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White House Petition To Make Unlocking Phones Legal Passes 100,000 Signatures
An anonymous reader writes "A White House petition to make unlocking cell phones legal again has passed the 100,000 signature mark. Passing the milestone means the U.S. government has to issue an official response. On January 26th, unlocking a cell phone that is under contract became illegal in the U.S. Just before that went into effect, a petition was started at whitehouse.gov to have the Librarian of Congress revisit that decision. 'It reduces consumer choice, and decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full. The Librarian noted that carriers are offering more unlocked phones at present, but the great majority of phones sold are still locked.'"
Break them up or replace them with a state run monopoly. Discuss.
Why is the government protecting a business model that is based on selling equipment at a loss?
Palm trees and 8
See the packages offered by companies in Canada. It's even worst up here. There's obvious collusion on prices and services offered and the CRTC doesn't do shit about it.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
The Obama administration, no matter how many accusations regarding some sort of "Socialism" get lobbed at it, is a *corporatist* White House. It's only slightly less corporatist than the Bush Jr and Clinton admins.
Nothing will happen. The corporate cheerleaders and know nothings thinks this somehow protects corporations from the great unwashed.
"Why we can't comment on unlocking cell phones"
Create a new amateur license class, that allows individuals to run 4g networks; encourage cooperatives, meshes, and other citizen-run communications systems. Give the spectrum the carriers have to the people and let us manage our communications without relying on monopolies.
Palm trees and 8
Wheeeeee!
Oh, you want it unlocked AND dirt cheap....Well, pick one.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Can the White House even do anything in this particular issue? After all, the Library of Congress, as the name implies, reports to Congress and the Legislative Branch and not to the President and the Executive. Certainly the White House could try and lobby Congress to push a change, but given the current relationship between those two branches of government, I don't think there's much incentive to play nice.
And the official response will be: "We'll do whatever we want. We don't work for you." Just like all the rest of these petitions.
That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee, big deal.
Is anyone tracking how many of these petitions result in actual policy change? It seems most get a canned response explaining the Administration's position. I don't recall any responses that said, "that's a good idea, we'll go do it" or "we've added that to our legislative agenda."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
On January 26th, unlocking a cell phone that is under contract became illegal in the U.S
I don't have a big problem with that, but this is the really important part:
As of January 26, consumers will no longer be able unlock their phones for use on a different network without carrier permission, even after their contract has expired.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
That's the framework from which we are gradually shifting to one in which the president makes the laws, enforces the laws, and in secret without recourse to contest the president's decisions, rules on whether you broke the laws and metes out arbitrary punishment. In a decade or two, the courts and congress will have completed the process of relinquishing all their powers and will be mere vestigal organs of the US goverment whose sole purpose is to rubber stamp presidential policy.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Seriously, Obama talks a great game about a transparent government by the people, for the people.
But from what I can tell, the petition website is, at best, a case of him failing to follow through on his aspirations. At worst, it's meant to give the American public a false sense of being listened to.
Have any petitions posted on http://petitions.whitehouse.gov ever resulted in legislation/legal/governmental changes?
I've seen the site posted a few times on /. but always discarded it as some pointless area for people to vent or make entertaining posts to. Making some White House PR group respond to a petition is one thing but does anything useful actually happen after a significant response? I'm asking earnestly because I honestly haven't followed it.
If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.
I interpret that as: White House PR staff will read it, pass it along to someone that understands the issue and can put together a B.S. response, said PR staff polish the response off, respond, pat everyone on the back because nothing is going to result from the petition, and send the petitioners on their way.
No, they're selling equipment. After 30 days, it's yours according to the contract - at least it is for the one I signed. I pay for the equipment, and the State agrees that it is a sale at the offered price - charging me sales tax. I have a service agreement which states if I choose not to keep the equipment I have to give it back for a full refund within the first 30 days, after 30 days, I am required to keep the phone.
Nonetheless, you've just made the point that locking/unlocking is unnecessary. I quote, "And early termination fees protect their investment." Which is exactly the point - the contract with my provider states that I will keep in force a minimum level of service for 2 years in return for the reduced purchase price. If I break the contract , I owe them $350 (prorated per the schedule).
Locking is an unnecessary and burdensome business practice which should be illegal, and is instead enforced as a result of a law which was - by it's nature - not intended to apply to physical transactions.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The industry argument I've heard is this: "Consumers" (ie, people) buy phones at a discount with multiyear contracts. This pricing scheme was developed by the industry to trick people (it's easier if you think of them as soulless "consumers") into continuing to pay the corporation despite abusive customer service, poor service, and fraud such as inaccurate coverage maps. Then the industry turns around -- pretending as if they've given a gift to the "consumers" who are living, breathing people with lives and kids and jobs and problems, sometimes involving money and cell phones -- and claim that they, the corporations, deserve to be rewarded by keeping control of the phone in violation of the common understanding of what "sell" and "own" mean.
