Today I had an idea that's so simple it could be useful.
We can send a message to the US legislative that things like SOPA, PIPA and the more shady provisions of the NDAA are a step too far. While they will laugh at our numbers, we can promise to volunteer our technical skills and resources to the politicians who vote against laws like that and deny access to the same resources to those who vote for them.
Our community is not large and writing our representatives telling them they lost our vote does not carry enough weight (and it's probably the same everywhere) but we carry mighty claws and teeth in form of our skills and resources.
Any ideas on how to do it?
Note: I live in Brazil and one could say such things have no direct impact on my life, but bad ideas and bad legislation are contagious. The same lobbies that work in the US are busy at work everywhere. We cannot afford to concede them a victory like this.
I get a dreadful sense that there's really no stopping this. The entertainment industry has been around longer than the tech industry, their claws more deeply embedded in our political system. They will not cease until they get the controls they want. They'll stop at nothing - they will use every tactic they can come up with to get their laws passed. Maybe SOPA won't pass, maybe Protect IP won't pass, but later on it will be something else. The public gets bored with issues as they drone on - can we maintain our vigilance forever?
Maintaining vigilance is one thing. Resisting a direct and perpetually sustained assault is another. In answer to that question, no, the public can't win. Like a body riddled with unchecked tumors, it will inevitably die - prematurely and horribly.
Make no mistake: private election finance is a cancer upon the Nation. We end it, or it ends us.
You believe in freedom of speech right? (lets ignore things like shouting fire in crowded theater right now).
So you agree that I have the right to say that the current president is an oath-breaker, a war monger and a criminal (these opinions are biased, clearly, but they are also not completely impossible to argue)?
So you agree that I have the right to tell that to somebody who wants to hear that, right?
So I also have the right to tell that to two people who wants to hear it right?
So what about 200? What if I convince somebody else to say that to ten people, 200 people? If I convince ten people to tell 2000, and pay them what they would have earned if they had worked a job that day, then I should also be allowed to do that, right?
Remember I could have hired them to paint my fence instead, which would have been allowed.
What if instead of sending people around, I started sending letters around? And to write them fast enough brought an expensive printer? And the advice from expensive (but) great ad men from Madison? And instead of using letters I brought time on the radio or the television or on various sites online?
If you allow me to do these things (and remember I could do it if, rather than getting some particular policy past the House, I wanted to sell blue cheese) then how will it matter whether I can give money to a particular candidate or not?
You can have either free speech or banned campaign founding but not both.
>You can have either free speech or banned campaign founding but not both.
You could have something else: complete and total accountability, and full transparency of WHO is paying HOW MUCH to WHOM for WHAT purpose. Publicly available. In addition, we could require all politicians to wear their sponsors' logos (just like a motorsport driver) when they appear in public.
Representative democracy is an abstraction that tries to hide what's going on behind the scenes. Let's rip off the hood and make the abstraction leak wherever possible.
Also, I don't necessarily think spreading outright lies should be considered free speech, just as much as I don't consider propaganda or hate speech to be free speech. I don't think we should forbid it but I refuse to categorize it as "worthy of protection".
If you believe in free speech, except for the speech you don't agree with, you don't believe in free speech. "Propaganda" and "hate speech" are just ways of trying to avoid making it obvious you mean "speech I don't agree with", especially the word "propaganda", which in practice simply straight-up means "speech I don't agree with".
>If you believe in free speech, except for the speech you don't agree with, you don't believe in free speech.
Except that's not what I was saying. You have an opinion that differs from mine? You are free to state it and I will gladly fight for your right to say that. I just don't believe that outright lies (propaganda) and mere hate are a valid opinion.
I also said we shouldn't explicitly forbid it. It's just not worthy of extended protection and respect. I don't see how this means I don't believe in free speech.
But you cannot ignore the fire in a crowded theater portion when it comes to politics. Unlike many other avenues in politics money = power. By having a consecrated few such as corporations or the RIAA against the populace you have a huge power imbalance. This allows those with the cash to effectively gag the competition preventing their speech which cannot be considered fair. Perhaps individuals should be allowed to do what they wish with their money but the individual rights granted to corporations has gone to far.
There is no doubt that anybody with an MBA is forever useless at anything but running steel mills and other places where what they have learned makes sense (at which they will no doubt be fabulous). I don't believe retraining is possible, for the simple reason that the average person doesn't change (individual people may, but on average they are average), thus no grand retraining is possible.
These are scary times. There are widespread attacks on our democratic institutions and on our economy. All three branches of government are participating. Congress pushes SOPA. The administration refuses to prosecute the bankers. The Supreme Court upholds Citizens United. The regulatory agencies are ineffective because f regulatory capture. There is so much money passing through lobbyists hands that few in Washington are immune.
Perhaps work should be done to pass a law that prevents these sort of bills from popping up. Go on the offense and eliminate the threat instead of constantly having to defend variations of the problem.
They will not cease until they get the controls they want.
Another interpretation would be that they won't stop until the rights that they want are explicitly prohibited by law. There needs to be an opposite-of-SOPA bill passed to enshrine the freedoms we want to preserve. Capitalism, at the very least, consumes everything in its path otherwise.
Here's another intriguing thought: will our present tech industry favorites be doing the same thing to whatever the next big thing is 50 or 100 years down the road? Or will we be the first industry to break the cycle?
I thought these were essentially the same bill; killing it in one house killed it. The depth of the analysis of the two bills in Wikipedia is so different that I cant tell. It appears that whether Protect IP is voted on is up to Harry Reid, but I find Senate rules nearly impenetrable. Enlightenment would be welcome..
