http://www.aotc.info/archives/000152.html#000152
The Worst Coders in Washington
The best code in the world can be foiled by a single bug. One careless
line of code can crash an entire program.
Lawrence Lessig calls laws "East Coast Code," and it only takes a few
buggy laws to strangle freedom and innovation in technology. Laws like
the DMCA, the Hollings Bill, and the CDA threaten to put the American
technology juggernaut up on blocks.
AOTC has researched the sponsors of eight bad Internet laws and compiled
a list of their most prolific campaign contributors. These laws were
written and a tiny handful of lawmakers, backed by a tiny handful of
wealthy financiers. These bad coders and their backers have done more
damage to computing, the Internet and freedom than all the virus authors,
spammers and crackers combined.
The Laws
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), H.R.2281
1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) flooded American
technology with punishing legal action, jailing scientists and destroying
companies. The DMCA's "anti-circumvention" provisions have trumped the
First Amendment and have given copyright holders a whip hand over every
use of the material they sell to their customers.
Communications Decency Act (CDA), S.314/ H.R.1004
1995's Communications Decency Act turned the Internet into a
First-Amendment-Free zone. Speech that would be absolutely protected in
the "real world" was criminalized if transmitted over the Internet. After
a protracted court battle, a Philadelphia Federal Court zapped this buggy
code, declaring the CDA un-Constitutional.
Child Online Protection Act (COPA, "CDA II"), S. 1482, H.R. 3783
After the defeat of CDA, anti-freedom groups and their lawmakers launched
a second salvo, COPA. COPA was a narrower attack than CDA, limiting
itself to websites hosted by commercial entities, but no less
un-Constitutional. The courts stopped COPA dead in its tracks, but today,
the Supreme Court is deliberating over whether to unleash COPA on
America.
Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA, "The
Hollings Bill"), S.2048
This virulent Trojan Horse, written by Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings
and friends appears to be a law that promotes technology, but it carries
a deadly payload. Under this proposed law, technologists will have to
come to film and movie studios on bent knee and beg for permission to
ship new hardware and software. The film and music companies who worked
to ban every innovative technology from the player piano to Marconi's
radio to the VCR and the Internet itself would be in charge of all future
innovation in America.
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill ("Berman P2P bill"), H.R.5211
Representative Howard Berman's (D-Cal.) P2P Bill opens a hole in the
security of the American judicial system. Under this proposal, copyright
holders are free to take illegal countermeasures against any member of
the public whom they believe to be engaged in copyright infringement. A
law that lets a group of people break the law sounds like an oxymoron,
but it's worse than that: by affording a "right of revenge" to movie and
music companies, Berman's code legalizes vigilanteism, stripping
law-enforcement agencies of the ability to police attacks on Internet
users.
CIPA, H.R. 4577
CIPA is a denial-of-service attack on schools, libraries and children.
Under CIPA, schools and libraries that receive certain Federal funds are
required by law to censor the Web, using filters provided by snake-oil
salesmen that raise the cost of providing Internet access to kids while
spuriously blocking informative sites that carry information that appears
in our schools' mandatory curriculum.
The Lawmakers
These lawmakers in Congress and the Senate wrote more anti-technology
legal code than any of their co-legislators.
Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS 3rd district) 3 bills $230,900
DMCA, COPA, CIPA
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX 21st district) 2 bills $87,112
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill, COPA
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK ) 2 bills $375,339
CBDTPA, CIPA
Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY 27th district) 2 bills $200,938
DMCA, COPA
Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA 26th district) 2 bills $212,991
DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH 4th district) 2 bills $184,998
COPA, CIPA
Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC 6th district) 2 bills $114,747
DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC ) 2 bills $532,980
CBDTPA, CIPA
Rep. Bob Franks (R-NJ 7th district) 2 bills $661,784
COPA, CIPA
Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR 3rd district) 1 bill $99,350
COPA
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ ) 1 bill $1,050,321
CIPA
Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD 6th district) 1 bill $50,500
COPA
Rep. Jack Metcalf (R-WA 2nd district) 1 bill $185,377
COPA
Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY 1st district) 1 bill $115,980
COPA
Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO 6th district) 1 bill $145,162
COPA
Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-IL 6th district) 1 bill $83,500
DMCA
Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH 5th district) 1 bill $107,849
COPA
Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL 15th district) 1 bill $139,759
COPA
Rep. John R. Kasich (R-OH 12th district) 1 bill $235,185
COPA
Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-MT ) 1 bill $506,126
CIPA
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO 7th district) 1 bill $175,636
COPA
Rep. Mark W. Neumann (R-WI 1st district) 1 bill $167,765
COPA
Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA 4th district) 1 bill $78,765
COPA
Rep. Vince Snowbarger (R-KS 3rd district) 1 bill $106,774
COPA
Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-PA 8th district) 1 bill $98,185
COPA
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM 1st district) 1 bill $232,960
COPA
Sen. J. James Exon (D-NE ) 1 bill $0
CDA
Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK 1st district) 1 bill $98,852
COPA
Rep. Stephen E. Buyer (R-IN 5th district) 1 bill $115,160
COPA
Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN 7th district) 1 bill $126,499
COPA
Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $76,604
DMCA
Rep. Jon D. Fox (R-PA 13th district) 1 bill $200,834
COPA
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL 6th district) 1 bill $92,743
COPA
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA ) 1 bill $389,544
CBDTPA
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI 3rd district) 1 bill $47,719
COPA
Rep. Ronnie Shows (D-MS 4th district) 1 bill $210,650
CIPA
Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL 4th district) 1 bill $266,944
COPA
Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY 24th district) 1 bill $92,380
COPA
Rep. Jon Christensen (R-NE 2nd district) 1 bill $230,552
COPA
Rep. Max Sandlin (D-TX 1st district) 1 bill $215,450
COPA
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA 4th district) 1 bill $55,500
DMCA
Rep. Greg Ganske (R-IA 4th district) 1 bill $177,885
COPA
Rep. J. C. Jr. Watts (R-OK 4th district) 1 bill $135,705
COPA
Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT 6th district) 1 bill $279,554
COPA
Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO ) 1 bill $477,360
CIPA
Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL 9th district) 1 bill $92,011
COPA
Rep. Jr. Nethercutt, George R. (R-WA 5th district) 1 bill $142,127
COPA
Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA 9th district) 1 bill $106,339
COPA
Rep. Linda Smith (R-WA 3rd district) 1 bill $52,494
COPA
Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN 6th district) 1 bill $248,500
COPA
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY 1st district) 1 bill $169,715
COPA
Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL 15th district) 1 bill $383,959
CDA
Rep. Jay Kim (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $116,574
COPA
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX ) 1 bill $422,932
CIPA
Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN 6th district) 1 bill $145,282
COPA
Rep. Michael Pappas (R-NJ 12th district) 1 bill $80,749
COPA
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL 16th district) 1 bill $106,699
COPA
Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-IL 4th district) 1 bill $75,534
COPA
Sen. John B. Breaux (D-LA ) 1 bill $343,769
CBDTPA
Rep. David L. Hobson (R-OH 7th district) 1 bill $104,922
COPA
Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL 1st district) 1 bill $177,481
CIPA
Rep. Thomas J. Manton (D-NY 7th district) 1 bill $118,494
COPA
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA 43th district) 1 bill $127,625
COPA
Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA 16th district) 1 bill $103,800
COPA
Rep. John Jr. Conyers (D-MI 14th district) 1 bill $99,110
DMCA
Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR 1st district) 1 bill $248,322
COPA
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI 6th district) 1 bill $121,673
COPA
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL ) 1 bill $442,151
CBDTPA
Rep. Jr. Istook, Ernest J. (R-OK 5th district) 1 bill $93,284
COPA
Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI ) 1 bill $732,850
CIPA
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX 6th district) 1 bill $162,944
COPA
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC 9th district) 1 bill $147,741
COPA
Rep. Pat Danner (D-MO 6th district) 1 bill $112,950
COPA
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX 5th district) 1 bill $207,111
COPA
Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL 8th district) 1 bill $326,487
DMCA
Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-NY 20th district) 1 bill $149,306
COPA
Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL 11th district) 1 bill $200,075
COPA
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL 19th district) 1 bill $107,500
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
Rep. Sue W. Kelly (R-NY 19th district) 1 bill $168,550
COPA
Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC ) 1 bill $386,450
CIPA
Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC 5th district) 1 bill $118,275
COPA
Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA 10th district) 1 bill $185,621
COPA
Rep. Phil English (R-PA 21st district) 1 bill $163,562
COPA
Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-NY 22nd district) 1 bill $164,098
COPA
Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-OH 3rd district) 1 bill $94,000
COPA
Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $148,450
CIPA
Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA ) 1 bill $376,525
CDA
Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY 2nd district) 1 bill $214,076
COPA
Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-AL 1th district) 1 bill $109,835
COPA
Rep. John E. Peterson (R-PA 5th district) 1 bill $60,556
COPA
Rep. Sonny Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $0
DMCA
Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC 11th district) 1 bill $90,864
COPA
Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI ) 1 bill $247,429
CBDTPA
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