Here is a letter that I sent via snail mail and email to our representatives
that I thought you guys might find interesting.
I write to you during a grave time for our country to express both my support
for efforts to strengthen our nation against her external enemies and my
opposition to legislation that tramples on the freedoms that make our country
great.
First, I commend you and the Congress on your swift and powerful support of
the President in combating terrorism worldwide. It is sad that so many
people had to die before the political will to act coalesced, but now that it
has I commend our leaders for seizing this opportunity to act forcefully to
make the world a better and safer place.
At the same time, I wish to express my trepidation at some of the rhetoric I
hear issuing from Washington concerning the civil liberties and freedom of
individual Americans. The internet has become one of the most important
means of communication and discourse in our society, and its importance
promises only to continue to grow exponentially as time and technology
progress. I see two disturbing legislative trends that threaten the
continued existence of the internet as the free and open arena of discourse
that we so cherish in the US and that police states such as China strive to
control.
First, I am concerned that in the wake of the tragedies in New York and
Washington that momentum will again build in an attempt to regulate or ban
encryption on the internet. Strong cryptography should be compared to the
Second Amendment in the internet world. It is the protection of individuals
against the potential corruption or tyranny of the state. Like the right to
bear arms, it does have its negative consequences. Strong cryptography, like
weapons, can be and is used for evil as well as good. However, our founding
fathers had the wisdom to see that (at least at the time of the framing) an
armed populace was an insurance policy against future tyranny. Since that
time, our world has changed in many ways, and today strong encryption on the
internet is a similar insurance policy for the modern world. Because of
this, many of the world's police states (e.g. China) have outlawed it
outright. The ability of the populace to have private and truly secure
conversations in the new public commons of the internet goes farther to
protect us from a potentially Orwellian future than any other conceivable
measure. I implore you to resist the urge to restrict these rights for the
immediate gain of combating terrorism when the potential long-term
consequences to society as a whole are so grave. There is no guaranty that
our government will always be benign and good other than the eternal
vigilance of the populace and our elected officials.
Second, I am concerned about the continued co-opting of our fair-use rights
in the digital arena for the benefit of large media corporations. The DMCA
has already been enacted into law to the near universal dismay of all
informed citizens who are not its direct beneficiaries. This is a law that,
if enacted 200 years ago, would have outlawed the printing press as a
potential method for copyright circumvention. Similarly, the Xerox machine
would be made illegal if it were digital in nature. Any law that outlaws the
use of "circumvention technology" essentially creates out of thin air a broad
range of new rights for copyright holders that are by no means in the public
interest. As you know, copyright was originally created by the framers as a
necessary evil, granting limited monopoly privileges to individuals as a way
of encouraging innovation. Existing copyright law already forbids illegal
copying on the internet and on computers as surely as it does in other media.
The DMCA and now the SSSCA, however, go far beyond any original ideas of
copyright as a social contract between content creators and society and
instead create a broad range of new and unheard of rights for copyright
holders that trample on the traditions of fair use and the intentions of the
framers. Outlawing "circumvention technology" essentially allows copyright
holders to arbitrarily legislate (with the full support of our criminal
justice system) how their material can be used to the most minute level of
detail in a way that flies in the face of traditional ideas of copyright and
personal freedom. For example, a Russian foreign national is currently being
held on criminal charges in the US (under the DMCA) for creating a program
that allows users to read legally purchased electronic books on computers for
which a sanctioned reading program did not exist. The rational is that this
program also creates the ability to copy the book (as is already possible via
photocopying in the non-digital world) and is thus a "circumvention device."
This is travesty of justice, and a shameful example of government pandering
to corporate interests at the expense of the people and societal good.
I am confident that much of the DMCA will be overturned in court, but it is
unfortunate that such a long and expensive process must be pursued for our
rights to eventually be protected. I urge you to vote against the SSSCA that
is currently under consideration. Please allow our existing (and wholly
adequate) copyright law to continue to do the job it has done for the last
200 years.
Thank you very much for your time and your service to our nation. God bless
America.
I use Kword but I still need to be able to read.doc files. I use ogg vorbis but still need.mp3 for compatibility. I use Linux but need Win4lin to connect to a citrix application server.
If Linux didn't support these proprietary formats, I couldn't have migrated over to it. Changes have to be made gradually. Free software has a much greater chance of winning if it is able to play on the same field as the competition. If you force people to make either/or choices by not supporting recognized standards (even if proprietary), you will forever shut out the majority of users from ever even trying free software.
The problem that this issue highlights is that the DMCA assigns liability to the ISP if it does not immediately act on *claims* of copyright infringement. Even though no wrongdoing has to be proven, no ISP is going to stand up for a user's rights the way the current law stands. Why should any ISP expose itself to possible liability when it is so easy to just pull the plug on the accused infringer?
Just imagine if other modes of communication were subject to similar provisions. Have you been *accused* (not convicted) of wrong doing involving a phone? Sorry, no more phone access for you until you prove your innocence. Sounds ridiculous, yet if the phone companies were liable for what you said over the phone in the same manner as the ISP's, they would be forced to take similar actions. The problem is the law, not the ISP.
Whether you are in the "minority that is right about something" or the "lunatic fringe" is all a matter of perspective, and that is what makes protecting the rights of unpopular/small groups so important.
Why does everyone have this perception of everyone at Microsoft as a Snidely Whiplash type character, who sits around in boardrooms with other evil villains twirling his mustache and dreaming up ways to destroy everyone else and rule the world?
