this.
But massive public displays of pot smoking in the 60s didn't do much for reforming the laws. Civil disobedience may be overrated. All that happens is the cops make their quota going after the minorities and the poor - those without the political connections to give them trouble over it.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Seriously. Won't work. I tried it.
... I wonder if he even knows what a DVD is ...
... eventually she'll want to watch a DVD while she surfs the web or something ... and then ... oh yes ... then she'll be one of us ...
I have a friend of a friend who's a city cop here (Tallahassee, FL -- state capital). After reading the article, it occurred to me: so what would an everyday cop walking the beat (she actually has a cruiser, but that's beside the point) actually say if something like this came up.
Anyway, I e-mailed the friend and asked whether or not the cop was online. I don't know her well enough to just "barge in" (odd that I felt the need to confess POLITELY to a federal crime, but I digress). Turns out she is, so I left my e-mail addy and screen name with the friend. I'd pretty much forgotten about it until later tonight when a message window opened. To make a long story short, my confession went something like:
"I recently used my laptop to watch The Matrix. Since I run Linux, I was forced to use an illegal decryption algorithm in order to watch it. It's my DVD, though. I bought it when it first came out. Anyway, if you guys want to arrest me I can give you my address."
I really think she thought I was some kind of nutcase. But she was polite. "Why was that illegal," she asked, "if you own the movie?"
I explained, briefly, and gave the spiel about "circumventing protection schemes".
She said, "You bought the movie. Watch it however you want, just don't copy it and sell it outside the mall." Kind of an inside joke, since a modest-sized music-pirating ring was busted here a while back. They were burning illegal CDs and selling them openly at swap meets and the like. Why? Because, for months, the cops apparently had NO CLUE they had an obligation to do anything about it. Or maybe they just didn't care until someone lit a fire under them. Who knows.
I finally asked: "Aren't you going to arrest me? I'm guilty of, I dunno, dozens of violations of federal law. I wouldn't even know how to guess how many times I've gotten bored and thrown a DVD onto my laptop."
She gave me an LOL and said, "I don't know what would be more stupid. You trying to get arrested for something like that, me for being willing to do the paperwork over something like that, or any prosecutor who'd stop doing his job to go after you for it."
I guess the city cops haven't been briefed properly on the finer points of cybercrime, so people like me could happily watch The Matrix illegally on the courthouse steps and the Powers That Be would just smile and keep on walking.
In the tiny little town where I grew up, my uncle was the sheriff
Interestingly enough, the conversation went on for quite a while after that. Seems she was intrigued by Linux. She's currently using Windows ME,that steaming piece of crap someone at Microsoft decided, for whatever reason, to call an operating system. How the same company that created Windows2000 could create THAT is beyond me. Anyway, as converts go, ME users are generally an easy sell. It's not like things can get any worse, right? Maybe I can get her to convert