Trademarks need to be fought for, otherwise they are useless. This is actually IMHO a very brilliant move by Linden to maintain their hold on their trademarks without being a complete asshole about it.
Just some background: Back in the ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, there lived a strange race of druids. Until now, no one knew who they were or what they were doing, but we knew of their legacy, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.
The only thing we have learned until now is that they were little people. And oh, how they danced, the little people of Stonehenge...
Exactly — she's the Tipper Gore kind of liberal who would prefer government censorship to actual parenting. She may talk big about piracy because it's become a huge issue the Democrats can latch onto, but she'll be first in line to make RFID collars if children's saftey is even the smallest bit involved.
Do we really have to go back and forth between two horrible, terrible political extremes?
So you're saying that with Bluetooth, any girl can just walk up to me and start bluejacking me? I could even bluejack with a friend on a crowded bus without anyone even noticing?? Truly this is a spectacular technology; no wonder it's being exploited for commercial purposes! The bluejacking market must really be booming!
I certainly would never argue that Republicans hold the monopoly on removing civil liberties. However, the political climate today is such that the Democrats have taken a (at least temporary) position on this against the current Bush strategy of "we need to have these taken away to do our job, and we and everyone in the future will never abuse these things, cross my heart and hope to die." Witness Senator Leahy vowing to restore habeas corpus.
It just further outlines the need to elect people, not parties, something that I don't think is quite going away anytime soon - but the good news is our culture is moving in a more "choice based" direction.
"But you only said I was grounded from driving your car. You didn't say anything else about someone else's car!"
People are really strange. My conservative parents will complain for hours about the mere possibility of the government wasting money on universal health care, but throwing billions of dollars down the drain in Iraq and this kind of nonsense and they will only grudgingly admit "mistakes were made". My theory is that people just like killin' the bad guys so much that they don't see how easy it is for us mistake who the "bad guys" are.
OK, I'll admit that they aren't the same - but at the very least, "grassroots lobbying" has been controlled since 1976, and because it can have an effect, it should fall under the same regulations as "old school" lobbying, even though the "old school" way has more influence than grassroots. No need to make exceptions for people online.
That's a good thing too, and security is always easier to do if your design is simple. I suppose my gripes are a little off-topic, but the fact is that for some reason, e-voting machine designers refuse to think simple in terms of design, and instead think simple in terms of implementation. Hell, let's just throw some voting counting program on Windows and they can use a touch screen, they'll think.
If you're pointing out that rich people can pay for more advertisements of their interests, including political, that is unfair. That's capitalism. I'd like to change it, especially campaign finance. But that's got nothing to do with the registration of journalists.
Having money is a matter of privilege and hard work. How do you think lobbyists "get close" to Senators? They're just that good of friends with them? No, their employers pay the Senators lots of money. Or the lobbyists pay the Senators money. Or they're both affiliated with business ties that make it profitable for the Senator to give lobbyists access. Saying that lobbying (as it stands now) is unfair but paying powerful people to advocate changes in law isn't doesn't make sense to me.
That is hugely different. As I said, there clearly need to be laws requiring payments for political advocacy to be disclosed. But not registration with the government of mere political speech.
So basically you agree with section 220? The only difference here is between requiring registration or requiring disclosure. It's not registration for "mere political speech", it's registration for people who get payments for political advocacy.
Here's the other difference of opinion: It looks like this is now calling public debate "lobbying". But this bill is concerned with people that are paid advocate the general public to take action towards their Congressmen, and that's all section 220 is concerned with. Basically it's controlling people asking the public to lobby for them. If a lobbyist pays a celebrity to tell people to call Congress, they're in effect paying for thousands of phone calls, letters, and emails to be sent to that Congressman, and depending on your situation, that might be more effective than lobbying them yourself. The celebrity becomes a lobbyist, and I think it should be regulated.
