Slashdot Mirror
Broadcast Flag Sneak Not Attempted
Trizero writes "THOMAS, one of the best sources for Congressional action on the Internet has shown that no amendments occured to the CJS Appropriations Bill. Monday, Slashdot covered the EFF announcing a rumor that a senator was attempting to sneak an amendment to bring the Broadcast Flag into law. From THOMAS (scroll down to the bottom): "6/21/2005:
Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. Approved for full committee consideration without amendment favorably." Translation: No one attempted to sneak the Broadcast flag into law." Update: 06/22 18:55 GMT by J : The EFF's new Activism Coordinator, Danny O'Brien, sees this as a victory for swift citizen action. Impressive numbers. Nice work by EFF and Public Knowledge, and everyone who raised their voice.
So, the Broadcast flag wasn't smuggled into law within the CJS appropriations bill, as threatened earlier.
The question now is: why not?
Discuss.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Don't start jumping up and down. This won't be the end of the broadcast flag...
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
A draft proposal wasn't added either.
So which bill are they going to try to put it in? Maybe the rumor got hot enough that he decided to slip the amendment into another bill sometime later, after the heat was off.
One of the most needed pieces of legislation in this country is a Federal-level law that states the amendments and provisions of a bill must directly relate to its topic. I know a few states have this now but Congress uses this backdoor to get all sorts of shady and illegal legislation passed every year.
attempted to sneak the Broadcast flag into law.
This time.
What?
mmmm, slashdot, news for what DIDNT happen.
In that case, in related news, I did not win the lottery. (Although I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.)
Either that, or REQUIRE that every piece of legislation be read in full on the House floor by Gilbert Gottfried, and on the Senate floor by Ben Stein before it gets voted into law. If you haven't heard it both screamed and droned, it can't be signed into law.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
But the coach did signal for the Statue of Liberty play. The quarterback then decided to go for the play action...
It's a big deal that it DIDNT happen because we need to be on the lookout for what COULD happen. Personally I like my TIVO, dick.
So, as much as I generally like the EFF, I think we should be asking them some very hard questions about how well they review their sources before releasing that sort of rumor.
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
I am sure they will listen intently on my next call to them.
Is it too late for all those people yesterday to take back renouncing their citizenship and threats to move to Canada? Looks like they are safe to stay for at least another week or so.
The poster here is quite devious. If you read thomas you will see that the amendment _is_ in the bill. What the poster is saying is that it wasn't "sneaked" -- what he'd like to imply "sneak" means is that procedures were broken. Well, a small mumble here and there in a republican dominated committee (5-4 vote) things go "up" for incorpation into a bill and approved in the matter of seconds; it goes like this:
Senator presents an amendment to the bill.
All in favor say I. (eye, eye, eye...)
It appears the I's have it, amendment is
favorably added.
It' takes less than a minute; with no debate. Seriously, this isn't "sneaking" is it? Why is this even newsworthy, besides being mis-leading, it's just wrong.
I mean, you're basically getting a national ID card based on a rider. Shouldn't you all be lobbying your senator and congressperson to have this nonsense stopped?
Deleted
>So which bill....?
Exactly. Some MPAA congresstooge will slip it in under the cover of night, as it were.
On the other hand, consider the possibility that the story was leaked as a trial balloon, to see how much attention it would get. They'll put it out again every couple of months, until we all decide that a broadcast flag is inevitable.
Considering how many people think digital TV is some kind of constitutional right, I suspect we'll get a broadcast flag along with subsidized digital TV -- to protect our way of life, fight terrorism, and to save the children.
The MPAA will get their broadcast flag, and the government will borrow money from my kids to pay for it.
sigs, as if you care.
and take off your tinfoil hats..
1984 didn't happen, at least not in 1984, because Orwell's book was so frightening. Too bad the fear lasted less than 21 years. Should be required reading in high school. (I thought it frequently was.)
Y2K didn't happen because everyone feared it, and did a heck of a lot of work to prevent it, possibly fueling the dot-com boom. (and bust, when Y2K dollars were finished being spent.)
Maybe the Broadcast Flag didn't happen (this time) because the EFF was on guard, and alerted the most obnoxious people they could find, for the response.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Its one thing to be stupid. Its not your fault; its genetics and upbringing, neither of which you control.
Its entirely another to be proud about being stupid. That's just....stupid.
Perhaps it is time for those of us who care about preserving fair use, and copyright reform, to stop being reactionary and be proactive. Perhaps it is time to put our energies, and (more importantly) monies into lobbying for the legislation we want, and not just stopping the ones we don't.