It seems they are variants of the same idea, which if passed separately would likely have their language reconciled in 'conference committee' (where members of the House and Senate merge the language). If both reach that point, passing the merged version is almost certain.
Right now neither has been 'killed'. They're due in January for more action: either continuing House hearings (SOPA) or a Senate floor vote (Protect-IP, if Harry Reid gets his way).
Nonsense. That's just how it works. Any final bill would still have to pass both (though there can sometimes be shananigans in the conference committee). And nothing is ever really 'killed' – any bill can be reintroduced at any time, the issue is whether the leaders who control the agenda want to give it time/votes.
PIPA is farther along than SOPA. It cleared its committe with no resistance in mere minutes and while Senator Wyden has apparently been delaying it through arcane Senate procedural rules I do not understand, there was news last week that it would be the first thing Reid brings before the Senate floor when they reconvene January 24. It has 40 co-sponsors (40% of the Senate!) so the odds are not good.
The general consensus I've seen on the net is that PIPA is less horrible than SOPA but still unacceptably bad. We've dealt the worse bill some serious blows in the last week, and now we need to turn out democratic/capitalist firepower on PIPA. Full blast.
Most things in the senate require a vote of 60 votes to accomplish, however, this usually doesn't happen and Harry Reid (or whoever is standing in for him on a given day) just asks for unanimous consent. If no one objects, then they proceed as if everyone voted for it. What Ron Wyden did was object to bringing the bill to the floor. Thus, it will require him to give consent or a vote of 60 Senators to bring the bill to the floor (which they wouldn't try to do unless they were sure it would work).
Most of the time, there are only a few people actually in the senate chamber. The person standing in for Reid, one Republican Senator, the person giving some sort of speech/statement into the record and for cspan, and whoever is next to do the same. Within each party, any Senator can (publicly or secretly) ask their representative in the chamber to object on their behalf. Ron Wyden did so publicly, in the past people have gotten riled up about "secret holds" where the leadership of the objecting side doesn't expose who objected. If Harry Reid really wanted to push for the bill, he could call a vote, which would put everyone on the record voting in favor or opposition on bringing it to the floor, but Senators hate being officially on one side or the other of a bill, so they usually wait until they can convince whoever has a hold to drop it (usually through giving them some sort of favor, etc).
I think a bigger threat is that while every techie is sperging (rightfully) over SOPA/Protect, everyone is ignoring the NDAA sliding quietly through Congress.
I appreciate all the SOPA coverage and am glad to see people getting upset about it, but there are a lot of other issues that are just as scary which people are just glossing over.
It would help if you gave a short explanation of what the NDAA is. I realize it may be something I don't know about since I'm not American, but still, I'm interested.
Sorry about that. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a bill that is passed every year and appropriates funding for military expenditures.
This year, there are clauses that legislatively codify the President's authority to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects, including American citizens, without trial.
The govt. has been claiming that capability under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) already, but Congress has always been vague and handwavy about supporting it. This codifies and effectively rubber-stamps the process, saying "We approve"
Most of the organizations made sense on the list (in the sense that they think they have something to gain) but there were a few I just couldn't figure out:
-National Fraternal Order of Police
-National District Attorneys Association
-National Criminal Justice Association
Why would these 3 organizations be supporting this bill?
While we are focusing on SOPA and the Protect IP Act, we are being distracted from the social problems that lie at the cause of these kinds of bills even being able to see the light of day.
...I wish I could make everyone in congress get an education or something. Make them study some history before they're allowed to propose any more decisions.
Wouldn't it be better to leave these obscene comments for websites like reddit or slashdot? I come to HN to get away from the numerous attempts at humor. When everyone is doing it, it grows tiresome.
You might have observed that it wasn't all that funny or witty and I might have agreed with you.
But commenting on what you wrote: obscene doesn't mean what you want it to mean. Perhaps you should take your prudery, your censorship, your sense of entitlement and your geeky elitism elsewhere.
"""I come to HN to get away from the numerous attempts at humor. When everyone is doing it, it grows tiresome."""
1) Not everyone at HN is a robot trying to avoid humor (or "attempts at it"). I don't propose we narrow everything to the standards of suits and/or Asperger's sufferers.
2) Humor is totally compatible with hacker culture --hell, 60% of "the hacker dictionary" documents pans, inside jokes and "trenches" humor.
3) Some of the best technical documents have "attempts at humor" inside. There is even a whole programming language named after a comedy troupe from what I hear.
4) I find the notion that humor is something unworthy, or beneath a HN thread insulting.
5) I also take particular offense with the "OBSCENE" accusation. Is a hacker culture site supposed to be a hangout for prudes? We are consenting adults here, and we know what a bj means. And --I would like to believe-- we don't find mere words "offensive" --words are only offensive if they are used AGAINST someone (and in that case, any word can be offensive).
6) The comment also teaches you the pronunciation of two valid foreign words, and notes an amusing coincidence with two recent internet legislation acronyms.
(Also note that you can't separate humor from "attempts at humor").
We can send a message to the US legislative that things like SOPA, PIPA and the more shady provisions of the NDAA are a step too far. While they will laugh at our numbers, we can promise to volunteer our technical skills and resources to the politicians who vote against laws like that and deny access to the same resources to those who vote for them.
Our community is not large and writing our representatives telling them they lost our vote does not carry enough weight (and it's probably the same everywhere) but we carry mighty claws and teeth in form of our skills and resources.
Any ideas on how to do it?
Note: I live in Brazil and one could say such things have no direct impact on my life, but bad ideas and bad legislation are contagious. The same lobbies that work in the US are busy at work everywhere. We cannot afford to concede them a victory like this.