EFF: 48 Hours to Stop the Broadcast Flag

The Importance of writes "Think the Broadcast Flag is dead? EFF is warning that Hollywood is trying to sneak the broadcast flag into law as an amendment to a massive appropriations bill. 'If what we hear is true, the provision will be introduced before a subcommittee tomorrow and before the full appropriations committee on Thursday. That gives us 48 hours to stop it.' Action Alert here. List of Senator's phone numbers here."

I didn't think you could

[krbvroc1]

I didn't think you could legislate on an appropriation bill? Is this for real? Its against the rules of the Senate (rule XVI) http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule16.htm [senate.gov]

Damnit!

[rogabean]

Only residents of Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, or Wisconsin can sign this.

I'm gonna post this over on the various MythTV communities as well... try to get more support drummed up.

Link is bad? Here's another...

[Anonymous Coward]

List of Senator's phone numbers here [publicknowledge.org].

Nope, slashdotted to hell. But you can get them from the source [senate.gov].

Re:Why..

[pete6677]

It can't really be done. One of the big responsibilities of paid industry lobbyists is looking through the details of laws to insert terms that are favorable to them and try to remove those that aren't. As soon as some music customer rights are inserted into an appropriations bill, the RIAA lobbyists will notice and make a big stink out of it, ensuring that the reps who are on their payroll will immediately remove the offending items. It is a nice thought, however.

EFF has a site that will fax your senator for free

[Shonufftheshogun]

You can fax and email appropriation committee members for free at the EFF's action center [eff.org].

Re:I didn't think you could

[Animats]

The Appropriations Committee can put general legislation in an appropriations bill, and this is going through that route.

Re:I didn't think you could

[krbvroc1]

So the rule must be that Senators cannot offer admendments once the appropriations bill is on the floor for a vote but are free to do so in committee.

Re:I didn't think you could

[Duncan3]

That's so naive it's cute. This is America, congress does what it's paid to do.

You're thinking of one of those axis of evil countries where people can vote and they hold government accountable, like England or something.

Re:Why..

[The Analog Kid]

Ron Paul (L-TX, well should be anyway, stupid ballot access laws), trys to recind big government laws but they always get shot down.

Re:48 hours? More like 0 hours.

[ntk]

The rider isn't there yet. We've got a strong rumour that it's going to be proposed, but if you kick up enough of a stink at this stage, it can be quietly withdrawn with no-one having to take a stand.

Tell you what, why don't you call your Senator anyway, even if you think this is true? What have you got to lose? If the law goes through, you can tell everyone that you were right. And if it doesn't, you get to say you helped stop the flag against all the odds.

Believe me, I love cynicism as much as the next person, but when it stops you from taking the one tiny step, the single principled stand that might have prevented disaster, you're not a cynic. You're a statistic. And a predictable one at that.

Re:We still can use our VCR

[Jaime2]

This is exactly what the broadcast flag was designed for. You can tape all the analog stuff you want, but with the broadcast flag in effect, it will be illegal to sell any device that can transmit an HD signal to anything that doesn't honor the broadcast flag. There goes any hope of a homebrew HDTV TiVo.

There also goes any hope of any non-corporate innovation in HDTV and the beginning of all-out consumer fleecing without any regard for fair use. From now on, we'll have to beg for everything from Hollywood. Even the stuff we take for granted today.

Re:Email is counterproductive

[jalefkowit]

Email is routinely ignored by congressional staffers. Signing a paper petition is a little more useful. A phone call is better still. A written letter is far superiour.

This was true, until Capitol Hill was hit by letters containing anthrax back in 2001-2. Nowadays snail-mail letters get a lot less personal attention than they used to (for obvious reasons).

Re:Damnit!

[Mercano]

Those must be the states with Senators on the Appropriation Committe. When I sent one off, it only when to Patrick Leahy and not to Jim Jeffords.

Re:Met a Bill I Like

[Anonymous Coward]

The state legislature of Illinois has had this for years, so there's no good reason that the federal government can't.

Re:Why do you still have riders?

[sasha328]

The difference between the US and westminister system countries (like Australia, UK, Canada etc) is not just that the President, Prime Minister (call them whatever, the Big Boss) only rules if his/her party want them to rule. We don't elect prime ministers, we elect members of parliament who appoint a prime minister (who usually happens to be the leader of the majority party).
The main difference is that they usually are a multi party system; occasionally independents or minor parties hold the "balance of power" in the senate. this effectively means that the people proposing law changes will have to satisfy these independents or minor parties. It's truely: "keeping the bastards honest" (in general).

