Build Date: Sun Jul 13 06:01:47 2025 UTC
Subliminal messages inserted into Muzak may not work, but they've cranked them up at a couple of local stores in my area. I walk in the door and my head starts to buzz and my skin starts to crawl. Then again, maybe that's just my reaction to American consumer culture.
-- Baron Earl
How a Bad U.S. Law becomes a Bad International Law
2001-08-19 12:42:18
If you've been paying attention for these last few weeks, you know by now that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a rotten piece of law with over-zealous, unconstitutional restrictions on researchers. Finding a flaw in some company's copy protection software, or discussing that flaw in public, could land you in jail. Not content to wreck the U.S. Constitution, Hollywood's lawyers are now trying to incorporate the DMCA's restrictions into international law by getting its provisions added to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) treaty.
If you think this is a BAD IDEA, you need to speak up now. According to a recent EFF Alert, "The public must intervene to express disapproval of the FTAA's proposed anti-circumvention measures in order to correct this trend in copyright law. FTAA is currently accepting public feedback on the proposed treaty language until August 22."
The EFF has an excellent page on what you can do and who you can write to. Check it out.
Letters really do have an impact on what public figures do and more importantly, how they vote. They have full-time staff members who read and tally letters, figuring out which direction the public is leaning. Congresspeople have a point system for ranking the public's input. Letters get the most points, then Telexes, then FAXes, followed by phone calls. E-mail is hardly considered at all. If you want to have an impact, write a letter.
But do it soon. August 22nd is approaching fast.
T O P S T O R I E S
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Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
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Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
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Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
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Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
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The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
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C L A S S I C P I G D O G
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A Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Liquor
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Another Spocktail brought to you by the selfless beveratologists of Spock Mountain Research Labs. You do the math, we'll do the SCIENCE! (More...)
Juggler Vain attempts to wrestle with the issues around the KPFA shutdown; Big-time wrestling ensues. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Eavesdropping on Geeks: 'Star Trek: Discovery' vs 'The Orville'
If you broke into Pigdog's top sekrit headquarters, spying on their mysterious mix of weird science and old-skool geekiness, you'd overhear this conversation: (More...)