I'm not saying it would be easy, just that it is time to add this to the conversation.
What do you know I wrote a novel
championed by such stalwart defenders of truth as Bill 0'Reilly and Shawn Hannity
The rumor was actually invented by the RIAA in order to make their enemies "cry wolf" and have less of a voice. If they can whip their enemies into a frenzy over something that isn't true, this serves to discourage their enemies from doing so in the future and also discredits them in the eyes of others. Sorry, Mulder wants his desk back. Gotta go.
Attaching an ammendment like Real ID or Broadcast Flag will not slow the process. So maybe the CJS Appropriations Bill was not an ideal carrier for Broadcast Flag since appropriations bills tend to be the most debated and delayed.
Generalissimo francisco Franco is still dead.
"THOMAS, one of the best sources for Congressional action on the Internet"
That would be correct as:
"THOMAS, one of the best sources on the Internet for Congressional action"
English is a language with positional importance of words and phrases. Some verbs, like "action", more closely associate subsequent clauses as objects of their meaning than do clauses that preceed those verbs.
--
make install -not war
This is what is wrong with America today. We can't trust our Senators to not go behind our backs and implement a law that is against the constitution.
Why do we, as American citizens, have to keep a close eye on everything that our elected officials do so that they do not sneak unlawful provision into law.
I thought that our elected officials were supposed to be honorable folks looking out for the best interest of the general public.
This is clearly not the case anymore.
Great, now I sound like a crackpot to my senators.
I wouldn't put it past passive-aggressive corporations to create a rumor like this for EXACTLY that purpose: to make opponents sound like crackpots crying wolf.
What were they really up to while we were all focused on the broadcast flag? It seems like a good strategy: Spread rumours you're going to do something outrageous, so everyone goes beserk about that, and then do something else under the radar.
Too many eyes on this one for them to try and sneak it in.
They will wait until our focus is on something else.
Pretty Pictures!
First off, was this just a rumor? Well, most likely not, considering how much the MPAA has gone after the BCF in the last several years, it would be pretty damn asinine to think they are not wanting to get this signed into law. Orrin Hatch has been sucking the c**k of the RIAA and MPAA to such an extent, it's hard to remember he is from Utah. (Yes, I know OH wasn't the one involved here, but he has been the assmonkey behind most of the BS from them)
Did the EFF campaign trump the alledged attempt? Well, unless you get an admittance from a congressman, it will be very hard to ever no the answer to this question.
A shift in congress? Well, there have been more and more congressman lately standing up and admitting that the DCMA is a bastardized screw up that needs major overhauling. Wired even had an interview in the last few days with a congressman who openly admitts he will stand up to anyone in Hollywood. Not too mention, the courts have recently weighed in and staunchly shot down the current attempts. Yes, they stated that it would be up to congress to make the provisions for allowing the BCF.
The fourth option not discussed yet, that the tech companies, have finally gotten off their butts, and realized that only they will watch their butts in congress. The article I mentioned from Wired, the congressman involved discusses how the tech companies are no longer trusting congress to do what is right, and have finally started lobbying their positions in congress.
The fifth option, imho, is that the public outcrying from the court challenge over the BCF was heard in congress, and is being taken into consideration.
That's my five cents worth.
While is wouldn't prohibit unrelated amendments/provisions, this would at least help keep them from being snuck in at the last minute... http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml
Any attempt to copy and distribute the information contained herein will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
No animals were injured in the posting of this article.
Slashdot, and thereby Slashdotters, are becoming more savvy in the legislative process we usually just whine about. Will someone qualified in the arcane wizardry of bill hacking weigh in with how public pressure on, or even just public knowledge of this process contributed to the unamended status of the bill on passage by its committee?
--
make install -not war
Getting the nonsense stopped is harder than it sounds.
The US Congressional procedures are very strange. Bills are created by committees; they don't usually go to the floor until it's been approved by the committee. After that, it's tricky to change the bill.
Most deliberative bodies have a "motion to split", which allows you to take a bill and chop it into pieces and vote the separate pieces. The US Congress rules of order don't have a motion to split. That means that you actually have to amend the bill to remove offending language. On the floor, debate and amendments are limited.
The point of not having the motion to split is to allow compromises to be enforced. If somebody says, "OK, I'll let you have your restriction on cadmium disposal, but only if I can have $15 million for my district to build roads." If you remove one piece or the other from the bill, the compromise falls apart.
