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20 Lawmakers Want to Kill Your Television
Macki writes "As previously mentioned, the Broadcast Flag is back before congress. There are 20 law makers currently supporting the bill. The insane thing about it is the fact that no one supports the bill except a handful of entertainment companies. Probably not even the employees of the entertainment companies. It's bad enough they want to break our televisions, but the way that they are subverting democracy is just astounding. Danny O'Brien at the EFF has done a spectacular job deconstructingthe MPAA/RIAA's efforts to ramrod this through, and more importantly, the motivations of the members of congress who are helping them."
Since I'd really like to know who the CongressCritters are who are supporting this, I found a link off the webpage to a letter of support: pdf here.In case that's slashdotted moementarily, heres the list of representatives
;)
Charles Pickering
Edolphus Towns
John Shimkus
George Radnovich
Mike Ferguson
Marsha Blackburn
Mary Bono
Bart Gordon
Joe Terry
Ed Whitfield
Bobby Rush
Vito Fossella
Elliot L. Engel
John B. Shadegg
Albert Russell Wynn
Michael F. Doyle
Charles A. Gonzalez
Charles F. Bass
John Sullivan
Frank Pallone, Jr.
You can look up what disctricts they're from at www.house.gov, and contact them any way you see fit. Let 'em have it!
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Posted as AC to promote non-karma-whoring
Here are the 20 signatories of the letter:
Shadegg R-AZ
Bono R-CA
Radanovich R-CA
Whitfield R-KY
Rush D-IL
Shimkus R-IL
Wynn D-MD
Pickering R-MS
Terry R-NE
Ferguson R-NJ
Pallone D-NJ
Bass R-NH
Engel D-NY
Fossella R-NY
Towns D-NY
Sullivan R-OK
Doyle D-PA
Blackburn R-TN
Gordon D-TN
Gonzalez D-TX
Also, Upton, R-MI, is also known to be strongly in favor of the flag. On the other hand, Upton is only a subcommittee chair, while Barton, R-TX, is the chair of the entire Energy and Commerce Committee. According to the EFF post linked in the OP, Barton may be willing to trade the broadcast flag for certain concessions from the ??AA (why Barton feels he has to bargain with the ??AA is beyond me - the entertainment industry is not the end-all, be-all of campaign finance).
Note that the people who signed the letter are lost causes. It's still important to deluge them with phone calls, but don't expect them to change their minds. The only true recourse is to vote against them next year. What's more important is the opinions of the other members of the Energy and Commerce Committee; they couldn't be convinced to sign the letter right away, and that must mean they're either opposed or on the fence.
You might be interested to follow the money trail behind there. There are two major money sources behind this legislation (well, probably more, but it takes time to mine OpenSecrets): The national association of broadcasters and the national cable and telecommunications association. Together these groups have given over $300,000 to the people who signed this letter over the past two election cycles. That's an average of more than $15,000 per congressman. It's scary that I can buy a congressman's support on a bill for less than the cost of my Mazda. Of particular note is how representative Upton, the man who the letter was directed to has already received over $35,000 in this and the previous election cycle from these interests.
More analysis and complete listings can be found at this entry in my weblog.
Anyway, so in response, I called my congressman, Mike Doyle (PA-14), and asked to speak to the tech person to understand his position on the broadcast flag. It's important to note that not all legislators who signed the letter support the flag on the same level. I was informed that Doyle supported it to keep copy protected content off the internet, but still wanted to allow time shifting and burning to DVD, copying to PSP etc. Good, but misguided. If your legislator takes this stance, I highly suggest referencing the Darkent Paper from Microsoft Research. Basically, it says that DRM will fail in these endeavors. Also, when you call, try not to sound like a loony. Being able to cite specific examples of how it will hurt you is good (e.g. I travel a lot and this will prevent me from watching shows on my PSP or are you willing to explain to grandma why she can't tape Monday night football to watch it the next morning because she can't stay up past 10pm).
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
These are mostly politicos with low standing. These all want to be the next Sen. Ernest 'Fritz' Hollings, D-Disney, why anyone would want to be a crooked racist crackpot I don't know. However it does pay well.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
>>> Do you even know what a true democracy is?
