[KLUG Advocacy] [Fwd: [cfgeeks] Disturbing DMCA story] -- this is getting rediculous ...

[Adam Williams]

>>>>I hope that thing is gone in 5 years so I can rest easy.
>>>The sooner it's gone, the easier we can all rest.
>>"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
>"The Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of 
>Patriots"  -- Tom Paine [??]

Nope, that was Thomas Jefferson as well; and it's "The Tree of Liberty
must be watered from time to time with the blood of Patriots and
Tyrants".

>I think the really wicked get their comuppance. 

Thats why it is best to be only moderately wicked! :)

>>If the DMCA gets clobbered, something else will come along, I imagine
>>under the guise of national interest or security.
>See our quotes from Foundinf Fathers, above. THe DMCA is the current front 
>in the battle, there will be (and have been) others. Democracy and protecting
>freedoms is hard, continual work.
> 
>>You just can't have someone using there mod'd X-Box to launch a D.O.S.
>>attack on the root name servers, it interrupts economic activity.
>Bad example, perhaps? I don't beleive this is behavior we want to 
>condone in any case; there are already laws on the books that can be
>used to charge people who do stuff like this, and they pre-date the
>DMCA by a fair amount. 

Right the problem is 'preventative' laws.  The technically uniformed
can't understand how mod'ing an X-Box is just another act of the same
innovative, creating, and ingenious people who drive the field of
technology.  If the belief is that corporations develop software,
systems, etc... than much of the utilitarian arguments against the DMCA
fall apart.  I think the major problem with the rationale behind the
DMCA is that software and systems are developed by individuals, even if
those individuals work in a corporate environment.  What I've seen on
CSPAN, the letters I've gotten back from congressmen, the conversations
I've had, all indicate that the utilitarian arguments are the only ones
that carry any weight - civil liberties arguments result in a
roll-of-the-eyes type response.  Of course, all I know about are west
Michigan congress people, who I assume are less enlightened than most.

>>When something is done to protect national interests it has much more
>>leeway than something done to protect mere corporate interests.
>This is true over the short term. Look at the general brou-ha-ha over the 
>actions of the Bushites in regard to different and odd legal constructs
>being used to support the "War On Terrorism". They won a point this week, 
>but they've lost others, by due process and court review. History tells
>us a lot of what these people are doing will not stand, certainly not
>after the state of emergency has passed.

True,  but a nicely nebulous state of emergency can be sustained for
quite a long time.

>There's a fair amount of legal distance between looking inside my X-Box 
>(well, someone ELSE'S X-Box, I'm NOT buying one) and loading explosives into 
>a car and driving it through the gates of the local military establishmnet
>(and the network equivalent) or inciting others to do so. I feel that good 
>legislation can be (and has been) written which recognizes the difference.

I certainly think it can.  In that vein I think the DMCA serves no
purpose.  We have had laws for prosecuting computer crime for some time,
and bootlegging media and software was already illegal.  People were
both arrested and successfully prosecuted on both counts.

>>I despise the DMCA, but in the long run - I can't forsee winning this
>>fight, not in the USA anyway.
>You seem more pessimistic about this than I do. Can you explain your
>position a bit more clearly? What's your definition of "winning", and 
>where would this fight be won, if NOT in the USA?

"Winning" would be the (a) restoration of fair-use rights,  (b)
legislation that protected users of technologies such as the "Trusted
Computing Platform" from exploitation, guaranteeing availability of
certification services to a wide range of hardware and software
providers, (c) limitations on requirements that can be imposed by EULAs
(witness XPsp3) and (d) reasonable life times for copyrights.

People may not like things like the "Trusted Computing Platform",  but
opposing them I think is about as pointless as the music industries
efforts to suppress cassette tape.

I don't know if it this will manage to happen anywhere other than the
USA, but I'm moderately certain it won't happen here.

Recent gallup polls I've heard indicate that America is slowly moving
towards the right - which makes maintaining a virtually perpetual
state-of-emergency much easier.   Nationalism and consumerism make that
easier as well.  I know that most people I work with would be more than
happy to surrender a few liberties in order to have cheap gas at the
corner station (assuming that can be convinced that there is actually a
correlation, but that isn't all that hard).

Second is a technologically illiterate population, and with a public
education system that is pretty much a parody of the Titanic I don't see
much improvement in regards to that.  People, even when very well
intentioned, can't make good long-range decisions, or identify gross
generalizations and over-simplifications without a rigorous education. 
It is an extremely complicated world,  and the youth I interact with are
not effectively being prepared to participate as citizens.  Most don't
even understand that they should care about being citizens.

Third is the two party system.  Neither party is going to select
candidates that are willing to address complicated issues,  offer
innovative solutions, or take corporate America to task.  The
distinction between these two parties is often pretty sketchy. And the
candidates of these two parties are really the only viable ones.  I just
can't imagine a third party actually getting enough of a toe hold to get
someone into a powerful position.