EFF: 48 Hours to Stop the Broadcast Flag

The Importance of writes "Think the Broadcast Flag is dead? EFF is warning that Hollywood is trying to sneak the broadcast flag into law as an amendment to a massive appropriations bill. 'If what we hear is true, the provision will be introduced before a subcommittee tomorrow and before the full appropriations committee on Thursday. That gives us 48 hours to stop it.' Action Alert here. List of Senator's phone numbers here."

Comments

I wrote about this to CNN

[flyingace]

Dont know if my news tip will get picked up. These things should not be sneaked in.

Re:I didn't think you could

[greg_barton]

Its against the rules of the Senate (rule XVI)

I seem to recall the words of our honerable Senate president: "Go fuck yourself!"

If I'm not mistaken....

[Kwirl]

By the time this story is an accepted submission, it will be 36+ hours past the deadline. All slashdotters should therefore direct their attention to criticizing the outcome pre-emptively in order to maintain an effective schedule.

Re:Did it ever occure to you yanks...

[Concerned Onlooker]

We're working on a patch for that.

Re:senators

[IntergalacticWalrus]

"i'd write my senators, but i can't find my checkbook."

Gotta love how this was modded 'insightful'...

Re:Slashdotters Untie! I mean, Unite!

[Ingolfke]

See the senators flee in terror as hundreds of thousands of /.'ers email "In Soviet Russia the bill rides you".

(Note... many are confused as they believe this may be a reference to the previous administration.)

Re:senators

[SparafucileMan]

why do you hate America?

Re:Why do you still have riders?

[waynemcdougall]

Why else would Cheney quite his super high paying job and sell his Haliburton stock if he wasn't going to make out any better than the relatively small VP salary.

Ummm, to serve his country?

To promote world peace?

To change the country (and the world) for the better?

To share his wisdom and experience for the betterment of humanity?

To meet interns?

Another 48 Hours Killed the Broadcast Flag

[Ingolfke]

In a major media blunder the US Government and major media corporations are denying the resuscitation of the broadcast flag. Despite wide reports, Doug Herzog, President of SpikeTV (the First Network for Men) has confirmed that he along with other media executives have decided to abandon all attempts to push the broadcast flag through congress. In a press release Herzong noted,

"After looking at our summer lineup of movies, and previewing 48 Hours, starring Eddie Murphey and Nick Nolte, it was pretty clear that we wouldn't need a broadcast flag to keep people from recording our programming. I and a few others, hoping to promote our July 4th weekend of 48 Hours of 48 Hours, only on Spike TV also watched Another 48 Hours. After we finished the film, we were confident that we had done the right thing to abandon the broadcast flag and honestly were considering abandoning television altogether."

Re:heh

[grub]

especially considering who's currently holding the pen.

s/pen/crayon/g

Re:senators

[CarrionBird]

Suppose it should have been 'informative'

Re:Legalese to english translation algorithm

[Ingolfke]

Couldn't someone write a program that you could feed the text of a bill into and it would simplify the language, making it easier to find stuff like this so it could be removed?

#include <stdio>
void main(void) {
printf("Screw over general populace.\n");
return;
}

Re:senators

[SparafucileMan]

i'm reporting you to the feds. you no better than a terrorist.

Re:heh

[Alsee]

what we really need is the ability to give the Presidential Office back line-item veto power

Score:3, Insightful

This should be Score:5, Funny! I absolutely burst out laughing when I read it. It took me a full minute before I could manage focus enough to read beyond that first sentence.

Bush veto the broadcast flag? Woohoo! I guess that would be right between vetoing a Defense of Marriage item and trimming troubling new police powers out of Patriot Act II Revenge of the Sith.

-

Re:senators

[failure-man]

Oh, right. One of those "joke" things I have so much trouble spotting on the internets.