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Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws About Technology
snydeq writes "As the world gets more and more technical, we can't let Luddites decide the fate of dangerous legislation like SOPA, writes Deep End's Paul Venezia. 'Very few politicians get technology. Many actually seem proud that they don't use the Internet or even email, like it's some kind of badge of honor that they've kept their heads in the sand for so long. These are the same people who will vote on noxious legislation like SOPA, openly dismissing the concerns and facts presented by those who know the technology intimately. The best quote from the SOPA debates: "We're operating on the Internet without any doctors or nurses on the room." That is precisely correct,' Venezia writes. 'The best we can do for the short term is to throw everything we can behind legislation to reinstate the Office of Technology Assessment. From 1974 through 1995, this small group with a tiny budget served as an impartial, nonpartisan advisory to the U.S. Congress on all matters technological.'"
This simple act underscored a problem possibly bigger than SOPA: the fact that as with far too many of our elected officials, technology legislation isn't even on his radar.
I don't think you understand SOPA. SOPA isn't a problem with Technology. It's not going to physically break the backbone routers we need for the internet. It's not going to present technological challenges. What it's going to do that is a problem is rape free speech, make user-generated content (like what I'm doing right now) nearly impossible and on par with China's arcane policies as well as a number of other things. It threatens uploading content, it threatens internal networks, it threatens open source software, it threatens DNS, DNSSEC and internet security. And the worst part is that it's going to be completely ineffective at what it aims to do!
You don't need to understand technology to read the pieces on how this is a direct assault on free speech. Screw their understanding of technology, frame this piece of shit legislation as a direct assault on basic civil liberties! Let them chisel into stone memos about their dry cleaning, who cares if they don't use e-mail. Just make sure they understand that this is first and foremost diametrically opposed to free speech when you simply consider the internet as a means of communication and expression!
The best we can do for the short term is to throw everything we can behind legislation to reinstate the OTA (Office of Technology Assessment). From 1974 through 1995, this small group with a tiny budget served as an impartial, nonpartisan advisory to the U.S. Congress on all matters technological.
Another government office or agency? Man, don't we have enough of that bullshit as it is? I think you're deflecting and focusing on something that will sidetrack us from getting this crap shut down. Call your representative and senators and tell them that you feel that your First Amendment Rights are being threatened by H.R. 3261 and forget trying to lecture them about how DNSSEC works.
You want to effectively stop this? Here's a commercial I'd like to see Google air on national TV:
*woman sits behind bars with a look of remorse on her face*
Woman: I uploaded a video less than half a minute long of my toddler dancing to music on Youtube.
*clip of cute toddler jamming out to some pop music plays*
Woman: The video went viral. Then I received a letter in the mail from lawyers saying I owed them the cost of that song for every view. Instead of just taking it down, I'm now in a criminal lawsuit facing bankruptcy and jail time. Please call your representative to stop SOPA and prevent this from happening to thousands of people.
Fight fire with fire, 15 second ad. Let's see it, Google.
My work here is dung.
The Greek "politicians" were actually philosophers. They knew they didn't understand everything, so arguments were structured to expose their own ignorance through the statement of assumptions: "Assuming X is true."
This inevitably can lead to more discussion about whether the assumptions are valid, but the approach at least documents the process of working through the details of what eventually would become legislation.
Right now politicians make decisions based on ideology and dogma, not on logic and reasoning. At a bare minimum, Parliament and Congress should be held to a philosophical evaluation of law that starts with "Assuming the Constitution is true" and "Assuming the Charter of Rights is valid". Those foundational documents should always be the core of testing the validity of an argument for encoding something as law.
As long as politicians are chosen by a popularity contest instead of an assessment of their skills, experience, and knowledge, that leads me to conclude that politicians should not make laws at all.
Instead, they should be responsible for collecting evidence from the public, industry, and others concerned about the legislation they propose to prove it's good legislation meeting the needs of the people, not serving the will of dogma and corporate influence.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Politicians should never make laws about technology. Which is why machine guns should be free for everyone to own.
Advice: on VPS providers
Politicians are basically owned by the big money corporations that put the politicians in office. The politicos don't know about tech, and don't care either. The lobbyists write the bills, and the give the bills to the politicians to pass - along with a big campaign contribution, of course.
Do you actually think SOPA started in congress? Some congressmen, all of the sudden, thought it was important to save the content providers?
All the stuff about "politicians don't understand tech well enough to make laws about it" is just silly. Congress doesn't even read the bills it passes, and congress certainly does not write the bills.
