hey all, If you regard this as spam, know that this is the last you'll get from me on this subject. Just wanted y'all to have a first hand account (non-mainstream) of what we did in front of the federal building in SF today. For those of you who don't know, there is an international orginization known as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that coerced the US congress into covertly passing the DMCA via treaty. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) has some cool parts, but there are unconstitutional parts as well. Namely, it revokes the 1st amendment right to free speech. Well, more specificaly, it makes research re the subject of enabling free speech and fair use illegal. Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested 14 days ago for giving a speech. Adobe Systems created an elecronic book format (eBook) that has copy protection built in. It only runs on windows. His company in Russia, elcomsoft, developed a piece of software that allows the blind and similarly disabled individuals to read books that they had legally purchased, despite the copy protections. For this, Adobe had him arrested by the FBI. God forbid we should enable free speech in the USA; especially for the blind. Adobe has since recanted their charge that Dmitry has done anything wrong. They want Dmitry to be set free. The DOJ contunues to prosecute him. So thus the setting for the protest in front of the federal building in SF monday. A law sponsored by WIPO and WTO, railroaded through our congress with vast efforts to not let us know, is being used to send a father of two to a federal penitentiary because he believes, as any American worth their salt, that the ability to read is a human right. So that's it. Section 1201 of the DMCA can be described as making a hammer illegal instead of misuse of the hammer illegal. I think we all agree that wanton violation of copyright is harmful to many. However, acedemic research, and the right to enable speech for the differenly abled should be kept legal, despite what WIPO and WTO want. As a result, we marched on a federal building today. We believe that foriegn scholars and scientisits who come to the USA to help us enable free speech to stregnthen our democracy should not be jailed for doing so. This may no longer be the land of the free, but at least it can still be the home of the brave. tack P.S. In a rare special thanks: The SFPD kept my banner holding - march leading arse from being run over by surly drivers. Of all the bad things I've heard about them: Serious props for better enabling my right to peaceably assemble to address my grievences to the gov. ------------------------------------------ 1st Amendment: Void where prohibited http://freesklyarov.org http://www.anti-dmca.org
