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Broadcast Flag Sneaking in the Back Door
ZeissIcon writes "Public Knowledge.org is reporting that the oft-defeated broadcast flag DRM scheme is being sneaked into Senator Steven's Telecommunications bill. Aside from the fact that it has no business being in that bill, and making no exceptions for fair use, this particular version calls for an Audio Broadcast Flag that would affect digital and satellite radio as well. The bill goes to committee on Thursday, so there is still time for public comment."
with our legal system: When random crap like this DRM can get implanted in the middle or a totally unrelated bill.
Has anyone contemplated legislation to stop this from happening?
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You know, it would be nice, just once, for those we entrust with ensuring the country is run for the good of it's people actually worked for the people who vote for them, rather than constantly trying to sneak pieces of legislation into any bill they can in a bid to force it through because it is clearly so unpalatable to everyone else that every time anyone spots it in the wild they beat it to death and chuck it to the kerb?
What must happen before the people we elect realise that when a piece of legislation is slapped down as often as this one has been, that the people don't want it, and that if the people don't want it, it shouldn't be a "tough shit, we'll just try again when you look the other way" thing? (and before you answer, I already know the answer - campaign 'donations' matching those the media companies chuck at them - when did democracy turning into 'the rule of those who can buy the elected rulers the biggest, most expensive lunch'?
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
We all need to know about this stuff each and every time. And for anyone who is in this particular senator's constituency, I urge you to send a strongly worded letter (complete with a copy of voter registration if you have it) that he is INDEED being watched and that it will be made clear and obvious to all where his money is coming from and what laws it is being used to pay for.
I believe all of congress and the senate need a wake-up call when it comes to these practices. They should all be put on notice that there are people who are watching, and the numbers are growing.
How can we forcibly say to congress that we don't want this passed?
Nothing says "hay guys, listen up!" like a vest that goes BOOM.
(you did specify "forcibly", which is a funny word to use. Since force is also the reason laws are obeyed.)
Nothing short of a revolution can change the status quo.
The revolution must be then used to dump the current laws and remove those, who are currently in power, and update the constitution to include the new realities and possibilities and to prevent as much as possible of this degradation of human rights and of this invasion into individual freedoms.
Of-course it is the most important job of the corrupt government to prevent such a shakeup by all possible means including dumbing down the population, removal of all individual rights and even responsibilities (those who understand their responsibilities also insist on their rights,) introduction of laws that take away all freedoms that really matter and nurturing the environment of conspicuous consumption, which is enough to satisfy the current bodily needs and to substitute any mental needs/activities.
As it is right now television is great for mass control and the Internet is terrible at it. What the US government doesn't understand is that by creating tight regulations around usage of the TV programs, they are just pushing people to use more of what the Internet offers. If I was the government, who wanted to keep tight control over population, I would promote more cheap and accessible TV for everyone and would discourage usage of the Internet.
Maybe the equation will balance itself out, or maybe those in power will try to control the Internet in the same manner as the TV (this will be much harder.)
The Internet can lead to organization of opposition and may even be able to provide the means to conduct something of a revolution for the future generations.
You can't handle the truth.
Seriously, the public outnumbers congressmen around 525,000 to 1.
Time for some civil disobedience. The jails can't hold all of us if we break this crap. Courts would be tied up for eons, putting precious patent cases on the back burner even if they DID start waving jail time. Citizens that actually have clout would get burned eventually.
I'm getting very comfortable with the idea of letting Congress passing whatever crap the corporate culture pushes under their noses because eventually a substantial portion of the public will get pissed off and force them to change.
To paraphrase Gandhi, "535 Congressmen and assorted CEOs cannot control 280 million Americans if those Americans refuse to cooperate."
Because I'm not - and I hope no one else is - surprised in the least. I'm actually surprised it's attached to a telecommunications bill at all. I expected that the oft-defeated broadcast flag would be snuck through in a farm bill, or a bill that feeds homeless children (you wouldn't vote against a bill that feeds homeless children!!)
Washington sucks. Once an idea is shot down, it shouldn't be legal to attach it to another bill. Why did line-item veto's fail again?
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Nothing should be attached to any bill. Every issue should have to stand on it's own merits.
And there should be a law that any time a new bill is passed, 2 old bills / laws have to be removed. That way government is ever-shrinking instead of ever-growing.
Washington sucks big time...
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Because in a "Feeding Homeless Children Act," the broadcast flag provision wouldn't be the line veto'd.
They can if they have control over a modern military with a few hundred thousand troops and lots of big guns.
And don't give me that bullshit about how the military won't be willing to fire on its own civilians. Thousands of years of history have shown otherwise, and there's no reason at all to believe that the U.S. military is so special that it's an exception.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The only way to get rid of the current corrupted system is to vote out EVERYONE in Congress, and vote in just about anyone who's platform promotes campaign reform, line-item-veto, Congressional term limits, and (my one of my personal favorites) no salary raises for congressmen currently in office (they only go into effect for the next guy to take the office - nobody in government should be in charge of their own salary). Then if they don't follow through, recall or vote them out in the next election.
Because otherwise legislators would have no way to sneak their otherwise unpassable legislation into other bills and get it passed. It's akin to a filibuster in that it is an annoying thing to do practically, but the ability needs to be there for the rare cases when it's the only way to get something done. (I would argue, though, that filibusters are used for useful things, while sneaking unrelated amendments into bills is rarely used for anything that isn't evil.)
I agree with a sibling post that says line-item vetoes should be allowed if the line item is unrelated to the bill itself. I would go as far as to say that amendments to a bill should be required to be related. If they're not, they simply don't belong there. End of story.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Well what would be better was if the Constitution just specified that all legislation on a bill had to contribute to a single core purpose, and that the purpose couldn't be overly vague (to keep the purpose of every bill from being "Making the United States a Better Place"). That way the Supreme Court would have the ability to just delete anything that got attached to a bill that it wasn't supposed to have been attached to. It wouldn't solve the problem altogether (and might make it worse -- politicians would just take lots of crap on and let the courts figure it out), but it wouldn't hand that much extra power to the Executive.
I guess at the end of the day it just depends: would you rather give more power to the President or to the Justices? Historically, the latter seems to have made a lot less total boners, but that doesn't mean they will continue to do so.
I also think that the USSC should have automatic review of all new laws passed, without having to wait for a challenge case, but that's a separate issue.
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