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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."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Because that's 20 lawmakers who were either bought out by the industry, or are clueless about technology in a technological age. In either case, they can heavily influence their cohorts. It can (not saying it will) be a viral effect.
already slashdotted. i cant see the article even. try the cache.
It's bad enough they want to break our televisions, but the way that they are subverting democracy is just astounding
Okay, now with this issue there might be an exception here, but there is a reason we don't have a true democracy in the United States: people are stupid. That's why we pick representatives to do the voting for us. It's not because it would be inconvenient to have a popular vote on every issue, it's because the framers were smart enough not to trust the public with such power.
Think of all the things that the majority of people in the U.S. hold as being a "good thing" for the country that would probably end up being disasterous. If slavery and civil rights were held to a popular vote, there's a good chance the laws never would have passed.
So please, before you trash Congress for against "the will of the people," bear in mind that is exactly why Congress exists; so that when the time is appropriate, Congress can go against the majority of the people in order to protect the minority.
I make no claim as to the application of my statements to this particular article. Just a general remark about the issue raised by the article summary.
What?
For me, like for many people here, TV is already dead.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go renew my library card...
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
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?!'"
OK, now do the RIAA/MPAA/whatever-AA really lose that much money due to fileswapping, piracy, video-taping, etc., that it is even financially worth all this bad PR? Or are they just run by a bunch of outright bastards who like being thought of as professional killjoys?
The number of people who support a piece of legislation is irrelivant in terms of whether a law is right or wrong. At some point in our nation's history it was only a handful of people who wanted to:
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for this law, but that line of reasoning isn't one of them.
(fyi, do not mistake this comment as support for the law)
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
"Never get between an American and his TV set." If Congress passes this bill, there will be hell to pay.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
We may be a motivated army of geeks, but we're no match for American apathy.
It won't be until Bubba goes out and buys one of those nice new Sony DVD writing PVR's and he tries to save his lastest [Nascar race | Jerry Springer | Reality TV show] to DVD that the broadcast flag will hit him in the face.
Then suddenly the shit will hit the fan and it'll be too late.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The broadcast flag won't do a thing to break your TV. Your TV shouldn't have to care one way or the other about the thing.
What this breaks is your PVR, by making it unlawful for Best Buy (or whoever) to sell you one that will record something they don't want you to. That doesn't stop you watching TV.
So they're not killing your home entertainment centre per se, just transporting it back to those lovely 1970s, where video recorders don't exist and the only way to watch something is to do so when they want to broadcast it. Which is pretty rubbish, admittedly.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
If you're a do-it-yourselfer like me, those days are quickly coming to an end in the US. They don't want a producer society, they want a consumer society. It's good for their pockets. But they are not going to be able to stop people with the intelligence to be able to do this stuff on their own. The GNU Radio Project is a perfect example. It might eventually be "illegal" but for no good reason other than the supposed protection of intellectual property which is also a crock. I plan to be experimenting with this stuff myself since... science is not a crime.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
You write letters, as in black print on white paper, in a real envelope, with a real stamp, to your Congresscritters, explaining that you oppose this, you think it is a really bad idea, and you want them to vote AGAINST it.
You send three letters, at a minimum: one to each Senator from your state, and one to the Congressman who represents you.
You get all your friends to do the same thing.
E-mail WON'T CUT IT. They KNOW that e-mail takes no effort, compared to sending an actual physical letter.
If any of the Congresscritters sponsoring this travesty are from your state, whether they represent you or not, you also send them letters.
The letters should be short, polite, to-the-point. They should not use profanity, they should not use 1337-speak, they should not make any kind of threat, not even the threat to vote against them in the next election if they support this. (That last threat is implicit in the fact that you sent the letter.)
The vast majority of Congresscritters *NEVER* hear from "The Folks Back Home". The corollary is that every actual physical letter they receive indicates at least 100 voters who feel the same way, but didn't bother to write a letter. (Every phone call is assumed to indicate 10 voters.)
You almost certainly will receive a reply to your letter. It may or may not indicate that anyone actually read it. If you do not receive a reply, you send more letters, to the State party headquarters, complaining about that clown in Washington who can't be bothered to answer mail from constituents. Those letters also get read, and said clown will hear about it from the guys who made his election happen.
And anyone who thinks that these things can't be fixed should re-read the results of the 1994 mid-term elections.
except that the current administration is NOT (fiscally) CONSERVATIVE!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yes, they have copyrights, and those should be respected. But if the movie companies don't feel that current distribution methods allow their copyrights to be respected, then they don't have to distribute them. Of course, they'll lose a lot of money if they refuse to distribute. But rather than doing the hard work of researching alternate models, and compromising with technology companies and consumers, they want to be able to dictate to everyone else. Why should they be allowed to have this power?
