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Would John Kerry Defang the DMCA?
dave981 writes "Over at ZDNet, Declan McCullagh asks, 'Would John Kerry defang the DMCA?' Kerry's response: 'open to examining' whether to change current law 'to ensure that a person who lawfully obtains or receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes.' It's not clear, though, how serious Kerry truly is."
For those who forgot their high school civics our live outside the USA...
The president cannot directly write make a law at all. Only members of the House and Senate can nominate bills for consideration. (When the "President's Budget" comes every year, some member of the House must support the bill enough to put it into "the hopper" or it doesn't get off the ground.) The president's only role in the legislative process is to approve bills that have passed both houses of Congress, and that can even be bypassed
Therefore, even if Kerry wins the presidential race, he still will have no direct impact on laws. He'll only be able to sign a DMCA repeal or softening amendment if Congress sends him one to consider.
As always happens in the even-numbered years, all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate seats are up for re-election. Right now, it's a "Republican steamroller" because Republicans control both houses and and the White house. However, the Republicans hold on to a very thin margin to make their majority in both cases, so this could completely flip or end up in a mixed state after the elections. The Congress has much more say over the laws than the President gets.
Would it really matter. It is already a law, and as president he has no control over it. However he would have power to veto it if changes came down the pipe to alter or kill it off.
Why do we as americans put so much into the presidential elections, when infact our congress critters have the power to draft and approve new laws, while the president is in the position to say yes or no to them?
Neither politician has the moxie to say in public that he agrees with gay marriage...
That's because neither of the candidates support it. Bush doesn't support it and wants a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Kerry doesn't support it but is against any such legislation.
Strangely enough, both candidates are nearly mirroring their stances on the issue of IP theft:
Said Bush: "I strongly support efforts to protect intellectual property and will continue to work with Congress to ensure all intellectual property is properly protected...We must vigorously enforce intellectual-property protections and prosecute the violators, not the technology." He noted that his administration launched an initiative to enforce such laws and has worked closely with China to support penalties associated with violating American intellectual-property rights.
Kerry, meanwhile, has a slightly different stance. "I do not condone the illegal sharing of copyrighted material," Kerry said, though he is "open to examining whether legislative action is necessary to ensure that a person who lawfully receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes."
Poor Jim Lehrer of PBS, who moderated the first presidential debate, was left scratching his head about what actually differentiated the two men who would be president.
I just pointed out a major difference... Bush is against X and legislates against X (including denying rights to Americans because he wants to bring religious morality back into the country). Kerry is against X as well but doesn't have any plans to do anything about it.
So Kerry's (and everyone but one absentee's) vote in the Senate for the DMCA is... unreliable? You sound like Senator Kerry himself. Maybe this one of the bills that Kerry wrote, but didn't have his name on?
On the final version of the bill, Kerry voted "Yea".
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Weren't paying attention to the news at the time? Like most of the people who voted for it, he said it was flawed, but it was more important to get something in place first, then they could backfix. According to publicly stated positions of the people at the time, the majority of people who voted for the Patriot Act would like to revise it.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
While that is true for a lot of the left-leaning SlashDot crowd, it is not true for all of the readers.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Much like the president mentions the Amendment to ban gay marriage in churches, and stem cell research in front of his church groups. Face it both groups are going after their bases.
In other words, the President may not be able to *make* the changes himself, but he is able to SET THE DEBATE and this is a power in and of itself.
:)
That and the whole commander in chief thing, appointing judges and other government officials, running foreign relations, etc makes it such that the President has the capability of really shaping and molding the federal government from top to bottom. Of course there is this whole bureaucratic thing that they have to get around.
Wikipedia does a good job covering these and other subtleties of the President's power. A must read for every American voter and/or the curious or concerned foreign citizen
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
He voted for it, of course.
Fellowship 9/11
Sounds like more of the same to me.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
They said bush would take the side of the church
If only this were true for Bush's favorite issue to talk about...
Vatican questions "preventive" wars
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
> If Bush is re-elected and the time comes to put new Justices on the
> Supreme Court what is he going to do?