Maybe it was all the incriminating evidence that came out at trial?
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a letter that I sent via snail mail and email to our representatives
that I thought you guys might find interesting.
I write to you during a grave time for our country to express both my support
for efforts to strengthen our nation against her external enemies and my
opposition to legislation that tramples on the freedoms that make our country
great.
First, I commend you and the Congress on your swift and powerful support of
the President in combating terrorism worldwide. It is sad that so many
people had to die before the political will to act coalesced, but now that it
has I commend our leaders for seizing this opportunity to act forcefully to
make the world a better and safer place.
At the same time, I wish to express my trepidation at some of the rhetoric I
hear issuing from Washington concerning the civil liberties and freedom of
individual Americans. The internet has become one of the most important
means of communication and discourse in our society, and its importance
promises only to continue to grow exponentially as time and technology
progress. I see two disturbing legislative trends that threaten the
continued existence of the internet as the free and open arena of discourse
that we so cherish in the US and that police states such as China strive to
control.
First, I am concerned that in the wake of the tragedies in New York and
Washington that momentum will again build in an attempt to regulate or ban
encryption on the internet. Strong cryptography should be compared to the
Second Amendment in the internet world. It is the protection of individuals
against the potential corruption or tyranny of the state. Like the right to
bear arms, it does have its negative consequences. Strong cryptography, like
weapons, can be and is used for evil as well as good. However, our founding
fathers had the wisdom to see that (at least at the time of the framing) an
armed populace was an insurance policy against future tyranny. Since that
time, our world has changed in many ways, and today strong encryption on the
internet is a similar insurance policy for the modern world. Because of
this, many of the world's police states (e.g. China) have outlawed it
outright. The ability of the populace to have private and truly secure
conversations in the new public commons of the internet goes farther to
protect us from a potentially Orwellian future than any other conceivable
measure. I implore you to resist the urge to restrict these rights for the
immediate gain of combating terrorism when the potential long-term
consequences to society as a whole are so grave. There is no guaranty that
our government will always be benign and good other than the eternal
vigilance of the populace and our elected officials.
Second, I am concerned about the continued co-opting of our fair-use rights
in the digital arena for the benefit of large media corporations. The DMCA
has already been enacted into law to the near universal dismay of all
informed citizens who are not its direct beneficiaries. This is a law that,
if enacted 200 years ago, would have outlawed the printing press as a
potential method for copyright circumvention. Similarly, the Xerox machine
would be made illegal if it were digital in nature. Any law that outlaws the
use of "circumvention technology" essentially creates out of thin air a broad
range of new rights for copyright holders that are by no means in the public
interest. As you know, copyright was originally created by the framers as a
necessary evil, granting limited monopoly privileges to individuals as a way
of encouraging innovation. Existing copyright law already forbids illegal
copying on the internet and on computers as surely as it does in other media.
The DMCA and now the SSSCA, however, go far beyond any original ideas of
copyright as a social contract between content creators and society and
instead create a broad range of new and unheard of rights for copyright
holders that trample on the traditions of fair use and the intentions of the
framers. Outlawing "circumvention technology" essentially allows copyright
holders to arbitrarily legislate (with the full support of our criminal
justice system) how their material can be used to the most minute level of
detail in a way that flies in the face of traditional ideas of copyright and
personal freedom. For example, a Russian foreign national is currently being
held on criminal charges in the US (under the DMCA) for creating a program
that allows users to read legally purchased electronic books on computers for
which a sanctioned reading program did not exist. The rational is that this
program also creates the ability to copy the book (as is already possible via
photocopying in the non-digital world) and is thus a "circumvention device."
This is travesty of justice, and a shameful example of government pandering
to corporate interests at the expense of the people and societal good.
I am confident that much of the DMCA will be overturned in court, but it is
unfortunate that such a long and expensive process must be pursued for our
rights to eventually be protected. I urge you to vote against the SSSCA that
is currently under consideration. Please allow our existing (and wholly
adequate) copyright law to continue to do the job it has done for the last
200 years.
Thank you very much for your time and your service to our nation. God bless
America.
Sincerely,
blah blah
I use Kword but I still need to be able to read .doc files. I use ogg vorbis but still need .mp3 for compatibility. I use Linux but need Win4lin to connect to a citrix application server.
If Linux didn't support these proprietary formats, I couldn't have migrated over to it. Changes have to be made gradually. Free software has a much greater chance of winning if it is able to play on the same field as the competition. If you force people to make either/or choices by not supporting recognized standards (even if proprietary), you will forever shut out the majority of users from ever even trying free software.
The problem that this issue highlights is that the DMCA assigns liability to the ISP if it does not immediately act on *claims* of copyright infringement. Even though no wrongdoing has to be proven, no ISP is going to stand up for a user's rights the way the current law stands. Why should any ISP expose itself to possible liability when it is so easy to just pull the plug on the accused infringer?
Just imagine if other modes of communication were subject to similar provisions. Have you been *accused* (not convicted) of wrong doing involving a phone? Sorry, no more phone access for you until you prove your innocence. Sounds ridiculous, yet if the phone companies were liable for what you said over the phone in the same manner as the ISP's, they would be forced to take similar actions. The problem is the law, not the ISP.
Whether you are in the "minority that is right about something" or the "lunatic fringe" is all a matter of perspective, and that is what makes protecting the rights of unpopular/small groups so important.
Maybe it was all the incriminating evidence that came out at trial?