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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+
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.
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...
Whether this is similar to Y2K ("Nothing happened! Complete waste of time!" "Idiot! It only didn't happen because we did all that work!") or like the Tiger Repellant ("What's that?" "A tiger repellant" "What for? There are no tigers in Atlanta" "Exactly. Works pretty well, huh?") is difficult to tell from the point of view of an outsider.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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
Why ask hard questions? It was presented as a rumor, and due to the seriousness of it, it needed to be published. It's not like any harm came out of it. And more likely, it may have actually prevented harm by keeping the sneak from occurring.
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.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Or maybe the senator-in-question decided not to try and sneak it in given that the EFF raised a ruckus and he'd actually be doing it in plain sight rather than "sneaking"? Are you so resigned to not being able to affect what congress does by writing and calling your senators?
>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.
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.
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
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.
"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
"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."
Complete the well-known phrase or saying: "The price of freedom...."
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.
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.
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
Yeah, they *NEVER* having poorly informed people calling them about stuff they don't understand.
never happens . . .
Pretty Pictures!
I'm not finding the amendment anywhere in the proceedings. Maybe I'm missing it, or maybe I'm missunderstanding what you're saying, Mr. Coward. Would you be so kind as to elaborate, and perhaps provide a link?
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.
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); }
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.
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
The U.S. flag has 13 stripes, not 12. Please fix it.
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.
The EFF said it was a rumor, which means that they're not sure if it's true or not. This isn't anything like the Bush administration because Bush didn't come out and say "I heard a rumor that them thar' terrorists is gonna blow s**t up again."
Um... that's because it's not a rumor. They have blown stuff up again (know anyone that lives in Madrid?), and keep saying how they're going to do more of it, and death to America, etc. It's not really a matter of rumor when you can follow the money from shady businesses to people buying and selling weapons, to the people who are actually, demonstrably tied to people that are blowing up restaurants, chopping off heads on video, and saying they won't rest until democracy (a "true evil") is banished from the world. Come on, now, the fact that these clowns are out there, and willing to kill/die working against basic stuff like represntative government or women being allowed to work if they want to... that's not rumor. It's just medievalist jackasses with enough cash to buy decidedly post-medieval weapons and enough young people in their thrall to talk them into shredding themselves in a restaurant and taking innocent people with them.
Calling it a rumor is like saying that crackers and blackhats are a rumor, just because you've never personally had your box owned. Any chance that you've never had malware running on your machine not because there's no such thing as crackers, but because you're careful, and can think abstractly about the consequences if you were to let your guard down? National security has become just like that. And since our public memory is about 12 minutes long, all of that post-9/11 caution is regarded as "Bush=Nazi," and very few people can think abstractly about the consequences of not fending off the bad guys. You'd think, after watching New York, or that Beslan school in Russia, or the trains Madrid, that it would be a no-brainer and everyone would get that there really are people that happy to kill - but since most of us can't think like those people, it's hard to imagine that their past acts are anything other than an abberation. But they're not, and they're not going to be for a long time. Generations, probably (since that how long it will take for all of the kids in the middle east and other oppressive places to shake off the whole doom-and-gloom as a way of life thing). Generations before the whole 70 Virgins concept starts to look a little shaky as a reason to kill police cadets as they eat their lunch.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
There is one fallacy in your argument, just because a law is written, doesn't mean it is legal. If that were true, the court system would not be able to invalidate laws.
Let's be clear about the distinction between "illegal" and "unconstitutional." There are plenty of laws that have been found, appropriately, to be unconstitutional. Those, at that point, are no longer laws. Until the court says they're not, though, they are laws, and describe how the legal system works. Years can go by between a law being created and judicial action undoing it. In the meantime, it's legal, by definition. Let's also not confuse "legal" with "morally right." Plenty of laws, even those that pass consitutional tests, are just plain wrong-headed. But that won't keep you out of jail if you break them. Only changing the law will do that... and if the law in question passes a challenge at the court, then only legislative actions will be able to change the law. So, vote! Your elected congressional and senate representatives are the people that make the laws, and are the people that can un-make them when they no longer mesh well enough with society.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
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!
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.
Can we pretty please title it "Read The Full Bill Act"? I just want senators hollering "RTFB!" at each other.
If government can't be effective, it might as well be entertaining.
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
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
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