He will appoint strict constructionists in the Rhenquist, Scalia and Thomas mold. They will interpret the Constituition and Laws as they exist instead of legislating their own beliefs from the bench. Which is what they are supposed to be doing.
> He's going to put judges on their that are sympathetic to his (not his
> party's) own personal goal of bringing religious morality back into this
> country.
Actually, most Republicans agree with his moral positions. But only Democrats want judges legislating ANY morality from the bench. All we want is judges who WON'T impose their morals. And if we could get a few who could read that would be just peachy. How hard is "Congress shall pass no law...." or "...shall not be infringed." to understand!
Democrat delenda est
He voted for it, but the vote was 99-0-1. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:S.203 7:
Totally agreed. President Bush should be protecting us from evil terrorists from the middle east and possibly North Korea. For shame that he is off campaigning in the latest swing state.
Heck no! Every canidate has a right to campain for their office of choice. Kerry would have better chances of getting his legistlation through if he is president, and the same goes with Bush.
Read this, it might help you understand the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
http://www.reason.com/0410/fe.jb.john.shtml
Saddam would still be struggling with UN sanctions
Interesting definition of struggling. Saddam had pocketed over $11 billion via the "oil for food" scandal. Clearly you have not read into the Duelfer report which clearly stated that Saddam's goal was to contiunally wear down the sanctions through bribery and political manipulation.
From 1991 to 2003, he made no measurable headway on it. But I'm sure at any minute, he was going to become Nuclear capable.
From the report (yes, the same one that many of the leftist editorialists used to attack Bush):
"Saddam's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with the UN inspections -- to gain support for lifting the sanctions -- with his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face."
over 1000 American troops would still be alive
Yes, the loss of life is horrible and unfortunate. But, in the long run, it will be worth it. If the troops didn't feel this way, why will they vote 3 to 1 Bush to Kerry.
over 15000 iraqa would still be alive
An average of 32,000 Iraqis were killed per year under Saddam including tens (if not hundreds) of thousands during the years where he was "struggling with UN sanctions". It's horrible that so many innocents have died during his reign. But while allowing Saddam to continue his reign would have allowed for this to continue, his removal will, in the long run, greatly decrease the loss of innocent life in the future. It may pain you to know this, but the lives of the average Iraqi is better now than it was before the war. This is especially true for the children of Iraq (of which over 3.2 million have been properly vaccinated and 95% of which are attending school - almost twice as high as before the war.)
Here's a question for you, if we weren't in Iraq, and the terrorists weren't coming into Iraq to fight us, what would Zarqawi and his friends be doing? Knitting? Playing squash?
The sad thing about Kerry and American Politics is that it would be suicide for him to state that we would be better off if we had left Saddam in power.
Kerry has become the anti-war candidate, but you are correct to state that it would be suicide for him to state that we would be better off if Saddam was in power, because it would be completely false. Kerry, of course, would have used one of his magical "plans" to take care of Saddam. Probably along the lines of another UN resolution, or a strongly worded letter.
Only a party-felating apologist like yourself could defend US actions in Iraq.
I voted for Gore in 2000 and Jesse Ventura in 1998 (to send a message to the left and the right in Minnesota - what a fuck up he turned out to be).
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
It's attitudes like yours that caused me to stop being a Catholic. Just because someone doesn't think the way you do doesn't mean that they aren't a Christian. The last time I checked there were only two qualifications for being a Christian:
You are confusing Catholicism with Christianity. Also, your actions are what are important. If all that mattered were intentions...
You might not have read far enough back into the thread to see what I was replying too. It was this:
He's not for promoting faith over science or democracy, though Bush throws that to the religious zealots who form his base.
To which I responded:
Well, I'm a Catholic (much like your beloved Kerry, although by most definitions he is not a Catholic). The vast majority of citizens in the US disagree with Kerry's positions on partial-birth abortion and public funding for abortions.
I then went on to the stem cell topic (as I inferred that he was referring to that as well) as it is such a ridiculous topic of debate. It was meant to be seperate from the first two issues.
an issue is brought up that you can't defend, you just attack on another issue.