I don't expect a bunch of slashdot liberals to understand this, but the current administration and majority party in Congress are all about SMALLER gov't. They stand for smaller, less intrusive gov't getting OUT OF THE WAY of the free market. Things like a broadcast flag do not need to be legislated...
You know, if you guys would put down the Mother Jones, Village Voice, and Covert Action Quarterly you MIGHT learn a little something about conservatism.
lol, if you really think that's what the current administration is doing please read me sig.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Posted as AC to promote non-karma-whoring
I am so tired of people saying if we had a true democracy then stupid things would result because look at the stupid people. My answer is maybe you are one of those STUPID people? And maybe you happen to be one of those biased people who thought, "If it was up to me I would fix things".
You see I live in a country that has true democracy and it is called Switzerland. In fact true democracy works well because believe it or not there are "STUPID" swiss! People who say, "it's because the framers were smart enough not to trust the public with such power" are in fact saying, "An elite number of people know what's good for the masses!". Let's carry this thought through and call it what it is namely fascism.
If a country like the US switched to true democracy yes in the first decade all hell would break out because people would vote based on silly ideas. HOWEVER, after people realize that their vote counts people will vote differently. People will think about their votes and they will try to understand the isses. And if the issue is too complex then a simple no will do. That is what happens here in Switzerland. If the issues get too complex they just say NO!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
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.
Because the law and decades of court decisions explicitly give them that right.
So as software developers, we can tack on licenses such as the GPL to determine how our works are used... but networks cannot tack on restrictions to how their media is used.
There is nothing in the GPL that attempts to restrict your standard fair use rights, such as making a backup copy or loading the program into RAM. The GPL only deals with redistribution rights. The GPL gives you broad redistribution rights with some conditions attached. It is well understood that for a TV show, the producers give you zero redistribution rights. But redistribution has nothing to do with you taping a show.
This proposed law is about revoking rights that you already explicitly have, such as timeshifting shows, and transferring them to the content producers. These particular rights are not addressed by the GPL; the GPL simply assumes that you retain the standard rights that you already have under the law.
The truth is that history is repeating itself here, I know this sounds off topic - but a few paragrapshs down I'll explain some more. The speculative industrial stock bubble in 1850 is very similar to the speculative internet stock bubble in 2000. The "war against indians" is very similar to the "war against terrorisim" - back then advances in transportation technology exposed us to indian culture in a very fast and dramatic way causing a culture clash, today the internet has exposed many unfree cultures arround the world to US culture in a very dramatic way to them and some have reacted by lashing out at us.
.... Second, there is no nicely divided north and south. Instead it is more like a division between tech and content industries. Third, copyrights are not the only information people are trying to controll - "money" is a way of storing information about value and transaction costs. The Fed and some large financial institutions are definitely trying to controll it, and all hell is about to break loose in the market place as well as the copyright space. Fourth, there is compelling reason to believe that no government will be on the side of freedom this time until the battle is all over. A flaw of democratic government is that it is often more accountable to the media than it is to securing freedoms.
Back then it was about controlling the labor market (slavery) in the industrial era, today it is about controlling information in the information age. Back then they screamed bloody murder that people were stealing their property rights as industrialists wanted to use available labor without giving a damn about who alledgedly "owned it". Today many industires and individuals want to just be able to use information at their disposal to provide effective services, without being microregulated with a zillion tons of content restrictions. (like google's guntenberg project, apple's ipod, to name a few out of thousands)
The speculative advances of the industrial revolution also caused a period of growth followed by a deflationary adjustment. Today, the housing and every other market is way over saturated in debt - and the writing is on the wall. (watch out for a major economic "adjustment")
There were even people who desperately tried to get the slave states to get along with the free states who naievely didn't understand the nature of slavery or that the forces that would drive the industries apart were far greater than the ones that bound them together. Today there are all these people who are desperately trying to cling to the copyright system, even though any sincere thought will show it's pretty much DOA, and should be DOA.
So yes, the way congress is acting shouldn't be any supprise. Renember how they extended slavery to last forever for all colored people, renember how they punished people for simply teaching others how to read. Funny how copyrights have effectively been made to last forever, and copyright violations can be punished worse than rape.
There are some important differeces though. First you can't controll information with physical violence, but you can attempt to controll it with BS, threats, lawsuits, brow-beating, etc
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...
At one point the Internet looked like providing a fix, at least for the literate, in terms of supplying information. But even there the good stuff is increasingly subject to Gresham's Law - it's being buried under the piles of shit. And now that Rupert Murdoch has suddenly discovered the interthingy, and is moving the centre of his empire to the US, it won't get better any time soon. But cheer up! The Roman Empire ran on panem et circenses; it's just a social cycle and eventually it will collapse. Probably when the barbarian hordes from China invade, steal all the electronic goods, and put the population of the US to work building giant terracotta statues.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Unfortunately, it is obvious from US political history that members of both political parties are more beholden to corporate interests than to the rights of the individual. The people in government are usually quite disconnected from reality, and have bought into the concept that "what's good for business is good for the individual - no matter what".
