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"Super-DMCA" Bills In Tennessee and Arkansas
David Turner writes "Tomorrow, Tennessee's Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing
on two nearly identical DMCA-like bills. These bills threaten
personal privacy, anonymity, and security research. SB
213 and HB457
are similar to state laws
introduced all over the country by the MPAA. Despite amendments, the bills still threaten digital freedom. Last
month, twenty people showed up at the Massachusetts public
hearing, and effectively opposed the one MPAA lobbyist. If you attend, speak from notes rather than simply reading a statement (but you
may be able to submit written testimony). Please come to Legislative
Plaza in Nashville, rooms 12 and 14 at 3:30pm." And Kraken137 writes "The House and Senate of the Arkansas state legislature have passed the MPAA's "Super-DMCA" Bill, and it is now sitting on the Governor's desk awaiting his signature. It's not too late to convince him to veto this bill! Arkansas residents are urged to contact the Governor's office to express their opposition to this violation of rights. The ever-vigilant EFF has a page where residents can send a fax to Governor Huckabee's office to let their voices be heard. Remember, paper and phone calls make more of a difference than emails!"
The EFF has also set up a page to Fax, email, or print a letter to your Tennessee reps:
t em =2628
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&i
Thank goodness someone brought this issue to light. I tried submitting an article earlier and was rejected.
This DMCA stuff is serious. Together with the USA PATRIOT act, we are *seriously* look at an Orwellian future, people.
It's really time to do something, no more procrastinating.
If you can't go out and do something in person, then at least make a donation to the EFF and the ACLU. They both even have a monthly recurring system where you can have a small charge made to your credit card every month. A monthly contriubtion will make you feel a lot less guilty when going to the movie theater or blockbuster.
Please don't let this pass you by. The ??AA lobbyists are subverting our freedoms to tell us what we are allowed to do with the things we already own!
It's ridiculous that corporations have more political power than the people who actually elect our officials. Can we not read the bribery between the lines? This is offensive on so many levels...
It's time to act, people. How do you want your future to be determined -- by youself or by a corporation?
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Essentially what this "Super DMCA" is geared at is allowing copyright holders access to ISP private information (including but not limited to, IP address, street address, phone number, etc) of "copyright infringers" in the hopes of halting online music/movie piracy. It would basically outlaw any network address translation device (e.g. routers, gateways, firewalls) that could coneal the IP address of a suspected infringer.
to busy saving the Free World, eh?
good thing there already are things like this in place:
http://capwiz.com/afr/home/
i've found it really handy, so far. nice record of how my reps and senators voted.
The RIAA and MPAA send their lobbyists to individual state legislatures in an attempt to get Senators and Representatives they feel will be sympathetic to their cause to introduce the bill. Those Senators and Representatives then contact their friends in the Senate and House of the state to gain support for their proposed bill. The bill is then drafted and a hearing often takes place before one or more committees in the state house and senate. During these hearings the MPAA and RIAA lobbyists are often called on to speak and say why the law should be adopted. These hearings are usually done in such a way that the average Joe can't participate, nor can groups opposed to the bill such as the EFF and ACLU. Once the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists have addressed the state congress they will then have presented a completely one-sided view of their issue to the congress, which will only see one side of the coin, and vote before they can really look at the other side. A lot of this gets hurried through because of the large number of issues that come before the state house and senate, and some of it gets hurried through by the Senators or Representatives that introduce the bill because they want to get it passed.