Hmmm...I seem to remember a certain president who used this tactic extensively during the third debate. And I quote:
It was some what of a weak answer, but the idea that we will help educate people in order to help them get a new job isn't exactly a horrible idea. And it wasn't an attack.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
John Kerry is running for President. Congress makes laws. Read the Constitution sometime. Fascinating document.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
That's not a perfect solution, because a pardon for any given crime can't be issued before the crime happens. Therefore, he can "suspend" but not fully get rid of the law.
For instance, Kerry and Edwards have missed something like 80% of the votes on the Senate floor this year.
That stat has been caused by the Republicans who control the Senate. They saw to it that most floor votes would happen while the Democratic presidential-wannabe senators would be out of town, and would suspend floor activity any time they were in town. In short, they made it intentionally hard to campaign and get in on the recorded votes, not knowing which Dem Senator would win, but making sure to muck all of their records.
bah.
Sounds like you need a new wife.
And we need a new president.
When you listen to the hyperbole that "Kerry voted against it before he voted for it" - it's actually a dishonest statement, because the two "it's" were not equal. In the case of the Iraq War funding, the bill had some sticky little riders about accounting oversight, and where the funding was going to come from. But I've found after trying to argue these points until I'm blue in the face with Bush supporters, that, in general, Bush supporters don't do "nuance". It makes their lives too complicated to have to actually earn the responsibility to be a voting citizen in a democracy.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It's no longer on the current official website for John Kerry, but one of the issues he had a stance for was about copyright, in which he stated that he would vigorously defend America's copyright system against piracy. Taken directly from his website back in Feburary --
* Copyright-Based Industries Are Critical to Economic Growth: Products of the mind from America's scientists, engineers, computer programmers have little value without intellectual property protections. Copyright based industries alone now account for nearly 6% of all jobs in America and 7.75 % of GDP. These industries are in jeopardy because of the Bush Administration's failure to enforce international treaties to protect America's creative community from piracy.
* Stop Intellectual Piracy: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative estimates that losses theft of U.S. intellectual property in 51 foreign countries total $9.7 billion. In China alone we lose $1.8 billion to piracy. Yet even where we have strong agreements, piracy remains a major problem due to a failure to fully implement the TRIPS agreement and an unwillingness or inability to crack down on the problem. A Kerry Administration will take theft of the jobs of America's creative workforce a trade and foreign policy priority.
If you'd like to see the website yourself, it's right here:
John Kerry for President (Feburary '04)
Sure it doesn't say anything about copyright/piracy in the US, but you can guage his opinion on copyright from those statements. I don't think his stance on copyright has changed, and he would most likely support the DMCA, if not strengthen it further.
You're the one who's being deceptive. The truth and fact of the matter is that Kerry voted for the DMCA. No way around it, he voted for it. Period. End of story.
If you're trying to say it's not his fault because everyone else did too, then that's not a very good endorsement. You're arguing that he's pathologically susceptible to peer pressure.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
There was little need for the Patriot Act besides; had our normal law-enforcement apparatus been functioning as designed, the 9/11 hijackers would have been caught.
A couple of them might have been caught if the FBI had been paying attention, but they all had perfectly valid passports and last I checked they weren't doing anything illegal when they boarded the planes. This is not a good argument against the Patriot Act. The argument against the Patriot Act is the opposite. It's the fact that the Patriot Act doesn't increase the likelyhood of catching people like that, because it's impossible to catch most people like that.
Unless you can see into the future or read minds, you cannot stop dedicated individual fanatics that are willing to trade their life to acheive their goals. The only way to stop those people completely would be to eject all dark-skinned people from the United States (and no, I don't find this an acceptable solution). Even then you will wind up with whites who pick up the cause and become fanatics in the same way. It's human nature. Thus with the Patriot Act we give up certain rights and gain zero security.
Actually, there is another way in which the hijackers could have been stopped: make sure that a large portion of the population is armed and allow them to carry those arms onto the plane. Which is of course exactly the opposite of what we've been doing. We strip search everyone to make absolutely certain they are unarmed, and thus vulnerable to ANY possible aggression that occurs aboard the plane. Of course we include the pilots, making sure they can't defend themselves, and we still don't put any sky marshals on board. My God, the sky marshals would have to carry weapons! What a horrible thought. A weapon on board a plane. Tsk tsk, can't have that. Only criminals have weapons.