Actually I doubt that's only true here in the US - watching European governments deal with countries like China has given me the same sour taste in my mouth.
#DeleteChrome
The U.S. government is for sale to whomever has money: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
It's not just the broadcast flag.
I think this would be great. As long as the people in power push to make your existing TV unusable, it would end up making less people waste time watching this horrible television that we have. This can only be a good thing for society.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
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
Their "threat" is so transparently false that it makes me laugh. Broadcasting companies are threatening to stop broadcasting? If they don't get their way, they'll just close up shop, lay everyone off, liquidate their assetts and cease to be? Right. Do you think their shareholders would support them getting out of broadcast television?
They're like a 4 year old threatening to hold their breath until they die if they don't get the candy bar they want. They cannot do it, period. Sorry kid, no candy bar for you.
...but not my TV!
Bitter and twisted, DON'T ever FORGET the TWISTED
If Congress doesn't deliver a Broadcast Flag pronto, warns the letter, content producers will abandon free, over-the-air broadcast TV.
Obviously, that means that we should, under no circumstances, deliver a Broadcast Flag; we really need the bandwidth for more useful purposes. For example, if we use those channels for WiFi or WiMax, then Internet access becomes easier and people can choose what to watch, as opposed to having ABC and NBC show them bad television with worse advertising mixed in.
Correct, but each and every one of those people will keep or lose their jobs based on party-line issues. The bile in your throat you feel over this particular issue won't hurt them at all.
This is why politicians on both sides love the abortion issue, especially when raising funding for their campaigns. Nothing can be done about it one way or the other, because Roe v. Wade is established constitutional law, and not enough people want to change things for an Amendment, which is what it would take. However, Republicans know they can count on the "pro-life" vote, so long as they keep pretending they have the capacity to outlaw abortions. Democrats know they can count on the "pro-choice" vote, so long as they keep pretending that the Republicans have the capacity to outlaw abortions.
Every once in a while an honest politician like Tim Penny comes along and openly admits that the whole debate is completely irrelevant, and we should be voting on issues that matter, like the budget, but nobody wants to hear it, so it all just gets drowned out in the din of partisan screaming.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
First, very few households get broadcast TV any more. I have seen numbers as low as 20%. Most housholds have cable.
Second, what about the mantra that if you don't want people to record things, then don't send it on the radio spectrum? Cable companies can ask you to sign terms of agreements for viewing their broadcasts. They could put broadcast flags in their transmissions if they so choose --and there isn't much that anyone can do about it except not subscribe.
Ultimately I don't think producers and broadcast networks realize that it is their very own throats they are cutting. Those people who have a life do not schedule them around television broadcasts any more. That's what VCRs and TiVO are for. If too many programs have this flag, those who sell advertising will notice that the circulation isn't as wide as it used to be. And then guess what: It will not get used.
Television shows aren't free. If the distributors choose to stop airing this stuff because they can't get the broadcast flag, that's their business. Are we so far gone that we're back to bread and circuses to keep us passified? I say let Congress pass this bill. It will be an interesting experiment. I can't wait to see how much illiterate hate mail the congress critters get because kids can't watch their cartoons on TiVO, housewives can watch their soaps, and those with little imagination can't watch their gussied up game shows we call "reality television"...
I think this is a lot of hooey over nothing. Nobody's got the guts to use a broadcast flag. I dare these guys to do this to this to a program for one year. It'll never survive.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
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.
frist pest
--
make install -not war
The current administration is only conservative in the sense of social and military. They do not seek smaller government, and the size of government has expanded under their watch. Check some of Bush's campaign promises (he promised to sign any gun control legislation that crossed his desk) and facts from the congressional budget office.
Agreed. And all the "State's Rights" stuff is BS also. Only when it suits their agenda. Take a few issues recently:
- Medicinal Marijuana. The State of California enacted laws to allow it. The feds went in and arrested folks growing it. Had the feds followed their mantra of "states know better" this would have never gone to the Supreme Court.
- Right to die. The State of Oregon passed laws to allow it. John Asscroft made a unilateral decision to bar doctors from prescribing drugs for this purpose, effectively squashing it. Even though Asscroft is gone, there has been no attempt to reverse that decision.
- Gay marriage. A few states have passed laws to allow it. The feds are doing whatever they can to circumvent them or at least ignore them. No federal tax advantages of marriage, no ability to get a same-sex spouse citizenship, etc. No attempt to enforce the constitutional requirement that states recognize the public acts of other states.
If a state passed a law to do something in their agenda (read: Christian Fundamentalist or their fellow rich guy's view) that conflicted with Federal law I am sure we would see a very different reaction from this administration.