It's hard to make compromises in a 435-member House (or even a 100 member Senate). That's why bills come out of committees, where there are usually a dozen people at most. In theory that also allows them to be experts (or at least have experts on hand) in transportation/defense/telecommuncations/etc.
The point is that your senator has less than 1% input into most bills. In theory he makes up for it with more than 1% input into other bills, depending on seniority. Of course it never works out that way, depending on favors he's done, whether he's in the majority or minority, etc.
So ultimately even when it comes down to the up-or-down vote, your senator could be forced to say, "I'm going to vote against this entire bill guaranteeing proper nutrition for kittycats because I don't like the broadcast flag that's gotten crammed into it." And when he runs for re-election, the opposition says, "Senator Bob vote to starve kittycats!"
The Republicans absolutely REAMED Kerry in the last election because of this. It's one reason that Senators haven't been elected to Congress in forever: they end up leaving these long track records of voting against things they agree with.
It didn't help that Kerry fumbled the answer, "Well, I voted for that bill before they crammed all that pork into it" (the correct answer) came out as, "I voted for it before I voted against it," and the election pretty much ended right then.
So Senators on the committee have massive power to write legislative pork and do favors for friends. That won't go away without a rewrite of the rules. Sadly, you'll discover that whatever party has 51% of the vote is not likely to vote to change the rules, since it tends to limit their power.
Viva la revolucion!
The courts have already decided this. More than once. The Betamax decision should have already decided this over 20 years ago. The FCC does not have the jurisdiction in the eyes of the federal court. Tough luck. Now, get over it!
Seriously, why should American's rights be trampled upon because the MPAA and the networks are all crying?
Can we fire all of congress and start anew somehow? Perhaps these 80+ year old senators need some goddamned term limits. I remember watching an interview with one of the oldest Senators (forget which one) from the 80s and when asked if he knew how much a trillion dollars even was, he didn't know. He said something to the extent that it seemed like an awful lot of money, but he had no idea how much.
Secondly, we need to close this stupid awful back door policy. We need to stop adding sections to bills that are wholly unrelated, especially since lawmakers have so candidly told us that they don't even have time to actually read what they are voting for, but at the same time, they can waste days and days of congress sessions for filibusters on Supreme Court nominees.
Well, I guess nobody would ever say that big government is efficient.
That's all I gotta say for now, but I could definately ramble on about the feds for days and weeks and still never exhaust my discontent with the state of the union.
zosxavius photography
This could still be put into the bill in full committee on Thursday.
Please wait a few more days to be sure that it hasn't happened.
Ben Stein used to write speeches for Nixon, before he concentrated on protecting his money on TV.
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make install -not war
Yeah, they *NEVER* having poorly informed people calling them about stuff they don't understand.
never happens . . .
Pretty Pictures!
"We need to stop adding sections to bills that are wholly unrelated..."
Did you know that it's already against the rules to add an unrelated rider to a bill? It is. Fortunately for the bureaucrats, they practiced for years on "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" -- they're *quite* skilled at finding relations between topics that mere common-sense-wielding constituents would have likely overlooked.
When I called Allard's office yesterday to register which way to vote, I was told that there were many votes in favour of the broadcast flag (That would be the Focus on the Family group doing that). It was why I wrote up an anonymous posting addressed to Colorado Citizens after moderating the story.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The RIAA did something similar in the 90s when it snuck in "work for hire" legislation, which made all recording artists mere "work for hires" without any right to retain or obtain copyrights on their songs.
... compare that to last week's topic on Wedding Photographers, and folks biatching about Photographers who want to maintain copyright to their own works.
Copyrights - musicians should keep them, photographers should not. Interesting.
Wow, that's interesting - mere "work for hires" the Slashdotter posts
Actually, the rumor came from the Millinery Division of Reynolds Aluminum.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Every time one of these controversial rider bills comes up it should underscore to everyone the need for a line item veto on for the Federal executive. And this shouldn't be a partisan issue; I want this for the Prez regardless of which party controls which branch.
I don't think there has ever existed a form of government where those in power would not use it for their own ends if not watched carefully. Nothing new here, really. Just probably easier after all the constitutional erosion for things like this to happen - but it's not like there haven't been chances all along to stop that erosion, if people had been watching and non-apathetic. I think the collective "we" have made our bed; even though I hate the fact that I'm included in that collective, I can't make the argument that nobody saw it coming.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
Without the BF, Television programmers and media executives will lose control and no longer have the financial incentive to create quality, top notch wholesome family entertainment and informative shows such as ... um, well, then there's ... ah, oh nevermind.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
We need to move to a new system. I think all high level decisions should be made by one person. They should pick a retired American sports icon who, while not understanding the finer points of politcs, has a good heart and knows when to reap and when to sow. Him, or maybe an actor!