Two things:
One, at least some of the attackers WOULD have been caught long before the attacks of the agents investigating them had been given the authorization to proceed. It was clear at that point what they were up to, and at that point it would have been relatively easy to clean up the rest of that particular plot, or at least prevent it from proceeding.
Two, realistically, the only reason the hijackings worked was that people expected the old "be quiet and we'll all land safely" arrangement that had been the case in past hijackings. Once people realize that's not the case they'll jump the attackers, weapons or no. That's what happened on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.
Not that letting people arm themselves for protection is necessarily a bad idea.
I also think the Israeli solution of sealing the cockpit off from the passenger compartment entirely would be good and simple.
DNA just wants to be free...
He voted for the Iraq war, and said it would be irresponsible to leave the troops stranded without funding. He then voted to do just that.
He called the war on Iraq the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. He then said it was an imminent threat that had to be dealt with (but he would have done it smarter, nice details there).
He then said the Iraq war was a diversion from the war on terror, then went back to saying he would have done the same thing, only smarter.
He said that the President spent $200 billion that could have gone to education, health care, etc. He then said that the President underfunded the troops and didn't send them in with enough body armor etc.
He said he met with all the members of the security counsel...oh wait nevermind no he didn't.
He's voted to cut the military funding every chance he's gotten, then criticizes Bush for having an unprepared intelligence and military system thanks to eight years of Clinton and Congressmen like him.
He's voted to weaken the second amendment every chance he's gotten, then his national election rolls around and he's suddenly an avid hunter.
Need I go on (there's plenty more)?
Once you look past the sound bites that criticism against Kerry falls apart. All you ever hear is the sound bite that candidate X voted for or against issue Y. The fact is that legislators do not vote for or against issues, theu vote for or against bills, and those bills contain many specific provisions. Teher is absolutely nothing wrong or contradictory about voting for one good version of a bill and voting against a different bad version of supposedly "the same bill". Kerry voted "for $87 billion for the troops before he voted against it" because they were TWO DIFFERENT BILLS.
He voted in support of Iraq authorization because he was given - and believed - information the Whitehouse knew or suspected to be false. He also expected the Whitehouse to proceed along the lines of the Kuwait war, where we moved foward with a genuine coalition and real international support. Over 170,000 non-US troops. Where the US paid a mere 10 to 20% percent of the cost, as opposed to 90% of the cost of this war. Kerry did not expect the Whitehouse to move in violation of widespread international opposition and with a fraud of a coalition. After the US and UK we had Australia with 2000 troops and Poland with 200 troops. Period, end of "coalition". Bush loves citing Poland as a member of this joke of a coalition. This is not what Kerry expected he was voting for.
What else do you think he flip-flopped on?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Obviously you're the one that got hit with propaganda. Even the bill's SPONSOR was on the record at the time that the bill had major problems.
That's why the entire bill has that self-destruct "sunset clause". If all of the legislators dropped dead and no action was taken the entire bill would wipe itself out at expiration. That was a fundamental condition of getting many people to vote for it sight-unseen
It is BUSH that is flip-floping in attempting to get the entire Patriot-mess made permanent.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This has never made any sense to me, it's like people want to be mystified and are unwilling to accept the truth at simple face value.
Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist. The only way he kept power was through the threat of retalitation. That he had used these chemical weapons back in the Iran-Iraq war timeframe is evidence of that.
So if people thought that he didn't have these weapons any more... Saddam wouldn't be in a particularly safe position.
And that included not just Iraqi dissidents, but also the threat of invasion by Iran.
So Saddam tried to play a little game, where he walked to knife edge pretending to comply, but at the same time keeping just a hint of skepticism going, to keep his enemies uncertain about attacking him.
This is not my theory, it comes from David Kay and the others involved in the weapons inspection.
I've not heard Bush admit to any mistake. What he usually does is find someone, usually in the military, which he can blame the failure upon.
Kerry has said he'd make the same vote. Which is consistent, as you note, for he was voting to authorize threat of force to get the UN inspectors back in.
Where he differs from Bush, is he wouldn't have invaded if the inspections were working, as appeared to be the case back in March of 2003.