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The Worst Coders In Washington
spooky writes "The American Open Technology Consortium, 'a nonprofit organization of technologists who have joined together to educate lawmakers and regulators about technology -- especially in regards to The Internet' has compiled a list of the lawmakers responsible for eight bad internet laws. They say, 'These bad coders and their backers have done more damage to computing, the Internet and freedom than all the virus authors, spammers and crackers combined', Do you agree? Did they miss anyone?"
Unfortunately, it seems that most lawmakers know exactly what they are and have been doing, and that's why they've been so devastatingly effective. Keep in mind, they're policymakers and politicians, and campaign donations are alway welcomed.
Fnord.
93 Worst offenders.
74 - Republican
19 - Democrat
Consider yourself informed. We live with a two-party system (mostly). One of them is more consumer friendly than the other. Vote accordingly.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
It still strikes me as odd that politicians can create laws that govern so much of what goes on through the internet, when they have no knowledge of it themselves. I feel like they are trying to regulate it in a similar way as television. However, the internet isn't just in the United States. It's also throughout the whole world. How can we decree what other countries must follow? This is a conondrum that needs to be addressed in it's own arena, separate from the real world, because it is not the real world. If politicians are able to expand their powers through limiting action on the internet, then what's to stop them from gradually throwing out the constitution altogether?
Besides that, I feel that there is too much trust when it comes to the internet. I don't trust media companies, why should they have the right to hack into anyone's computer? I really hope that people are able to keep ridiculus laws from being enacted that are only made by the politicians as ways of gathering support (and money) when they are so far reaching (As the article says). Well. I guess I agree with them.
Regardless of this being flamebait, he's right, at least if this site is to be believed: only 18 of the 93 people on the list (assuming I counted right; in any case it's a very small portion) are democrats. Furthermore, only two of the 25 worst offenders are democrats. The rest are republicans.
That doesn't make the legislators any more right than the abusers. We can have a direct effect on the legislators while it is much harder to have a direct effect on the abusers you list. Beside, if you compare many of these representatives voting records with other bills you will find that they don't just push bad tech laws, many of them push bad laws in general.
And don't try telling me that other countries try to control it too - for two reasons:
We, on the other hand, want to control what everyone else in the world does with the Internet. We wait for them to come to our shores for some conference and arrest them. And all this, after feeding illegal porn into those other countries.
Our politicians must realize that the Internet is what it is today only because it is globally accessible. Attempting to regulate it on our own is in very bad faith!
All your favorite sites in one place!
Actually your comparison doesn't fit. Drunk driving is potentially deadly. Which is one of the biggest reasons it's illegal. The only harm that comes from the above listed actions is going to be monetarily. Passing draconian laws simply because the legislators are uninformed or because thier pockets are being lined is not acceptable and we should let them know that. This goes for all types of laws not just tech laws. Yes, there are going to be times where actions occur that require legislation after the fact to curb the problem (of course you can debate this too). However, in this case we are going to put handcuffs on a 500 billion dollar industry for the sake of a 50 billion dollar industry. Does that make any sense? It doesn't to me. I spoke with a senetor for my state on Saturday night while at a college convention for my wife. During the discussion I asked how she made most of her voting decisions and I was told that in many cases she only had basic information returned to her from her staff. Summaries. How can you possibly make a good, educated decision from a summary?!?! She couldn't answer that with anything better than "The best I can."
knowing who to support is more effective than knowing who to trash
.. On a US TV station, I recently saw a debate between two politicians, and one of the questions posed was "why aren't you smearing your opponent" - the moderator repeatedly pushed this, and seemed not to be able to understand the answers the candidates gave (which boiled down to "I want to win - mud throwing detracts from the issues at hand.)
This is a very salient point, that (happily) some people in power are beginning to understand, but people in the media appear to have a hard time grasping
That being said, can anyone come up with a list of "good guys", besides Rick Boucher and Zoe Lofgren?
I haven't read the law, but my understanding is that COPA isn't anywhere near DMCA, CDA, etc. It only tells sites what ages they're not allowed to knowingly deliver certain content to. The other acts outright ban certain information/hardware.
I hate stupidity.
Whenever someone just selectively grab bills and laws then THEN tries to apply correlations to party, you're going to get a skewed outcome. (It's selective by the shear nature they they picked the "worse" bills, which is still subjective.) And then someone, like you or the parent poster, will come along and, without a thought, say "See!" Look, if they had added prominant copyright bills, the democrat margin would be higher than the current 20% margin. And if Clinton hadn't signed the DCMA or Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, this would be a voided question.
And you don't even pretend to take into consideration that the overall current representation count is Republican, due to the dominance in the house, which OF COURSE is going to more Republicans being mentioned.
And OF COURSE if campaign donations from special interests continue to be legal, the media companies are going to shower those representatives in a position of getting bills passed, which in the Senate are Democrats, and in the House are Republicans, which is going to FURTHER push it to the Republicans (as they controlled the Senate until the flip of the one rep, control the House, and are in control at the last lawmaking step, the Presidency). Rest assured, if Dems were in power in the House, the special interests would be showering them with money, and more so if Gore had won.