You can either complain, or do nothing. You don't get both.
According to the latest EFF announcement, the campaign was in place to prevent the ammendment from being proposed - in other words, the EFF campaign is working.
--Mike Boos
Let's be sure to keep crying wolf as often as possible. I'm sure everyone will continue to be just as eager to respond.
It's really what I think of as the Louisiana Purchase rationale. A law is enforceable so long as it hasn't been declared unconstitutional. Only the courts can make such a declaration, and they have to have a relevant case in front of them to do so. In order to bring a suit against the government, you need to have standing to do so; i.e., you have to have been directly harmed by the government action or law in question. There was no reasonable cause of action regarding the Louisiana Purchase (you aren't allowed to claim a general harm based on how your taxes are used), so it was effectively constitutional even though there was no grant of power in the Constitution allowing the federal government to purchase additional territory.
Therefore, if a law can't be shown to have a specific harm to a person or other entity capable of bringing suit, it's effectively constitutional regardless of the enumerated powers in the Constitution.
Of course, IANAL, so feel free to disregard any of this as you see fit.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
WOO-HOOOO!!!!
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Hmmm... on the other hand, they now have a list of all of the people who are being UnAmerican and opposing government control of the airwaves. First against the wall, anyone?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Suppose this was a false rumor.
...
Thousands of people collectively wasted hundreds of hours dealing with this.
Hundreds if not thoudsands of taxpayer dollars went to waste.
It's possible that kids didn't get to play games with their fathers because their fathers were too busy slashdotting Congress.
And the second-to-worst part of all...
The next time people see this rumor, they will wonder "am I wasting my and everyone else's time acting on this?"
Of course, the worst part of all
Sooner or later, after everyone is worn out from the false alarms and quits wasting everyones time, the **AA will actually do it.
The price of freedom may be eternal vigilance, but the price of eternal vigilance is time, effort, and money that can't be spent on other worthwhile things. If the **AA plays their cards right, sooner or later, enough people will decide they have more important battles to fight and then evil triumphs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Then you'll love the article I'm submitting about how a nuclear warhead didn't detonate in your living room yesterday, destroying your TiVo along with most of the city you live in.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I wasn't aware that anyone in the US was chained to their screen and literally forced to watch. Of course there's a choice - kill your television.
This is not to say that I'm indifferent to the broadcast flag - I think it's a terrible idea. But you do have a choice. You can vote with the power button on your remote.
Sean
Complete the well-known phrase or saying: "The price of freedom...."
Get Freedom Today for the unbelievably low price of $19.99. Send your Mastercard account #, expiration date, and security code to:
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Lagos, Nigeria
Uh, musicians create the music, just like the wedding planners and attendees create the wedding. By contrast, you're talking about capturing an event on film.
Let's see...there's..an analogy...somewhere around here...
Oh that's right, the studio engineers and producers! The engineers are very much concerned with capturing the moment in audio, and what's more, the producers are very much conerned with manipluating the moment to be the best it can be. Geez, that sounds exactly like what photographers do, yet engineers never get the copyright, and I've never heard of a producer getting the copyright (though in some cases, it wouldn't surprise me if he/she was awarded some part).
--- What
1) Restate article summary
2) Ask obviously implied questions
3) ???
4) Karma!
The mods here are idiots.
Yes, but karma, like most of the posts, is inherently worthless. Kinda like this post!
Next time!!!
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Translation of translation: No one succeeded in sneaking the Broadcast flag into the bill yet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The U.S. flag has 13 stripes, not 12. Please fix it.
capturing an event on film....
Oh, right - that's not creating anything, silly me.
All that bunk about lighting, posing, aperatures, and the technical aspects that go into making the photographers's previsualized concept into an actual photograph - nah, photography ain't art, because photographers only take what's in front of their noses, they don't create anything new. Right.
Thanks for playing, nice sparring with you.
This is true, but even when its possible to trudge the path to unconstitutionality all that lawyer and court time isn't cheap. Maybe the proper "punishment" for breaking Constitutional law should be that when a law is ruled unconstitutional, all court fees for the entire process for both the prosecution and the defense from the first trial, all of the appeals, and the supreme court should be deducted out of the salaries of the people who voted yes, and the president if the president didn't veto it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It's like cockraoches in the night.. They disappear as soon as you find the lightswitch. That doesn't mean that they're gone, though. They just don't like the light.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Is there a group somewhere that soley focuses on reforming the way our government works? Not a partisan thing, just a group that pushes for campaign finance reform, voting reform, and changes to the way our governement works so that things can't be "snuck" in with other bills.