All JMHO, of course.
I disagree, it creates a conflict of rights and a loophole allowing people to commit harm to others. That is foolish and irresponsible, but it is not the end of the world or the end of slashdot or the end of free speech.
When did I say it was the end of the world, the end of Slashdot or the end of free speech? And, yes, it could affect my Slashdot posting as I might inform you that I have parodied Dr. Suess and movies and songs in my posts. Should a rights holder decide that those are too close to their original material or even just decide that I probably couldn't defend their lawsuit, they could sue me instead of issuing a DMCA and demanding it be taken down.
If it is abused, then the conflict of rights will have to be resolved in the courtroom.
Well, unfortunately, those with the most money often win in the courtroom and which side do you think is going to predominantly be the big dog? The conglomeration of all record labels known as the RIAA? Or the single mother?
No matter how badly the courts stumble over it, it won't end up with some doomsday "zomg we're China" xenophobic nonsense.
Wow, if you think my criticism of an oppressive tool such as the Great Firewall of China is xenophobic then you truly are ignorant. Don't you get it, I want to help the Chinese people enjoy the freedom to say and read whatever the hell they want! I want the Chinese people to enjoy the freedoms I enjoy like being able to say "Fuck the United States Government and that wasteful war in Iraq" while being a citizen and not worry that there is a death van awaiting me on my return to my home tonight. That's not xenophobia, you idiot! It's a desire for freedom! I suffer from oppressive-government-phobia!
My work here is dung.
Instead of electing educated scientists and engineers (see China) to office, we instead elect people whose qualifications are in social sciences. That is, the politicians we often end up choosing are mostly good at manipulating people with their rhetoric (and the masses fall for it); but they are pretty stupid when it comes to technical details. Furthermore, your average Joe is intimidated by the nerds (hence the term "nerd"). We often say "Oh I suck at math" when that term is brought up, and that is too often the typical response by the average American. We're too proud of being stupid, and then we elect stupid politicians to office to run our country.
Bingo. Politiicans know practically nothing about anything other than getting re-elected, which is why most Western nations are just about bankrupt right now.
Once you understand that then politicians become very easy to train. They respond as reliably as Pavlov's dogs to the right positive and negative reinforcement. You can do it with money, or you can do it with grassroots. Grassroots is more work, and there has been far to much complacency by the constituent population of late, which is why money is winning so often. But it doesn't have to be like that. Very small amounts of money and an informed, involved, and organized group can actually do it better.
Groups like Demand Progress, Campaign for Liberty, Fight for the Future, EFF Activism, and many other groups (even the 9/12 Project is mobilizing on this) understand that dynamic. They know how to apply pressure, and most of them also know how to follow up during election time to back up their promises.
And that's why things like the DISCLOSE act (and other efforts sold as "campaign finance") are so popular in Congress but despised by grassroots activists. They don't really take money out of politics, they serve to enhance the role of money and make things really difficult for small issue-advocacy groups. Especially when it comes time to remind voters of all the bad things the incumbents voted for while in office.
Because people are waking up to the issues in Washington, more and more people are finally starting to get involved. The politicians don't like that, because it can cause bad press (negative reinforcement), challenges during elections (negative reinforcement), and other bad consequences.
Don't blame politicians for behaving that way - they don't have souls.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
"As long as politicians are chosen by a popularity contest instead of an assessment of their skills, experience, and knowledge..."
wait... who is making that assessment? all you have introduced is another corruptible source of power. "We have found politician XYZ to be without skills because we got $15M in our bank accounts to say so." i know what you are talking about in theory, but in practice, you are just introducing another point of failure and corruption in the power structure. there is only one valid source of power: the people. so only they should determine who rules them via, i'm sorry, a popularity contest. not because they always vote with the best intelligence and interests. but because any other source of arbiting power is worse
"Instead, they should be responsible for collecting evidence from the public, industry, and others concerned about the legislation they propose..."
and this is exactly right. they don't know everything. but they know how to assemble bright minds to help them decide. unfortunately, the concept of bright minds helping them decide is being replaced by pay-to-play in our democracy-rapidly-becoming-plutocracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Very controversial notion, granted, but again it wouldn't work - with new technologies, laws need to change to accommodate them, or you will end-up having to apply telegraph-era laws to quantum computing (or in a more recent scenario - export laws to cloud computing)... The problem is not with creating laws in itself, it's with not having qualified subject-matter experts involved in creating said laws. Goes for granting patents as well, as far as I'm concerned.
Bow before me, for I am root.