I wish people who make such accusations take the time to find out what Swiss politics are all about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy Yes there are elected politicians who iron out the details of what the people decided. After all true democracy needs to be efficient and smooth. Politicians do what politicians were originally meant to do, namely carry out the details of running the country based on the desires of the people. Yes people can carry out "initiatives" but these "initiatives" are every three to four months.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
8 of these 20 senators are up for reelection in 2006, more than the percentage of the entire Senate (40% vs 33%). Call their office, ask how they'll vote, decide whether to vote for them to represent you for the next 6 more years, and tell them that you and all your Internetted friends are voting that way next year. That's the only way to influence them, short of sending them sacks of cash bribes^Wcontributions, or finding them in bed with a dead girl (or live boy). If you really want to make a difference, don't just call them with consistent, effective talking points. Send them a paper letter. Because plenty of these neanderthals don't have any idea what a "broadcast flag" is, and probably think they're voting for some kind of "wrap myself in the American flag" rule that scores votes among the blindly patriotic.
Republicans:
Conrad Burns - Montana 202-224-2644
Trent Lott - Mississippi 202-224-6253
Kay Bailey Hutchison - Texas 202-224-5922
John Ensign - Nevada 202-224-6244
Olympia Snowe - Maine 202-224-5344
George Allen - Virginia 202-224-4024
Democrats:
Bill Nelson - Florida 202-224-5274
Maria Cantwell - Washington 202-224-3441
Senator John McCain - Arizona 202-224-2235 is running for president in 2008. Call his office, too, and tell him whether you and all your Internetted friends nationwide will be voting for him.
Senator David Vitter - Louisiana 202-224-4623 just stood up for his partymate Bush's failure to protect his state before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. He's not running, but he's so vulnerable that he doesn't need to hear that rich, smart people are against him, along with the poor evacuees and victims.
Senator John Sununu - New Hampshire 202-224-2841 is the most powerful telecom senator. Call his office and tell them what his "tech constituency" thinks of his votes to protect us from being regulated into media vassals.
Go ahead and call any of the rest of them, if they represent you. That means they represent you, not the interests of some out-of-state media cartel that's just ripping you off:
Republicans:
Chairman Ted Stevens - Alaska 202-224-3004
Senator Gordon Smith - Oregon 202-224-3753
Senator Jim DeMint - South Carolina 202-224-6121
Democrats:
Ranking Member Daniel K. Inouye - Hawaii 202-224-3934
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV - West Virginia 202-224-6472
Senator John F. Kerry - Massachussetts 202-224-2742
Senator Byron L. Dorgan - North Dakota 202-224-2551
Senator Barbara Boxer - California 202-224-3553
Senator Frank Lautenberg - New Jersey 202-224-3224
Senator E. Benjamin Nelson - Nebraska 202-224-6551
Senator Mark Pryor - Arkansas 202-224-2353
--
make install -not war
The "There are 20 law makers currently supporting the bill" link in the summary is incorrect. The twenty Senators listed on that site are the ones in the Commerce Commitee who will be voting on the Senate version of the DTV bill, and may or may not support the broadcast flag.
This article, however, was about a new push to get the Brodcast flag added to the DTV bill in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce , in particular in the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee . The way that legislation works now-a-days is that there is rarely an opportunity to get a bill ammended when it goes before congress. All the formulation and ammending of bills happens in committee, and then the house and senate usually just give it an up or down vote without any modifications (but after a great deal of grand-standing). So these are the people who have the most influence on the final wording of the House version of the DTV bill. If you have representatives from your state in this committee you should definiately write them. Even if you don't it won't hurt to pick someone from the subcommittee and write them anyway.
The representatives listed by Mad Rain, above, is the correct list of supporting representatives - 20 of the 57 members of the House Commerce Committee. If they are in you district, they are the people you should writing letters of disgust, and let them know you will be voting against them in the next election.
In addition if your Senator is on the Senate Commerce Committee and you haven't written them yet on the broadcast flag, then you should, as they will be dealing with this issue as well.
Lastly if your senators and representatives are not on any of these committees you should write them anyway in case the bill makes it out of committee. Since we dont know an exact number for this bill yet, it helps if you know in what capacity they will be working with the bill, to help them identify what bill you are talking about. Keywords - Digital Television Bill, Broadcast Flag, Commerce Committee.
Write The Fucking Word, it's not like masking it with *s makes it any less offensive.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
The problem is that the 20 people are not the people being linked to by the link. Those are senators. Yes, getting them to be opposed to broadcast flags is a good idea. But there's not point in flaming them, yet. (Even Trent Lott...)
As linked to elsewhere, here are the jerks who have sold their souls to media:
Find out who your representative is, and make sure these people get nailed.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.