-Bucky
Stop these sleath bills forever, check out
the proposed:
Read The Bills Act of 2005
http://www.downsizedc.org/
In Minnesota, a law that is passed as a tacked-on ammendment to another law can be challenged if the ammendment doesn't have anything to do with the main bill.
The concealed carry law that we've had for a couple of years was thrown out recently for this very reason. The state legislature has to go back and repass the law as its own separate bill.
they write them.
By permitting 'pork' to get tacked onto bills, the bill's originators insure that they will get support from whoever's 'pork' it happens to be.
That how you end up with bills on railroad subsidies carying some agriculture provisions. Its all like that: "You scratch my pig and I'll scratch yours."
It also how you kill a bill.
Just attach a portion that touches on abortion (for or against, doesn't matter,) religion (a sure fire bill killer since it will be stuck down constitutionally, ever by the most rabid right wing judge,) or some other 'hot-button' topic (strip mining in our national parks, in a state that actually has a tourist trade.)
You can even get the president to veto a military budget or a budget bill voting increases in pay for senators and congressmen if you tack a provision supporting abortion (say for sexually assulted military personel or assulted BY military personel.) It'll never pass.
All I know is that Americans give democracy a bad name by constantly muddying the issues. When you vote, it shouldn't need some one with a law degree and a doctorate in PoliSci to tell you what you actually voted for.
Democracy, lets give it a try...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Have a list of categories that a bill can be, like funding approval, new civil law, new criminal law, removal of old law, etc. All bills have to have a category, and they are prefied by it, probably numericly (each category would have a number) and textually to eliminate confusion. The bill can then cover anything you want, but only things that fall under that category. So if your bill is a funding bill, it can be anything about funding, but no new laws. New laws need a seperate bill.
Not a magic bullet, but would make things much, much harder. Then if you wanted to sneak something in, at least it'd need to be on the same kind of bill. No "new broadcast regulations on a funding bill" shit.
So since the flag wasn't activated yet, does that mean that HDTV hardware manufacturers can continue to make devices that ignore the yet-to-be-implemented broadcast flag, or will the post-July devices continue as scheduled to honor the flag as soon as it's implemented?
Slashdot announced an unfounded rumour as an imminent fact? Tell me it ain't so!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
It was tried and struck down as unctutional, a seperation of powers issue. The court found that it gave the executive branch unprecidented legslative powers since they could effectively modify already passed legslation (as opposed to a veto which simply stops passage).
I don't think you'd get the support to ammend the constution for this sort of thing, it takes a LOT fo support to make an ammendment (66% of both houses and 75% of the states).
A better idea is just to restrict the scope of bills so that a bill that is for one thing, like funding, cannot also be for introducing new laws.
The American flag has 13 stripes, not 12. Both the top and bottom stripes are red.
Thomas references a House vote. The EFF said this was action in the Senate....Two different bodies if I remember my civics lesson. Can anyone confirm that there was not a successful atempt to put this requirement in a SENATE bill???
I called mine too - Arlen Specter of PA. Like you, the first thing I asked was "does Senator Specter have a position on this?" Like yours, the answer was no, not really. Big surprise, since this is surely the first these people have ever heard about this mysterious thing that they don't understand.
Continue to emphasize it, there has been no debate over this issue in the appropriations committee or the technology subcommittee! My guess is, this is more likely to compel them to yank the rider out of the reolution while it's in committee - if it survives to be voted on, it's over - no one will hold up an appropriations bill on account of the broadcast flag.
Thanks for the links. I don't think most Tech minded people can afford not to be active in politics. We are becoming more and more powerful and unified as a group then ever before meaning we have much more power then we think.
while there's a lot of artistic photography that certainly falls into your description, i think it's a stretch, at best, to claim that a wedding photographer's photograph is capturing the photographer's previsualized concept on film.
In fact, i'd say it is the wedding photographer's job to capture the wedding couple's previsualized concept of their wedding on film as accurately as possible.
In the specific case of wedding photographers, I would consider them work for hire. In the case of someone like Ansel Adams, however, I would definitely consider it an artistic work that the photographer should hold a copyright on.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
I remember going over this in my Con Law classes.
....