And the Librarian of Congress somehow agrees.
Secondly, the regulated freedom from last year's Congressional Librarian decision seemed to be having an effect - why then reverse the decision?
Lastly, we should recall that corporations are _not_ free enterprise by definition - they are given special government dispensations to protect their owner(s) against liability. We (people) ultimately pay this price - a hidden tax. Corporations must be held to a particularly high level of good citizenship or their grants of liability immunity should be revoked. Else they will treat us (people) as objects that provide money to them, as a herbivore treats plants.
Verbum caro factum est
I know there's a handful of companies (one of which I'll be switching too soon) that advertise unlocking your phone and joining their cheaper service.
But hey, they're not the big 4, so what does the government care, right?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
And that's when we're burning down D.C. with pitchforks and torches. Unfortunately, we're sheep and will never do that. We're afraid of our government, when our government should be afraid of us -- which is why this country is finished, done, kaput. The only people that matter are the 1%, and they are running the show. We do not matter at all, the USA is simply a giant Ponzi Scheme.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
This is no different than those petitions demanding some "human right" to check in luggage at no additional cost. it's a pathetic populist grab that ignores the fact that market forces exist. by limiting the ability of companies to offer (or not) locked/unlocked baggage included/baggage extra you're basically damning the mobile market to the "low cost" of actually-quite-expensive Southwest vs the actually low cost of RyanAir....
oh, and before all of you pipe in saying how mobiles are cheap in europe because you can jump from operator to operator - yes, this is true. however, this shouldn't mean that in principle a company shouldn't be able to offer a "locked to them" plan at a choice that you are free to accept or not based on the value of their proposition and that furthermore you should be obligated to stick to it.
I don't think any but a small minority actually expect the government to respond to a petition like this in a way that will actually change anything. However, it seems there are a lot of people that think these petitions do not have a net benefit, but just about anyone thinking this is probably expecting way too much from the start. At the cost of a few seconds and a mouse click, they allow the public to gauge the collective support behind something, and also get a potential mention in the media. Knowing that you and all these people (whatever number of people these 100k signatures can be extrapolated to in terms of the public's sentiment) are mutually concerned about something is only a good thing--especially when the cost is so miniscule.
But again, I don't think this alone will actually change anything. A significant step, in my opinion at least, is to create an environment in which change *can* actually happen--namely a system of publicly funded elections allowing candidates to run without becoming dependent on the wealthy for their campaign costs (the average person rarely ever hears about the ones that don't). There are a few campaigns pushing for this at the federal level and one is materializing in NY, but this, however, is a completely different topic...
What sort of consensual delusion is it that makes people continue to believe the "Whitehouse Petitions" mean SHIT?
Yes, Derek Khanna just mentioned it. Hooray. They hit 100k signatures.
But please: point to a SINGLE THING that the stupid "petition" website has started, stopped, or otherwise changed?*
*except to prompt some White House drone to hit the button 'generate response email': "Thank you for your interest in (issue). Please be assured that the (current president) administration takes your concern, and those of your other petitioners very seriously. President (current president) has reviewed the situation regarding (issue) closely with a team of experts and while you raise important concerns, feels that we should continue on the current policy course. Once again, thanks for your concern, (current president) appreciates your engagement on (issue)."
Phht, and people say that religion is dying. If this isn't a demonstration of naked, unsupported faith, I'm not sure what is.
-Styopa
I am talking about making legal putting spoilers on leased cars...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Go to a better carrier. T-mobile will unlock phones. I've had them unlock phones for me in the past. You have to have been on contract for awhile, but then just call them and they'll send you the unlock code. Or, as the GP noted, buy an unlocked phone.
It seems like people DO have options, they just don't want to exercise them.
I believe the law should allow unlocking of one's cell phone regardless of contract status.
I believe the law should allow the party of a contract, in which the other party has breached, to seek reparations and/or an early termination fee.
These thoughts are not mutually exclusive.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
You're probably right about how much "good" it will do now that it has to get an official response. Khanna is hoping that 100,000 signatures will be enough to make someone say "You know, it is pretty stupid that this is now illegal". In reality, I suspect that the government will simply say "You can buy unlocked if you want unlocked. The fact that you don't like the price attached to it is not our concern because it is possible for you to buy unlocked. You might have a point if the law outlawed selling unlocked phones, but it doesn't and therefore you don't have a point."
