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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
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?
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.
FIY, when you see weather on TV, remember that you guys use the old imperial system and we use metric. There's no 32 degrees drop at the frontier line.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
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.
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?
I always thought it was some sort of socialist conspiracy
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
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.