The general thoughts was that the Act would have been Constitutional if rewritten. And, that the SC would have likely found the Act less objectionable if it had had a less inflammatory name.
So, basically a more proper "Line Item Veto" would involve.
1) Congress passes a bill
2) The Pres vetoes it with comments (line item changes)
3) Congress gets to revote on the revised Bill without further amends (bill is introduced by heads of each house)
4) Assuming that the vote fails, a normal Veto override may occur, or a new bill may be drafted.
The answer wasn't to Amend the Constitution, but to change the procedural rules of Congress.
It really isn't a Line Item Veto, but it has the same effect.
Of course, if you want to Amend the Constitution
I use THOMAS everyday in my work (I'm a lobbyist and policy analyst) and it often fails to list anyone of the literally hundreds of amendments that a bill can accumulate as it goes through the legislative process. However, these type of amendments often make it into an omnibus spending bill that has to be passed each year. This is basically what happened when they opened up ANWR by sticking a provision in a domestic budget bill. Anywho, long post short, THOMAS is not the definitive place to find amendments for on-going legislation.
The move to digital TV will *make* the government money and will help finance your children's education.
The TV companies have a lock on the best part of the EM spectrum and they don't have to pay shit for it (relative to its worth). The revenues from auctioning it off will easily cover
Sneaking something into an appropriations bill, by definition, requires it be "sneaked"... impossible to do, if everyone knows about it. 3 weeks from now, 3 months from now, 3 years from now, there will be another bill, people won't be on guard for it, and it will return.
And that's exactly why you should donate to the EFF, and stay on thier action alert mailing list - so when they do try again the EFF can raise the alarm and you can hear it to take action.
Basically now there's ALWAYS someone watching. And that is a REALLY good thing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Totally agree. Some of the highest modded posts add nothing of value to the discussion.
I agree with the EFF statemnet that for some senators, previously something liek a broadcase flag was a "non-issue" - they didn't understand it was important to anyone and so really didn't care one way or the other if it went in.
But when people get so many calls and letters of concern, they start to think and even better - pay attention to what the broadcast flag actually means! And that's all it really takes, for once anyone understands what the Broadcast Flag will really do it's very easy to come to oppose it naturally.
What I wish we knew is which senator was supposed to be sneaking the flag in so we could focus on removing them in the next election. I would be happy to donate money to the campain of someone opposing that person regardless of which state they were in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Amendment 10
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The line was engaged, so I faxed my Senator.
Had I had enough very important things to do, this would've fallen off the priority list.
Sadly, effective lobbying is best done by people who don't have a lot of "more important" things to do - that usually means paid industry lobbyists and astroturfers get the most attention, because - since they are being paid for their time - they have the most time to spend on the cause.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Darth, thanks for your comments.
/off to find previous article
There are multiple parts of a wedding - generally, the portraits before and after, the reception, and the ceremony itself. Would you/anyone consider the portraiture work-for-hire as well?
While couples definately have a handle on the wedding itself, most couples don't have the images previsualized - that's the photographer's job. Couples generally select a style for their photographs, but it's up to the photographer and their artistic license to create the images. While part of the photographer's task is photojournalistic, my experience is that the wedding couple don't have a previsualized wedding concept detailed enough to include every image the photographer will make.
You didn't really address my analogy at all, which was an extension of the one you were replying to in the first place. By hobby (and I don't wish by trade), I record bands. I know exactly what goes on during the making of a record. Audio was the analogy.
By contrast, a LOT more work goes into a record than a wedding photo shoot. And almost every aspect of photography: "lighting, posing, aperatures, and the technical aspects that go into making the photographers's previsualized concept into an actual photograph", is analagous to the recording process: mic type/placement, room choice, digital vs. tape, etc. etc. etc. And that's without "production", that is, not-always-so-gently guiding the musician(s) toward what you think will yield the best realization of their music. Wow, that sounds exactly like photographing a wedding...except several orders of magnitude more involved and abstract.
That was my point, that though even the best producers and engineers may get a cut of the sales, it's unheard of for them to keep any portion of the copyright for the work.
QED. Thanks for playing!
--- What
The line item veto was rejected by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. I believe it was under Clinton's term. The problem will be phrasing the bill for the line item veto in a way that will make it through the court.
The most dangerous people to our rights are idiots with influence and money.
I'm not saying the idiots aren't dangerous either, but it's the clever and greedy people with influence and money you should fear the most.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I'm just a bit disappointed because my congresscritters aren't on that bill. So I just sat around yesterday and thought about how nice it would be to have a say in these things. Oh well. At least it was staved off for a while.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Then you wind up with the executive and legislative branches doing to job of the judiciary. There is a reason why there are three branches of government.