People should examine how DMCA is involved at all, or why an exemption is needed.
Even if you take a hopelessly naive view of the purpose of DMCA's circumvention prohibition, even if you think it's a good idea to use force against everyone in order to address the 0.0001% case where someone accesses a movie for infringing purposes -- this scenario is still abuse of that law, roughly comparable to the Lexmark ink cartridge case.
On an optical disc containing an encrypted movie, the "work" whose access is limited by a technological measure, is the movie.
On a printer ink cartridge, or a mobile phone, the "work" whose access is limited by a technological measure, is ... hey, waitaminute! It's some kind of weird normally-not-copyrightable thing. Ink, really? Access to a network?! Even if you put all cynicism aside and read DMCA at face value, are you telling me Congress passed that law, for the purpose of granting vertical monopolies to product-tie terminals to networks?! Even if you get more realistic and say DMCA was to product-tie content with players, that purpose still doesn't apply to the phone situation.
The LoC's decision to not exempt phones, was purely malignant and indefensible. But even so, an exemption isn't enough of a correction. DMCA needs to be fixed so that it at least stops being so broad that it's applicable to the phone situation. Propose that to Congress, Mr. President. (Better yet, just toss the circumvention-prohibition crap altogether; if you do that, then everyone (consumers and also copyright holders) will win. But maybe learning the lessons of the last 15 years, is too much to expect this time around.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's not about the contract. When the copyright on the phone's firmware runs out, the prohibition against cracking its DRM will end too. You are allowed to unlock your phone in 2103. So just be patient.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
For the last 20 something years I've written nice, respectful letters to my Rep and Jr. and Sr. Senators ranging from traffic lights to pending legislation. Most often the response comes 6 months after the letter is sent telling me that they will take it in into consideration if the legislation ever happens to come across their desk table again, but currently they voted against what I was for or for what I was against. Better luck next time.
If I don't get that response I get one that says that they respectfully disagreed and then they regurgitate their campaign promises hoping to receive my support in the future.
As crazy as it sounds, the only real luck I've had is with the tea party caucus types. Unless it has something to do with some weird, arbitrary, moral stance they exclusively say no to almost everything. At least I can count on them to never do anything.
Everyone seems to realize the petition itself isn't worth the imaginary paper it's printed on. Even if you get a response, it could be as simple as, "That's nice. You're wrong. The decision stands."
As TheSpoom stated above, there's no reason you can't have a binding contract to make sure the carrier doesn't lose money subsidizing the phone (in fact, you're probably under one of these contracts now) completely unrelated to a carrier lock on the phone. As long as you're in a legally binding contract to pay them the money, they shouldn't really care if you can use your phone on another network. If you want to keep paying AT&T $80/month for the subsidized phone and also pay T-Mobile another $50/month for service on the same phone, why should AT&T care? They're still getting their money that you agreed to pay.
On the other hand, due to the dismal state of cell phone technology in the US, most people don't really need an unlocked phone. The major carriers are on completely different technologies and bands - a Verizon CDMA phone simply won't work on AT&T's GSM network (and they use different LTE bands too). T-Mobile is also GSM, but they use different bands, so (currently) you won't get 4G and maybe even 3G depending on the phone's hardware. Hooray for buying a brand new $700 iPhone 5 to get 2G data speeds on it. Even if you could make a satisfactory switch from one carrier to another, would you want to keep paying AT&T the $80 monthly fee (or the large ETF) under your contract while also paying T-Mobile $50/month for the actual service? In the not-so-extensive looking I've done, there doesn't really seem to be much discount for having a non-subsidized phone anyway; if you're going to be paying the same $X per month, you might as well have the carrier throw in a subsidized phone. Most people are going to keep the phone and service they have for the full duration of the contract, making unlocking completely irrelevant.
Granted, there are some exceptions (relocating unexpectedly, international travel, etc.). I'm used to the iPhone world (it's supplied by my employer), so maybe Androids are very different. But from what I've seen, it's a non-issue for most people in the US. Verizon will unlock the GSM portion of an iPhone for international use (it didn't work for me on AT&T's domestic network, but I didn't end up using it internationally, so the unlock might not have actually been in effect yet) and AT&T unlocked my old off-contract iPhone by simply filling out a web form. In my experience, the carriers seem fairly willing to allow you to do things if it's actually for a legitimate use, as opposed to you simply wanting your phone completely unlocked for no good reason.