Pretty sad state of affairs.
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon - Douglas William Jerrold
Democracy has been subverted for ages and will continue to be. The only thing that keeps it rolling along is the electorate eventually gets pissed off enough and kicks the scoundrels out and installs new scoundrels. Rotating the bastards out is something akin to hitting the reset button - things work well for awhile until it's time to reset again.
These 20 congress folk who signed the letter need to be reminded who voted them into office. The bribes the MPAA and RIAA are paying had better be enough for them to live on once they're kicked out.
Dear Congressman Radanovich,
I understand that you are supporting a Bill set forth to require the use of the Digital TV Broadcast Flag. While this has no direct benefit to the users of digital tv, it comes as a worriesome revelation to those of us who use and enjoy analog tv, and have no intention of soon switching over and purchasing digital tv sets.
I know that this bill is an effort to force people to purchase digital tv sets, and I know that Congress can't shut down analog television until 85 percent of American households buy digital sets. I feel that it is being done under a great amount of subterfuge in order to appease the MPAA in it's digital and IP copyright wars against those who choose to share digital media over the internet and other distribution channels. I feel that you've been fooled into thinking that this Bill will successfully regulate such use. In fact, it will have no effect on it seeing as how all pirated works of digital media are captured using analog computer capture cards and the analog out ports on their digital tv's and receivers. It also stifles the rights of Fair Use that some people choose to use in order to archive television shows for their own private home viewing, like the generations before us have done with no harm to the Film Industry.
I emplore you to look deeper than the surface on this issue. While it may seem to protect big business, and clears up analog airways to be sold to cell companies, it clearly violates Fair Use, incorporates unfair DRM (Digital Rights Management), and forces the public to switch to digital tv sets prematurely when there is no good reason to. Even if it were harmful to grandfather such things as analog tv, removing it's potential for the good of the public is like banning classic cars who don't meet California Emission standards. This is akin to forcing classic car owners to sell or buy new cars simply so car manufactures can make more money and consequentially incorporates technology that inhibits the normal person from being able to service their own vehicles without extremely pricey computer equipment and toolsets.
I do hope you rethink your stance on this issue, and look at it from all perspectives, not just that of the MPAA and big business, and what they have to gain from it. Always put the consumers demands and needs first, because it is us who keep your big business and supporters in operation. Businesses are here to provide service, not to ramrod us into litigations that deny our basic rights as customers, and those given to us under law. Big Business should be in servitude to the public, not the public in servitude to Big Business.
Which is why Buffet and Soros are both Democrats, and why small business men and farmers tend to vote Republican.
Your statement is simplistic. The parties are coalitions of pressure groups. The "platforms" are just plans to benefit the groups in the coalitions at the expense of those outside. Some industries support the Republicans some support the Democrats. Some consumer groups support one, other groups support the other. The pressure groups vote for whoever promises to give them the most stuff.
Democracy (where the government represents the interest of the people) is essentially dead in this country. All we have now is pressure group warfare.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the greek roots of "democracy" mean "people" and "power" while the greek roots of "monarchy" mean "one" and "rule". The implication seems to be that while the people have "power" in a democracy they do not "rule". An interesting observation...
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
...and she's supposed to be on our side.
Our side? What the fuck is "our side"?!?!? Did Slashdot just become a Democrats-only club while I was away?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Nationalizing the healthcare (like in Canda) isn't going to fix the problem: that a pressure group has gotten special powers from the government and is using them to benefit it's supporters at the expense of the public. If we take away the special power, the problem would largely resolve itself.
Before someone mentions "tort reform":
While it is true that in SOME states, the loose tort laws have driven the cost of insurance so high that doctors can't get insurance (decreasing the supply further). This is neither a national problem, nor in and of itself can account for the high cost of health care. Real tort reform is a good idea, but GWB style tort reform is a waste of everyone's time.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
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.
From the open letter:
"The broadcast flag protects free, over-the-air digital television programming from unauthorized redistribution over the Internet without restricting the consumer's ability to copy programming or enjoy it anywhere within a personal at-home network."
From wikipedia:
"Possible restrictions include inability to save a digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducing high-definition video to the resolution of standard TVs), and inability to skip over commercials."
So is the open letter lying outright? There seems to be a conflict here... what am I missing?
Actually, when it's a real issue, they make sure Joe Idiot.. uh, i mean Public... is out yelling about abortion or evolution or some other issue that was pretty much settled half a century ago and is relatively unimportant. Then they go do what they feel is right while no one is watching. Unless they're corrupt, in which case they do whatever they feel will benefit them most while no one is watching. In all honesty, I figure this is a marginally better system than the referendum/initiative nonsense, corruption notwithstanding: just look at some of the shit that California has passed under referendum.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~