He is a lobbyist.
The State of Connecticut ordered Slashdot to suppress their stripe.
Claim credit for the fact that the disaster didn't happen.
Mention "back channel chatter" a lot.
Profit.
The three branches concept was nice, but flawed from the very start. The post I replied to was right, if Congress does something that cannot be challenged in court, then it can never be ruled unconstitutional, and the so-called "checks and balances" never come into play. Doesn't matter whether it's the Louisiana Purchase or a law stripping suspected terrorists of their constitutional rights to a trial without proving that the person is a terrorist, if it never hits a courtroom, it cannot be challenged.
What would truly fix the situation would be to have the supreme court review all legislation immediately after passage, before someone is injured (in the civil sense of the word) by unconstitutional law. But this would give the poor old justices on the bench quite a workout, so setting things up so that Congress works to stay within the law in the first place would certainly be more feasable.
Then you wind up with the executive and legislative branches doing to job of the judiciary
And you beleive speed limits put traffic cops out of business too, right?
The judiciary will still have the job of interpreting the sloppy laws that Congress passes. It'll still have the job of deciding points of procedure on appeals, and it'll still have the job of issuing tickets to Congress when it feels like "speeding" over the limits imposed by the Constitution.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The Constitution grants the Judical branch limited jurisdiction for a reason. The Executive branch also has different, but overlapping jursidiction with the legislative branch. The three branches of government "concept" isn't simply a case of believing that three heads are better than one. The different branches actually ave different jobs.
You should also do some research on the idea of official immunity.
You should also do some research on the idea of official immunity.
Obviously I'm against Official Immunity, otherwise I'd not have started this thread in the first place. The idea that congresspeople can pass laws with impunity is what gets us into this mess in the first place.
Even leaving Official Immunity in place, I'm not advocating arresting people, or even fines over their pay. By deducting the costs from their salaries, one can view it as a pay-for-performance system: If you do a good job and pass legal laws, you get 100% of your pay thats coming to you. If you're a shitty legislator, you get $0.
While it's easy to say "but if they're a shitty legislator they'll be voted out", you'll have to give me the power of Recall, and prevent the legislators from "hiding" questionable items within another bill. Bonus points if you can come up with people who care. (And no, nobody caring is not a defense either. If not caring was a defense, then I could go and stab some homeless, familyless guy and leave his body on the street, and face a littering fine to cover the cost and trouble of someone having to haul the body away)
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
They marked it up in subcommittee yesterday (here's a brief report), but it hasn't been considered by the full Appropriations committee yet. That's tomorrow. Then it will be some time before it finds its way to the Senate floor.
You can track the progress using this page from Thomas.
The bill referenced in the article is the House version of the bill....
What you are talking about is tipping the scales of balance between the Congress and the President. I for one like the Constitution and don't want to go about changing it - at least not for something that "extreme".
But I suppose making things more efficient and effective isn't The American Way (TM).
Efficiency is the tool of tyranny. The wheels of a free governement are supposed to move slowly. If things moved faster, anything can be taken away *that fast*. Now, it isn't that I don't agree that these tactics are a little underhanded, but it is the way things work. No matter, if Senators/Congress-people did The Right Thing(tm) we wouldn't need to worry. Everytime people feel threatened they want to change the rules of the game. If that happened everytime someone cried foul, we'd be living in a state governed by the Baptist or Methodist church (you know, with that "mandate" and all.)
I say the simple solution is to get a law degree and run for office. I say get the law degree so that you know how things work. After that, go to Washington Mr. Smith. There are plenty of people out there smart enough to run for office, even a few people here on Slashdot could do it.
Riders/allonges aren't going to be stopped, and sometimes they are needed, sometimes the consensus agrees that the rider is a Good Thing(tm). Sometimes they are horrible and bills get voted down because of them. Sometimes the wrong wording kills a bill, and sometimes for good reason.
The simple solution is education of the American people on politics. That way we can avoid this mistake again.
Get your Unix fortune now!
No, a line item veto just jacks the power of the Presidency up even more. The Executive branch has generally sucked up steadily increasing amounts of power from the Judicial and Legislative branches ever since the Constitution was ratified.
The right solution is to do what (Minnesota? Some northern state) did and make a Constitutional amendment stating that legislation must not have unrelated items attached to it. If the Supreme Court judges that an item was unrelated, the legislation gets struck down.
