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I'm very concerned about this proposed law...and I don't even live in the
USA.
I have copied (at the end of this email) some good comments from
Slashdot.org on the proposed bill.
Sorry if this is too political for a technical mailing list but this
directly threatens technology and I believe it is something that we should
be aware of.
Andrew Goodman-Jones
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Hale
Landis
>Sent: Tuesday, 11 September 2001 3:57 PM
>To: T13 List Server
>Subject: [temp t13] Oh what fun this could be!
>
> ** This is the quasi-official and semi-temporary T13 email list server.
**
>
>Looks like our old friend CPRM could be back
>and this time it might not be optional...
>Read...
>http://www.politechbot.com/docs/hollings.090701.html
>
Summary:
"In General ... unlawful to manufacture / provide ... any interactive
digital device that does not ... utilize certified security technologies
that adhere to the security system standards ..."
Details of the bill:
Draft dated August 6, 2001. This bill has not been introduced as of
September 7, 2001.
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/hollings.090701.html
Raging commentary on the bill which further entraps the American citizens
and benefits the mega-corporations of America.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/08/0238200&mode=thread&threshold=4
Who cares if this is in the USA?
The brain-dead Aussie govt. tends to moronically copy the intent of the
stupid laws that the USA create. e.g. USA's DMCA law ..... Australia's
Cybercrime Act......trendy name, hey?
This proposed law is asking the industry to come up with a system and the
govt. will make that the law. This proposed law benefits the entertainment
industry (Disney etc) at the expense of the computer and electronics
industries. I can't believe this - the IT industry has just convinced the
hard disk manufacturers that we don't want "rights-management" incorporated
into every hard disk (CPRM). They back down and haven't implemented it. Now
the govt. is making a law mandating it?
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Snippets from the bill:
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(a) In General -- It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the
public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that
does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to
the security system standards adopted under section 104.
Sec. 104: Adoption of Security System Standards
[Summary: The private sector has 12 months to agree on a standard, or the
Secretary of Commerce will step in. Industry groups that can participate:
"representatives of interactive digital device manufacturers and
representatives of copyright owners." If industry can agree, the secretary
will turn their standard into a regulation; if not, normal government
processes apply and NTIA takes the lead. The standard can be later modified.
The secretary must certify technologies that adhere to those standards.
Also: "The secretary shall certify only those conforming technologies that
are available for licensing on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms."
FACA, a federal sunshine law, does not apply, and an antitrust exemption is
included.]
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*** Snippets from commentary: ***
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What does "In General" mean?
Isn't this the exact problem with the DMCA, this idea that laws should be
more like an umbrella that can cover a great many things than a law that in
concise and easily distinguishable from one another?
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Commercial Software has succeeded in convincing everyone of this concept of
"intellectual property" and it's supposed sovereign position over free
speech. They seem to have even convinced our representatives in congress,
which is most terrifying.
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An European view
As an European, i'll probably violate half of the American IP laws within
the next 5 years. I don't think i'll ever go back for a holiday. You guys
frighten me. The way companies influence your government through election
money is like alowing the worst part of kapitalism to determine the law :
the interest of the shareholder supercedes the freedom of the individual.
Like in europe (well at least in Belgium, but in most other countries too),
companies funding in elections is limited by law, thus restricting such
dangerous evolution.
I don't think you can ever win by fighting the DMCA, the SSSCA and so on ad
infinitum.
You have to fight company involvement in government by restricting the
funding. That's the only way out, or you'll only loose more and more
freedom.
Don't try to stop each bullet, that's impossible, stop the shooter, you'll
feel much safer.
PS : Here, elections are paid by the taxpayer. The amount of money involved
is many orders of magnitude lower than in America.
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In the paid-off minds of dolts like Fritz Hollings, this bill is no
different. He has been told that this will make it impossible to do "bad"
things with a computer while still making it possible to do "good" things
with a computer. Since he doesn't understand computers, and doesn't much
care, it sounds reasonable. Besides, the checks he's getting from Disney
must be freaking enormous.