These bad laws have NO POLITICAL ALIGNMENT because neither party has a strict or well-founded policy or issue guidance on them.
The reality is, the parent post is flamebait because voting should not be strict party lines, not even based on money the person receives, but on the issues and past voting record of the House or Senate rep that you have in front of you. And don't even pretend a web page analysis is going to be really all-encompassing or relevant to what occurs in your local races. Hell, this is just the federal level (we've already seen state laws creating an effect).
Finally, the fact is, both parties screw you. You have to look at WHO in the party does what. If you vote on party lines, all you do is push party alignment on the issue. I don't want another NRA/Republican alignment. If "techies" (what the fuq is a techie really, and when did they all suddenly vote liberal?) were one and did all vote liberal, all the special interests will simply fund Republicans, and vice versa. Don't help them align. Vote on the issues and the voting record, and look at campaign donations to then add relevance to your decision.
>Maybe if so many script kiddies/ warez'ers/ napsterites hadn't gone so fscking overboard downloading/spamming/sharing, the legislations wouldn't have any backing. It would be too much bother for so little.
But I say this:
Without so many people going "overboard" using napster, etc. we wouldn't have the multitudes of people who hate the DMCA, et al. And the more people on our side, the easier these laws are to strike down.
Right now I can strike the fear of God into any teenager who's getting close to voting age by telling them that because of the current government you could be Hacked, Investigated, and sent to jail without due process in the USA because music companies suspect you of being a pirate when you use KaZaa.
Fortunately, myself being in Canada, this simply puts them off living in the USA. But, if I were in the USA, I can imagine this would be more serious.
Any other topic to do with government and laws, though, and I'd be shrugged off.
IMHO, going public with all this technology was the best idea yet.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Isn't it great when 20 people have the same thought at the same time (within the time it takes to type a post after reading the existing posts)? I've been having fun for the last hour watching this post's parent alternatively modded up as funny and down as redundant. Is there a catchy name for that effect? If not, I think we should invent one.
This space intentionally left blank.
He doesn't have any serious opposition though...
:) I oppose DMCA and all that crap, but tomorrow, I'll vote for Stevens. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it's more important for me to have my state, a very small and often forgotten place, to wield some degree of power in Washington.
He never has, and he never will. In a small (population-wise) state like Alaska, it really pays to have as much seniority as the Alaskan congressional delegation does. We've had the same congressional delegation as long as I can remember... 20 years at least.
Full disclosure: I'm an Alaskan, registered voter, and I vote Republican (I consider myself anarchist-come-libertarian-but-still -very-pragmatic
I spent 8 MONTHS out of work, with a mortgage and an infant, because the CEO of my company couldnt stand the thought of not living in the lap of luxury at almost 300 grand a year. And while I know that wasnt the Telecommunications' act fault, the blame does lie there for planting that huge seed of outright GREED in the minds of the people like her.
Yep, it was definitely such a prudent move on ol' Billy boy's part to let the companies in control of the most important technology of the next 20 years run amok. Wise move, Bonehead.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
... on this topic (Law and the loss of Internet Freedoms):
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/09/08/
Realistically, the Politicians are clueless, and the big media lawyers are paying for the politicians and writing the laws in this arena. It won't change until campaign finance is cleaned up, and that is really unlikely.
People continue to mention the NRA, (who actually provides online service), in a negative light here. However, the NRA is probably the staunchest supporter of the Constitution, especially the First and Second Amendments.
I'll leave the Second Amendment out of this discussion, as this discussion is definitely a First Amendment issue.
It seems to me that the Democrats are most aligned to the anti-freedom agenda. Unless I am mistaken, all of the mentioned bills that actually became laws were signed by a Democratic president. Wait, don't mention all of the violations of my right to bear arms that he signed into law. Oh yeah, right, we aren't talking about the Second Amendment.
That Clinton signed these bills may be a mere conicidence though. I suspect that ignorance, (or maybe something much more insidious), rules the day with technology laws. Most of the people in office are older and because of that I think have a lesser understanding of technology. For God's sake, Al Gore thought he created the Internet!
Also, you'll notice that the DMCA, which is probably the most oppressive bill on the list had support from both Republicans than Democrats. You'll also notice that COPA had a much larger Republican sponsorship. I would say this was probably because their constituency is made up largely of religious zealots. All I can say is thats the part of the Republican party that reeks. Well, that and their environmental record.
In the end all of this comes down to freedom so I would urge you to support freedom in all flavors. You can't say "take their guns", but "I want to keep my speech". If you do, our rights will be whittled away one by one until we have nothing.
We must pay the price of freedom, responsibility for our own actions, and HARSH penalties for those who shirk reponsibility. The Republicans usually have that right.