In addition, looking at the 1976 laws (http://www.donorsforum.org/policy/np_lobby.html), this bill wouldn't change much:
Understanding what constitutes lobbying under the 1976 law is not difficult. In general, you are lobbying when you state your position on specific legislation to legislators or other government employees who participate in the formulation of legislation, or urge your members to do so (direct lobbying). In addition, you are lobbying when you state your position on legislation to the general public and ask the general public to contact legislators or other government employees who participate in the formulation of legislation (grassroots lobbying).
At the very least, it's certainly not the horrible "destroy blogger" legislation everyone thinks it is.
Electronic voting does not have to be this hard!!! People can use a vending machine - why don't we make voting machines like them?
It's simple: you have 32 buttons and a single, old-fashioned red LED display. Each of the 32 buttons can hold a few lines of text. Then, you display instructions on the main screen, and change the buttons accordingly. So when you vote for "Bob Smith", the BIG button you put says "Bob Smith". Why are we screwing around with this? Let's do things the old-fashioned way: with dedicated hardware.
It's Section 220 which requires political bloggers to register with the government. It's got to go, because the government cannot be in a position of control like that ("didn't register, go to jail").
It's not nearly as simple or as bad as this. Section 220 simply forces political bloggers that have been paid specifically to push for specific action regarding Congressional matters. There's a huge difference there. As far as I'm concerned, those kind of bloggers are lobbyists. It doesn't affect most bloggers - it affects mostly the "astroturfers." Many political blogs (moveon.org) are registered with the government now, anyway.
I'm surprised that even Democrats would discard such as powerful tool for their own political manipulations of the public. But I'm not surprised that Republicans would hijack it to convert transparency into fascism.
I'm still confused as to where people are getting this "fascism" idea from. Political speech is already controlled - why give lobbyists free reign on blogs or to distribute pamphlets to the public or to print full-page ads in the NY Times asking people to "call their Congressman about Bill S.1"? You say that ordinary lobbyists should be controlled because they have an unfair advantage - access to the Senators. I say that certain people have a greater sway over societies (say, celebrities), and paying them to espouse a certain bill is as good as lobbying. What if you send a pop star up on screen, or pay Michael J. Fox to speak out for a stem-cell bill? That's another unfair advantage, and they should register the same as lobbyists.
So I'm confused. What then is the point of bringing the 500 people rule up? It certainly doesn't address my position on this bill...I'm not sure that I understand the comment's relevance if you're not disagreeing with me.
`(B) PAID ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE GENERAL PUBLIC OR SEGMENTS THEREOF- The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof' does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public.
No, it's an EXCEPTION from people who are paid to influence less than 500 people. So basically, Rupert Murdoch is allowed to pay Rush Limbaugh to make a post about calling on Congress to vote yes on Bill X on his private blog that's only readable by 100 elite members.
You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of the situation. Bloggers, protesters, and everyone else who is paid to specifically argue for or against a specific Congressional act will have to register if their funded attempts reach more than 500 people or they argue directly to Congressmen. That means you can post all you want on the Internet, but if someone is giving you cash to lobby on the Internet, you're going to have to bloody register as a lobbyist. That's it. There's no chilling of free speech here, no totalitariaism, none of that bullshit. It's about forcing astroturfers to disclose their funding. In fact, the guy running this "grassroots freedom" nonsense is an astroturfer himself.
Urge, yes. Contribute more than $5000? That's what we call lobbying. And guess what? Many churches DO lobby, and as such, they are regulated by lobbying laws!
You have to realize that this is basically closing a lobbying loophole. It applies only to efforts that have been funded specifically for the purpose of affecting a specific act of Congress. And believe me, if churches do fund money for certain things like gambling laws, they are damn certain to follow the currently existing lobbying regulations. The lobbying laws are already on the books; look them up. This law simply clarifies lobbying in other circumstances.