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This new law will be of concern to 0.15% of the population, tops. My
neighbors are not going to write their congressman; hell, most of them don't
even write their mothers. They aren't going to picket, donate, or anything
else. They don't care: they will still be able to rent the latest Hollywood
blockbuster any time they want to. There just isn't going to be any 'popular
groundswell' of support in opposition to this law. Heck, half the time I
can't get my boss to agree to make a decision, let alone do it now. How are
your powers of persuasion? If you ever wondered how Hitler could have come
into power in a democratic pre-WWII Germany, just watch the news.
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Just what everyone wants, I'm sure: Demand remains high, supply is cut
dramatically, prices soar, youths mug people or hold up liquor stores to
raise the cash, all the jackals move in to the black-market cash-opportunity
they see gathering, and pretty soon gangs are slaughtering each other on the
streets over non-Compliant hard drives. Customs officials sieze 400 gigs of
Class A disk space (est. street value: $500,000).
The Government then runs Public Service announcements: "PIRACY KILLS" "MP3:
JUST SAY NO" "WINNERS DON'T USE NONCOMPLIANT HARDWARE DEVICES" "FRIENDS
DON'T LET FRIENDS COPY MOVIES". They also offer tax rebates and other cash
benefits [salon.com] to television shows and movies who include
significantly pro-Digital Rights Management plotlines in their work.
In the summer movie, "Gone at 60kb/s", Nick Cage has to pirate an
unprecedented number of other summer movies in one night in order to save
his brother's life; in the more thoughtful "TCP/IP Traffic", Michael Douglas
finds himself sucked into the seedy world of P2P after his teenage daughter
is involved in a DVD-related incident, the story expertly interwoven with
that of Open Source programmers working across the border, trying to stay
true to their goals despite their lack of Compliance, trying to maintain
their idealism in the face of a lead programmer who secretly is working for
a reverse-engineering cartel.
New search-and-seizure laws are drafted to fight the War On Piracy, in order
to Clean Up Our Streets And Save Our Children From Evil. All laptop
computers are spot-checked at airports and potential employees are asked to
undergo a hard-drive scan to ensure they are not "using".
Caffiene mints, copyleft t-shirts, and any item bearing a penguin logo are
banned [emdef.org] from COMDEX and any other gathering of software
developers under Cracking House laws [aclu.org]. These things are sure signs
[usdoj.gov] of illegal activity.
Far-fetched? Facetious? A little of both. But the general principles have
been shown to hold true in the past, repeatedly
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Dear Mr. McCain,
I am a resident of Arizona, and a computer user. I recently read about an
act scheduled to be introduced to the Senate entitled the "Security Systems
Standards and Certification Act" [216.110.42.179], sponsored by Senator
Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) and Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Under
this act, it would be a civil offense to create or sell any kind of computer
equipment that "does not include and utilize certified security
technologies" approved by the federal government. I politely request, as a
citizen of Arizona, that you vote against this Act for the reasons in this
letter.
I see this as a violation of a basic freedom to create, use, or sell
anything I want to (including, of course, computer equipment) without
government interference.
It is of course necessary to deny the right to create and sell certain
things, such as drugs; these things can be harmful and should not be sold.
That however, does not apply to computer equipment; there is no way I can
harm anyone with my own computer equipment. But this Act denies me the right
to create and sell computer equipment without federally approved security
technologies.
The primary purpose for this regulation is the protection of content
provided by large media corporations that have lobbied for this Act.
Lobbyists from the music and record industry have, and will continue to
lobby congress in the hopes of further regulation for consumers and
corporations to protect their content.
In a computer system certified by the federal government, their content
would be protected from misuse by consumers. It is an ideal situation for
the music and record industry, then, that all computers in legal use would
be certified.
This helps that particular industry, but hurts another. In the computer
industry, if this Act is passed, it would be illegal to create and sell
anything not certified by the federal government to specifically protect the
content of these corporations.
I would like to create and sell computer equipment that does not "utilize
certified security technologies", and I should have the legal right to. I do
have that right under the current laws.
The products of the recording industry should not be protected by laws that
regulate other industries, and deny my right to sell my own computer
equipment without federal approval.
I implore you, Senator McCain, to vote against the Security Systems
Standards and Certification Act when it comes before the Senate.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
(my name here)
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