Of course, neither the DNC nor the GOP will ever do this, because the power of politicians comes from doing things that is not in the best interest of people (spending excess money on something, bringing pork to one's home state, handing off contracts to friends, etc), and this would make that more difficult.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The Commerce/Justice/Science (CJS) appropriations subcommittee moved its bill forward after a very quick markup (approx. 45 minutes) on Tuesday. Most of the time was spent discussing immigration issues (border patrol funding, etc), and no amendments were considered.
... remember, this is just a "rumor"). Thank the Energy bill for that.
The meeting was very short because the Senate is considering HR6 - the Energy Bill - and roll call votes on the floor interrupted committee proceedings.
It is likely that Senator Shelby (Chair of the subcommittee) knew he wouldn't recapture a quorum and moved for final passage in order to keep the committee on schedule and have the bill available for the full committee markup this week.
The full committee will be meeting tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 PM to consider the CJS and Agriculture bills.
For the EFF to call this a "victory" is a bit much. All the calls and faxes in the world didn't stop this amendment from coming up (assuming it was ever going to
I was actually so cynical yesterday that I made this webcomic page to show my confidence in the democratic process http://www.deviantart.com/view/19771461/ good thing for once I was actually proven wrong ...
Precisely. It's the same with the RIAA etc.: Corporations will just keep proposing bad things in new ways until they get implemented.
What we need is some kind of law limiting the consideration of ideas previously considered, no matter what form they take.
1. EFF take over American foreign policy
2. Linux on the desktop
3. ???
4. Profit!
If you look closely at the icon you can see that there is a little red at the top. They cropped it took heavily but its there so its accurate.
Now is a good time to be a a citizen and a netizen. I'll explain:
r 2.0/public/
More and more people are discovering things like Thomas, and more and more states are implementing things like lobby tracking, bill tracking, open meeting and notes tracking among other things.
The key is that delivery of this information is becoming much more flexible. For example, the items I mentioned above can be obtained via RSS feed or email. More interestingly is that open meetings can actually RSS an ical file so you can easily bring it into your application of choice.
But my favorites in Rhode Island are the Lobby Tracker which shows all lobbying activity right down to what bill is being lobbied for/against, but who's doing the lobbying, who's paying for it, etc.
Of course perusing that you see the usual players like the Catholic Church, the insurance companies, etc. http://www2.sec.state.ri.us/lt_filing/lobbyTracke
Darth, thanks for your comments.
You are welcome.
There are multiple parts of a wedding - generally, the portraits before and after, the reception, and the ceremony itself. Would you/anyone consider the portraiture work-for-hire as well?
Generally, I would have to say that most portraiture work should probably be considered work-for-hire also. My reasoning is included further down the page.
While couples definately have a handle on the wedding itself, most couples don't have the images previsualized - that's the photographer's job. Couples generally select a style for their photographs, but it's up to the photographer and their artistic license to create the images. While part of the photographer's task is photojournalistic, my experience is that the wedding couple don't have a previsualized wedding concept detailed enough to include every image the photographer will make.
This is a fair point, but in my view that is why you hire experts; they have the expertise to take a vague idea and make it something. As a programmer, I've done contract work for people who had a general idea of what they wanted, but they never know the mechanics of implementing the idea (if they did, i guess they wouldnt need me). That was work for hire. This type of photography seems analogous to contract programming.
Ultimately, i guess my view on the difference is this:
If you are being paid to create the work, especially if it's something you wouldnt create if you weren't hired to do so; it should probably be work for hire.
(there are exceptions to this, like general patronage)
Regardless of the definition for what photography becomes work for hire and what isnt, it's really an issue that should be spelled out in the contract. An agreement between the two involved parties is certainly more important and applicable than what i think about their relationship.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Thats a very bad idea. If we were to stop considering ideas, then slavery would not have ended and equal rights would not have come to pass. In fact, it would cause serious problems with the gay marriage debate regardless of what side you're on.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
It would appear from documentation at the US Copyright Office website (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html#determi ning) that photography cannot be considered work-for-hire, ever - if I read the "nine catagories" correctly.
Well, yes, you're right in a way. And I'll admit it's even the more common case. But it's quite obvious to many of us that corporations are deliberately and gradually wearing down established laws by working along the letter of those laws rather than in the spirit of them. Although I'm not able to give an exact definition of a law that could prevent this, I'm quite sure it could be managed, since much more complex and vague things are defined in law already. I'd like to see people working on the problem, at least.