This is bullshit. The press release is by Richard Viguerie, who is the head of American Target Advertising. This basically affects his business because his business is astroturfing. So he seems to have started his own little astroturfing campaign to stop this bill from being passed:
You seem to have some major misconceptions of what's going on here.
First, this is not about political journalism or redressing Congress for that purpose. It's about paying people to do so. You have the right to a fair trial, but you usually have to pay someone to help you with that, and guess what? Lawyers are under government regulations as well. Lobbying is getting paid by someone to try and get Congress to make or not make certain laws. It's already regulated by the government.
Secondly, read that amendment. It is what we are talking about, and you seemed to have not read the parts of it that say that it is only concerned with people who are getting paid by a client to affect a specific act of Congress. This means that you can talk about stuff online all you want, you can write letters to Congressmen, and exercise your freedom of speech, whatever, and not register with the government as long as you are not lobbying.
It's simple: we put restrictions on lobbying, so those restrictions should apply whether you're lobbying online or at the Senator's door.
Hell, it even says specifically in one section that registration is only concerned with "paid grassroots lobbying" and explicitly says that other "grassroots lobbying" is not involved.
What if that "someone" just happened to be Rupert Murdoch, and "help get the word out" means giving you a salary to blog?
Do you see the problem now? How do you distinguish between "evil corporate benefactor" and some guy who "just wants to help out"? If you support this blogger as a person, or as an ideologue, you can give them money without paying them to lobby. Read the bill; it says this only covers payment "to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter".
The term `paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders.
That semantic crap about "what defines payment" doesn't matter.
In this case you'd have to have Slashdot making a specific deal with you, saying that "We want you to log on, try and convince people to ask Congressmen to repeal the DMCA, and if you do, you will be allowed to read these other messages."
This bill would require anyone publishing political speech with any effect (over 500 readers) to register. That's clearly unconstitutional, restraining speech.
Looks like you didn't read the entire bill: "Lobbying activities include paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grassroots lobbying." The law also clarifies that lobbying is to try and get Congress to make a particular action.
So if you have a blog where you are being paid specifically to write to get Congress to enact a certain kind of law, I would say, yes, you are lobbying, and you should be constrained to lobbying laws. And if you have a blog, chances are you are getting paid by your readers to provide entertainment - not by a client asking you to promote certain laws being made or not made.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey! Take your opinions over to the Free Speech Zone, buddy! We don't want 'em here!!
Trademarks need to be fought for, otherwise they are useless. This is actually IMHO a very brilliant move by Linden to maintain their hold on their trademarks without being a complete asshole about it.
Just some background:
Back in the ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, there lived a strange race of druids. Until now, no one knew who they were or what they were doing, but we knew of their legacy, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.
The only thing we have learned until now is that they were little people. And oh, how they danced, the little people of Stonehenge...
Exactly — she's the Tipper Gore kind of liberal who would prefer government censorship to actual parenting. She may talk big about piracy because it's become a huge issue the Democrats can latch onto, but she'll be first in line to make RFID collars if children's saftey is even the smallest bit involved.
Do we really have to go back and forth between two horrible, terrible political extremes?
So you're saying that with Bluetooth, any girl can just walk up to me and start bluejacking me? I could even bluejack with a friend on a crowded bus without anyone even noticing?? Truly this is a spectacular technology; no wonder it's being exploited for commercial purposes! The bluejacking market must really be booming!
please put obligatory Standard Spam Form joke below here please
we've got to keep this place organized
You're kidding, right? The entire point of that Brady Bunch episode was that using such trifling loopholes to get your way is dishonest and childish!
I certainly would never argue that Republicans hold the monopoly on removing civil liberties. However, the political climate today is such that the Democrats have taken a (at least temporary) position on this against the current Bush strategy of "we need to have these taken away to do our job, and we and everyone in the future will never abuse these things, cross my heart and hope to die." Witness Senator Leahy vowing to restore habeas corpus.