Ideally, I'd like to see service and hardware priced separately, with or without contracts. Plan A is $80/month with your own phone, $75 if you agree to a X-month contract (think of it as a bulk discount since the carrier knows you won't ). If you want a new $600 SuperPhone with your Plan A, it costs you $150 plus an extra $20/month with a 2-year contract. You end up paying a little more for the phone ($630 total), but you don't have to drop $600 right now on something you're used to getting for free. If you want to cancel the contract early, you're responsible for whatever the remainder of the amount owed is. If you have your own phone that you already bought with your own money, you know that you're saving $20/month on it. The carriers don't need locks because you're signing a contract to pay them enough to cover the cost of whatever you're getting, regardless of whether or not you get service through some other carrier. And to make those unlocked phones actually useful, let's see the carriers standardize (along with the rest of the world) on a network, so you can use your (paid-for) phone with the service of your choice.
This could result in some price increases if the carriers know that whatever contract they come up with for subsidizing the phone (monthly cost + ETF) needs to cover
Stop saying this. The site is not put there by law, it's put there by the administration to try to give you a way to communicate with them. They don't have to do anything as a result of this. They have stated they will, and they probably will, but they don't have to.
This is actually a good opportunity for Obama. Every single other petition has basically been responded to as you say. Phone unlocking is an issue that hasn't had enough lobbying to get it outlawed specifically. It has only become illegal do to a previous law expiring. So, it is reasonable to think that not much has changed on the lobbying front.
Thus, this is an opportunity for Obama to declare that he "gave considerable thought to this petition, just as he has every other petition", and push through a mandate that makes locking cell phones illegal. For very little political capital, moving forward, every time someone claimed the administration doesn't take the petitions seriously, or doesn't listen to the people, they could trot out the cell phone unlocking petition.
If we assume unlocked phones are available (!) then the equivalent of unlocking (viz. SIM/IMEI unlocking) would be to buy a car on credit and then refuse to pay the credit fees.
As I understand, this is not about rooting the phone but unlocking the IMEI from the ISP with which you previously agreed to be bound to for a while to reduce the initial cost. Unlocking it is a breach of contract terms and usually yields a penalty, as with any other legally binding contract.
So, what gives?
(I've yet to buy a locked phone, but the total costs are equalizing.)
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Earlier, petitions were set at 25,000 for the whitehouse to respond. It was raised to 100,000 since many people started petitions for useful things. Questions such as these, force the politicians to take a stand in serving the people or serving their corporate masters. So, next logical step would be to eliminate petitions altogether. Democracy thrives by one guy not knowing what the other thinks. That way, the govt has the full visibility to the citizens views, but citizens can't understand their neighbors views. Petitions like these force people to think about burning issues rather than thinking of Kim kardashian pregnancy. This is anathema to powers that be. Hence, eliminate petitions now!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
How often is there a proper legal disclosure, court hearings, appeals, etc, before an "alleged terrorist" US citizen who happens to be in some Middle Eastern country gets blown to smithereens by a presidential-ordered drone strike?
How often is there a proper legal disclosure, court hearings, appeals, etc, before an "alleged copyright infringer" US citizen gets their website yanked by nothing more than the suggestion by a corporate master, and the DHS logo put up in place of the original content?
anagama may have the time frame wrong, as I think a decade or two is a little short to complete the transition he's warning about, but there's no question that it's a process that *is* actually taking place.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I get the premise of what the people are doing with the petition but if they did something more proactive like write their Senator rather than just anonymously sign a petition online more would come of this.
Welcome to earth. You must be new here.
I'm not a US citizen, and don't live in the US, either, so I can't guarantee it, but I suspect writing your Senator would have even less effect than signing a petition. A single letter to a Senator can be dismissed as "that's just one guy with a crazy opinion" even when a single letter comes in from 100,000 people. I get the impression that politicians have an unimaginably short memory for things like this, and 100 different people can complain about something, one each on 100 days, and on day 101, in their mind you'll be the first person to complain about it. Tomorrow you'll have been forgotten, and person 102 will be the first person complaining.
On the other hand, 100,000 signatures on a petition is 100,000 people, right now, that disagree with you, and you have to acknowledge somehow. It's a lot harder to dismiss 100,000 people as crazies than a single one.
I had issue with something my government was doing a couple of years ago, and I went as far as to call my local representative, schedule a meeting with him, and presented my ideas face to face in his office, including all my documentation as to why the current path the government was following was not a good one, and my suggestions on how to improve it. He listened, took my phone number and email address so he could let me know of any developments from the suggestions, and I went on my way.
What happened from this meeting?
I ended up on the local representatives email spam list, continually getting newsletters about how much the government is doing for me.
That's it.
Absolutely zero changes to the policy I had issue with. In fact, they took it to further extremes several months later.
Unless you have the money to provide hookers and blow, an individual can't influence politicians.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......