LPM: CBDTPA - proposed legislation

[Rich Bowen]

For those of you who don't follow very closely what goes on in Congress
and the Senate, I would encourage you to take a look at a bill recently
proposed by Senator Hollings, affectionately referred to as The Senator
>From Disney.

Poorly disguised as a bill to protect the Broadband and Digital
Television industries, and more broadly claiming to be a way to defeat
media "piracy", this bill has the very real potential to make Open and
Free operating systems, and free software in general, illegal, or at
least heavily restricted.

It may seem that I am being alarmist about this, so rather than launch
into my rant about this (I am really very worked up about this, and have
been discussing it with various people a lot today) I will direct you to
some URLs that discuss the issue from the perspective of what it can and
will do to the technology business. First, however, the URL to the bill
itself, so that you have the proper context:

http://www.eff.org/IP/SSSCA_CBDTPA/20020321_s2048_cbdtpa_bill.pdf

OK, and the following are some important commentaries on this bill:

http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24616.html
http://lwn.net/2002/0328/
http://www.evolt.org/article/ITAA_Opposes_Digital_Rights_Management_Act/1/23037/index.html

And, on the Senate's own web site,
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.cfm
This last URL sometimes seems to not load properly the first time or
two. It is responses from citizens, directed to the committe who
proposed this bill. They are overwhelmingly opposed to the measure.

I encourage you to contact your senator, and your congressperson, and
tell them how you feel about this issue. I don't presume to make up your
mind for you, but it is my considered opinion that the entertainment
industry is willing to dispose of my job for the sake of creating
additional revenue for their industry, and in the process deny me
certain rights that Mr Adams and Mr Jefferson thought that I should
have when they wrote the documents that started this whole USA thing
going in the first place.

I am also proposing that the LPLUG contact our legislators with a
statement about this matter. I am writing up such a statement, and will
send it out to the list when I have done so, so that you can see what I
will be sending to our legislators in our name, and you can shout me
down if you think that I am misled.

-- 
Rich Bowen - rbowen at rcbowen.com
Education Director, Lexington Professional Linux Users Group