It just further outlines the need to elect people, not parties, something that I don't think is quite going away anytime soon - but the good news is our culture is moving in a more "choice based" direction.
Thanks for that link. I'm glad to at least hear Sen. Leahy vow to try and undo the damage the Military Commissions Act did.
Colbert nailed it with his Brady Bunch allusion:
"But you only said I was grounded from driving your car. You didn't say anything else about someone else's car!"
People are really strange. My conservative parents will complain for hours about the mere possibility of the government wasting money on universal health care, but throwing billions of dollars down the drain in Iraq and this kind of nonsense and they will only grudgingly admit "mistakes were made". My theory is that people just like killin' the bad guys so much that they don't see how easy it is for us mistake who the "bad guys" are.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/23/13 34222
oops
OK, I'll admit that they aren't the same - but at the very least, "grassroots lobbying" has been controlled since 1976, and because it can have an effect, it should fall under the same regulations as "old school" lobbying, even though the "old school" way has more influence than grassroots. No need to make exceptions for people online.
That's a good thing too, and security is always easier to do if your design is simple. I suppose my gripes are a little off-topic, but the fact is that for some reason, e-voting machine designers refuse to think simple in terms of design, and instead think simple in terms of implementation. Hell, let's just throw some voting counting program on Windows and they can use a touch screen, they'll think.
Having money is a matter of privilege and hard work. How do you think lobbyists "get close" to Senators? They're just that good of friends with them? No, their employers pay the Senators lots of money. Or the lobbyists pay the Senators money. Or they're both affiliated with business ties that make it profitable for the Senator to give lobbyists access. Saying that lobbying (as it stands now) is unfair but paying powerful people to advocate changes in law isn't doesn't make sense to me.
So basically you agree with section 220? The only difference here is between requiring registration or requiring disclosure. It's not registration for "mere political speech", it's registration for people who get payments for political advocacy.
Here's the other difference of opinion: It looks like this is now calling public debate "lobbying". But this bill is concerned with people that are paid advocate the general public to take action towards their Congressmen, and that's all section 220 is concerned with. Basically it's controlling people asking the public to lobby for them. If a lobbyist pays a celebrity to tell people to call Congress, they're in effect paying for thousands of phone calls, letters, and emails to be sent to that Congressman, and depending on your situation, that might be more effective than lobbying them yourself. The celebrity becomes a lobbyist, and I think it should be regulated.
In addition, looking at the 1976 laws (http://www.donorsforum.org/policy/np_lobby.html)
At the very least, it's certainly not the horrible "destroy blogger" legislation everyone thinks it is.
Electronic voting does not have to be this hard!!! People can use a vending machine - why don't we make voting machines like them?
It's simple: you have 32 buttons and a single, old-fashioned red LED display. Each of the 32 buttons can hold a few lines of text. Then, you display instructions on the main screen, and change the buttons accordingly. So when you vote for "Bob Smith", the BIG button you put says "Bob Smith". Why are we screwing around with this? Let's do things the old-fashioned way: with dedicated hardware.
It's not nearly as simple or as bad as this. Section 220 simply forces political bloggers that have been paid specifically to push for specific action regarding Congressional matters. There's a huge difference there. As far as I'm concerned, those kind of bloggers are lobbyists. It doesn't affect most bloggers - it affects mostly the "astroturfers." Many political blogs (moveon.org) are registered with the government now, anyway.
I'm still confused as to where people are getting this "fascism" idea from. Political speech is already controlled - why give lobbyists free reign on blogs or to distribute pamphlets to the public or to print full-page ads in the NY Times asking people to "call their Congressman about Bill S.1"? You say that ordinary lobbyists should be controlled because they have an unfair advantage - access to the Senators. I say that certain people have a greater sway over societies (say, celebrities), and paying them to espouse a certain bill is as good as lobbying. What if you send a pop star up on screen, or pay Michael J. Fox to speak out for a stem-cell bill? That's another unfair advantage, and they should register the same as lobbyists.
First, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ and search by "Bill Number" and search for "S.1".
So I'm confused. What then is the point of bringing the 500 people rule up? It certainly doesn't address my position on this bill...I'm not sure that I understand the comment's relevance if you're not disagreeing with me.
No, it's an EXCEPTION from people who are paid to influence less than 500 people. So basically, Rupert Murdoch is allowed to pay Rush Limbaugh to make a post about calling on Congress to vote yes on Bill X on his private blog that's only readable by 100 elite members.
You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of the situation. Bloggers, protesters, and everyone else who is paid to specifically argue for or against a specific Congressional act will have to register if their funded attempts reach more than 500 people or they argue directly to Congressmen. That means you can post all you want on the Internet, but if someone is giving you cash to lobby on the Internet, you're going to have to bloody register as a lobbyist. That's it. There's no chilling of free speech here, no totalitariaism, none of that bullshit. It's about forcing astroturfers to disclose their funding. In fact, the guy running this "grassroots freedom" nonsense is an astroturfer himself.
n/t
Urge, yes. Contribute more than $5000? That's what we call lobbying. And guess what? Many churches DO lobby, and as such, they are regulated by lobbying laws!
You have to realize that this is basically closing a lobbying loophole. It applies only to efforts that have been funded specifically for the purpose of affecting a specific act of Congress. And believe me, if churches do fund money for certain things like gambling laws, they are damn certain to follow the currently existing lobbying regulations. The lobbying laws are already on the books; look them up. This law simply clarifies lobbying in other circumstances.
This is bullshit. The press release is by Richard Viguerie, who is the head of American Target Advertising. This basically affects his business because his business is astroturfing. So he seems to have started his own little astroturfing campaign to stop this bill from being passed:
a n_Target_Advertising
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Viguerie
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americ
Read the bill. Pretty much everything in the press release is a lie. Shame on you, Slashdot.
You seem to have some major misconceptions of what's going on here.
First, this is not about political journalism or redressing Congress for that purpose. It's about paying people to do so. You have the right to a fair trial, but you usually have to pay someone to help you with that, and guess what? Lawyers are under government regulations as well. Lobbying is getting paid by someone to try and get Congress to make or not make certain laws. It's already regulated by the government.
Secondly, read that amendment. It is what we are talking about, and you seemed to have not read the parts of it that say that it is only concerned with people who are getting paid by a client to affect a specific act of Congress. This means that you can talk about stuff online all you want, you can write letters to Congressmen, and exercise your freedom of speech, whatever, and not register with the government as long as you are not lobbying.
It's simple: we put restrictions on lobbying, so those restrictions should apply whether you're lobbying online or at the Senator's door.
Hell, it even says specifically in one section that registration is only concerned with "paid grassroots lobbying" and explicitly says that other "grassroots lobbying" is not involved.
What if that "someone" just happened to be Rupert Murdoch, and "help get the word out" means giving you a salary to blog?
Do you see the problem now? How do you distinguish between "evil corporate benefactor" and some guy who "just wants to help out"? If you support this blogger as a person, or as an ideologue, you can give them money without paying them to lobby. Read the bill; it says this only covers payment "to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter".
That semantic crap about "what defines payment" doesn't matter.
In this case you'd have to have Slashdot making a specific deal with you, saying that "We want you to log on, try and convince people to ask Congressmen to repeal the DMCA, and if you do, you will be allowed to read these other messages."
Looks like you didn't read the entire bill: "Lobbying activities include paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grassroots lobbying." The law also clarifies that lobbying is to try and get Congress to make a particular action.
So if you have a blog where you are being paid specifically to write to get Congress to enact a certain kind of law, I would say, yes, you are lobbying, and you should be constrained to lobbying laws. And if you have a blog, chances are you are getting paid by your readers to provide entertainment - not by a client asking you to promote certain laws being made or not made.