Slashdot Mirror
MPAA Kills California Anti-Pretexting Bill
IAmTheDave writes "A California anti-pretexting bill that got unanimous support in the state senate with a vote of 30-0 was struck down after heavy last-minute lobbying by the MPAA. The bill aimed to make deceptive 'pretexting' (lying) to gain personal information on another person illegal. The MPAA told legislators 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,' and thus killed the bill when it came up for a final vote. California passed a much narrower bill that 'bans the use of deceit to obtain telephone calling records, and nothing else.' In a final 'think of the children' bid, the Califonia Association of Licensed Investigators also opposed the bill, saying it needed to be able to use pretexting to help find missing children, among other things."
To paraphrase Ed Harris in the movie, History of Violence, "...how come the MPAA is so good at killing bills?"
The answer is that succesful politicians are not developed, they're bought.
I never realized the MPAA was a law enforcement organization.
I wonder what else they need in order to enforce laws. Prisons? Armed agents? The power to arrest and seize property?
Seems odd when a committee (in this case, an entire senate) deems a law pragmatic enough it goes up for vote with a unanimous (30-0) sendoff and subsequently because of special interest (MPAA allegedly) the final vote skews not only away from unanimous but actually flips the sentiment (bill loses 27-33).
Consider the gist of the bill (from the article):
This means the MPAA and others argued for the right to make "false, fictitious or fraudulent" statements...! Amazing!
There are legitimate ways for the entertainment industry to obtain data when prosecuting alleged piracy activity. This isn't one of them. So, the practice (pretexting) remains legal and the MPAA prevails in yet another seamy side of big business buying milquetoast government.
I've lost the ability to record FM on my Creative Zen with my last firmware update... ostensibly, though I can't confirm it because of industry pressure on Creative -- it was one of the features I bought it for.
The threat continues to loom for providers of excellent technology like TiVo to rein in their features, also ostensibly under pressure.
The better the technology gets, the less they want us to use it.
If you need to stop something illegal, it shouldn't be necessary to lie and impersonate someone to prevent the activity. Why is it necessary to impersonate another to "think of the children" or to stop illegal downloads? If you have proof of a wrong doing, you take it to a judge, get a warrant, and put an end to it. If you don't have proof, then lets end all the witch hunts.
You've hit upon something which I've long believed is important:
Legislators rarely suffer from the effects of their actions, while the rest of us are slowly whittled down.
We've got a huge percentage of our population in the prison system, in a 'free country' where putting something into your body is considered a criminal act.
This all falls under the theory that you cannot rule a free man, but if you make SOME aspect of every free man's life technically illegal, you can keep them in line.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
And people say the European Commission is corrupt...
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Oh really? So its OK if I call your phone company pretending to be you and get a copy of your phone records?
Its OK if I call your Satelite/cable provider and get a list of all of the services you signed up for?
Its OK if I call you bank and get a list of all of your acounts and their balances?
The problem is not that these people are pretending to be someone they are not, the problem is that they are pretending to be some one in particular and useing that to gain information they could not otherwise gain.
What the MPAA has just done is say "There is information out there that we cant gain through normal legal channels, so we want to be allowed to gather the information through semi/non-legal channels" and the governemnt said "Oh, OK".
Wouldnt' any bill allow for exceptions like the use of pretexting for criminal investigations? Seems like a pretty flimsy excuse for downgrading the bill.
So it all just comes down to who has the biggest pockets.
Current breakdown of the California State Senate - 25 DNCers, 15 GOPers. But I thought only GOPers who bow to big business?
Wake up people, no party is free of Big Business.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
On the one hand we have the RIAA trying entrap media pirates under false pretenses. On the other, we have Universal trying to extort royalties for mp3 player manufacturers because they are "repositories for stolen music": http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/29/ 2328222. So I'm supposed to pay a tax on my mp3 player to keep the RIAA at bay, and then go home and not download free music? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
I say that "pretexting" should be ILLEGAL. They can work through the legal system to "protect" their "property".
If your car was stolen, the cops would take a very unfavourable view of you impersonating a cop in order to retrieve it.
The only problem with that is that it will never happen for the same reasons that this bill was killed: it requires politicians to do what is in the best interests of the citizens, instead of what is in the best interests of their reelection campaign (read getting money).
The only problem? His amendment is so broadly worded that it would probably outlaw credit histories as well. Do you lend money to people? Is this something you'd condone?
Likewise, there were probably very compelling reasons not to pass this bill but we won't hear about them because of the four letter word known as the MPAA. Because they got involved I predict the chances of this being a fruitful discussion on /. at 100 to 1 against.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"You misspelled "some state". Hope this helps, corn boy."
I'd better get back to husking the ears, then, my erstwhile foe.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Damn, I had to blow off Mod points to respond to this, but...
"Too bad they take it to the other extreme. Zero regulation of businesses, the complete abandonment of any sort of social safety net and privatising everything are just a few of the disagreements that I have with the Libertarian Party."
The nature of government past and present tends toward eternal scope creep. If Libertarians were to sweep all 3 branches of the US government tomorrow and hold power for a decade, we would still not live in a system that actually *had* zero regulation of businesses, complete abandonment of any sort of social safety net, or total privatization of all that is currently in the civic sphere.
Despite my heavy Libertarian sympathies, I do believe that some things *belong* in the public sector. The Libertarian philosophy may appear extreme to you, and it may in fact be extreme. However, Democrats and Republicans alike have lost sight of any sort of sane boundaries on what belongs in the public sector. I can't imagine a pure Libertarian philosophy ever really being actualized, but I think an extreme dose of it would bring sobriety and balance to bear against government's inexorable tendency to intrude further and further into what should be the private sphere.
Think about it - you surely can see extremity of some sort in the Democrat and Republican parties alike, no? But does this country look entirely like an incarnation of the desires of either one of them? No; it's a hodge-podge of policies -- sometimes contradictory -- hailing from all over the political spectrum. So in the end, infusing the system with a bunch of anti-scope-creep politicians would merely introduce some friction to retard the expansion. Like any other party, if they took it too far, populism would push the pendulum of power away from them and things would drift back in the other direction.
Pi Ran Out