All that aside, we are being sold out. Here's how:
The media, which is owned by big powerful companies is supposed to watch the government for abuses. However, the parent corporations of these media outlets have been pursuading our government toward abuse. Because of this the media has a huge conflict of interest. (This is obvious right?). This could be why we don't hear about these things on the nightly news.
Corporations are poised to steal our whole political process. They are doing a very good job of it already. All I ask you is, what have you done about it today?
Are there any issues that are universal in the Slashdot community besides what is pushed by the EFF, and GNU? (If even these are?) I known we are not all Libertarians. I'm not anway, and based upon other peoples comments, there are others who are not. However, how do you all feel about the first section first section, of the Libertarian Platform, entitled "Individual Rights and Civil Order"? You can reply here or email me about this directly. Maybe we can have a little more organization. I think that most of us here are pro electronic freedom and pro electronic privacy. What else matters? The link above describes much of what I believe. I remember reading it and saying, yeah, yeah, they've got it. Then I read the part on economics... ouch.
Thats my three cents.
-Craig
Hrm. Pot ... kettle ... black?
the racially discriminated [such as those protestant, white males who, through no fault of their own, can't get into college thanks to racist Affirmative Action plans]
Seriously, though, you're shitting me, right? Yes, reverse discrimination occurs, but what's the ratio of white-against-minority versus minority-against-white discrimination? It sounds like someone has a serious sense of entitlement but a lack of any actual skills to back that up.
Oh, I'm sorry; is this clashing with your view of reality? Pardon me.
and the gun violence victims [who died because the gun control lobby took the guns away from the victims and they were unable to defend themselves].
I see. So it's the victim's fault for not shooting their attackers? I suppose all the sniper victims should have been in full urban warfare mode, ready for an assault from the treeline at any moment. And how the hell does replacing one victim of gun violence (the original victim) with another victim (the aggressor) decrease gun violence? Explain it to me.
Is that politician going to take my money and give it to you so you can feed your starving kids when I don't know you? -- no vote
Well in that case I don't feel like giving you any of my tax dollars. Boy, it's a good thing you don't use any public services like, say, roads or your local police office. Since those are, after all, other people's money. Because if you did I'd have to call you a hypocrite.
Is that politician going to take away my second ammendment right to own an AR-15 to blow a burglar's head off if he comes into my house? -- no vote
Wow. You're part of a real, live militia that's protecting this country. I'm impressed.[/sarcasm]
There are limits on free speech -- such as the imminent harm and "clear and present danger" doctrines; I don't see why owning heavy weaponry falls into that same category. I have nothing against licensed handgun ownership (a la driver's licenses) or even hunting rifle ownership. But, pray tell, why do you (as a member of a militia) need up to and including anti-tank-grade weapons?
Is that politician going to prevent drilling for oil by environmentally-conscious, high-tech American companies so we can be forced to by oil from countries that use rickety ships and could care less about the environment? -- no vote
HAHAHAHA!!
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*sniff* Ah. Wow. That was a good laugh. I'd be more impressed if these "environmentally conscious" companies -- I assume you're including ExxonMobil, who let their captains drunkenly slalom through icebergs -- would focus on long-term economic growth by exploring naturally renewable energy sources.
Oh, wait, they don't have to. They can line their pockets and let libertarian apologists make their case for them. It's amazing how well libertarians can play the apologetic sycophants to die-hard conservatives. Don't worry, Alethes, one day you might make enough money to actually have the Republicans pay attention to you, too. Keep trolling, and you, too, could be like Ari Fleicher and say that 1 + 1 = 11 with true passion.
It's too bad that I agree with you on the rest of the issues, though. Including the "vote for who you feel truly represents your views." Unfortunately true progressives that want to represent the people (you remember that who "We the People ..." bit, right, as opposed to "We the multi-national conglomerates) and protect the country and our rights don't get on the ballot too often.
*sigh*
-jdm
Growl, I haven't had to remember this stuff since Intro freshman year. No, the two party system is a result from the election system. As I stated, the US has Single member plurality districts. Canada and other places MPs are elected by proportionallity. IE, the party will give the election board a list of potential canidates, then seats are given by the total number of votes across the whole country, not the individual district.
Yes, Gore is not a solution, but Jello Biafra isn't exactly a voice of moderation either. Canidates, especially in presidential, must campaign on incredibly moderate views as most of america is moderate, the fringes are only important in primaries and fund raising. And I voted for Bush, I only mentioned Gore to illustrate the only way a third party can get their prefrences expressed in a system with SMPDs.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
If you feel the need to learn who is buying your representatives, opensecrets.org is a useful site. I think this is where the article got it's data from.
Usually, Republicans are the ones in for the quick buck but from the looks of it, most of the Republicans on the list supported the Child Online Protection Act, which had a notable motive but wasn't executed right while most of the Democrats voted for the ones that had a monetary motive aka the right-to-buttf*ck-consumers-bills. Hell, look at California's own Feinstein with almost $400,000. I voted against her every time and yet that b^Hwitch is still here. (same goes for the one b^Hwitch).