Re:Post-Reading Test

[Phroggy]

Why that won't solve anything:

"I actually voted for the $87 billion, before I voted against it." - John Kerry

Bush used that quote to accuse Kerry of flip-flopping on issues, but Kerry didn't actually change his mind - the version of the bill he voted for, Bush threatened to veto because Bush wasn't happy with where the money was going to come from. The bill was changed so the money would come from somewhere else, and Kerry voted against it, not because he opposed the whole bill, but because he opposed one part of it.

Most bills that go through Congress have so much unrelated crap tacked onto them that no matter which way you vote, you're almost guaranteed to be voting for or against something people like and something people dislike at the same time, and whichever part of that was unpopular, your opponent will use against you during your reelection campaign. Of course, since you're the incumbent and they're not, you can't use the same trick against them, because they weren't in office at the time!

Re:Met a Bill I Like

[doubledoh]

At the very least, as insane as it sounds, we need a mechanism to ensure that they even read the entire bill that they vote for, supposedly representing the millions of people in their state.

As a matter of fact, there is a group trying to get a law passed that requires this exact thing: that all congressmen READ laws in their entirety outload before passing them (and only the ones present for the full reading may vote):

Make Congress Read the Bills Campaign [downsizedc.org]

It's brilliant really. You gotta love the Libertarians.

Re:Why..

[Savantissimo]

Ron Paul is R-TX not L-TX (He has been the Libertarian presidential candidate in the past, though.)

Re:Why..

[TheoMurpse]

Hence why the grandparent said something like
"L-TX (well should be, stupid ballot access laws)"
In Texas, you must run as R or D. These are the "stupid ballot access laws" of which the GP speaks. Paul is a registered Libertarian, though, so it's close enough to call him "L-TX".

Re:Who's going to introduce it?

[ntk]

Feel free to change the existing copy - it's all editable. At this point, making a phone call in the morning is your best bet. There's a sample script on Boing Boing [boingboing.net]'s entry.

We don't know who will be introducing it. Possibly Senator Ted Stevens, co-sponsor of the Hollings Bill [wired.com] which would have also enforced mandatory DRM.

Campaign update.

[ntk]

I thought everybody should know that you may have just slashdotted the United States Senate Appropriations Committee.

As of 10PM PST, six hours after news first leaked out, we've reached over 4550 messages sent to the 26 senators on the appropriations committee. The median number of emails and faxes per senator is 64; the average is 150.

Patty Murray (D-WA) received over 300 from her constituents on the Broadcast Flag. Kay Hutchison (R-TX) has received over 500 mails warning her of the controversial rider. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has over a thousand faxes sitting in her inbox telling her not to accept any Broadcast Flag amendment.

And that's not including the telephone calls, which are still continuing.

Hollywood's first chance to slip in an amendment will be at 2PM EST Tuesday, in the Commerce, Justice and Science. Their next opportunity will be the full committeee mark-up [senate.gov] at 2PM EST Thursday.

We need to keep the pressure up, but I think it's fair to say that so far this rider is not slipping by unnoticed through the halls of Congress.

If you're in the states below, please call your senator.

COMMERCE, JUSTICE AND SCIENCE SUB-COMMITTEE AND FULL COMMITTEE MEMBERS

ALABAMA Senator Richard Shelby [phone]
ALASKA Senator Ted Stevens [phone]
HAWAII Senator Daniel Inouye [phone]
IOWA Senator Tom Harkin [phone]
KANSAS Senator Sam Brownback [phone]
KENTUCKY Senator Mitch McConnell [phone]
MARYLAND Senator Barbara Mikulski [phone]
MISSOURI Senator Christopher Bond [phone]
NEW HAMPSHIRE Senator Judd Gregg [phone]
NEW MEXICO Senator Pete Domenici [phone]
NORTH DAKOTA Senator Byron Dorgan [phone]
TEXAS Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison [phone]
VERMONT Senator Patrick Leahy [phone]
WASHINGTON Senator Patty Murray [phone]
WISCONSIN Senator Herb Kohl [phone]

FULL COMMITTEE MEMBERS

MISSISSIPPI Thad Cochran [phone]
PENNSYLVANIA Arlen Specter [phone]
MONTANA Conrad Burns [phone]
UTAH Robert F. Bennett [phone]
IDAHO Larry Craig [phone]
OHIO Mike DeWine [phone]
COLORADO Wayne Allard [phone]
WEST VIRGINIA Robert C. Byrd [phone]
NEVADA Harry Reid [phone]
CALIFORNIA Dianne Feinstein [phone]
ILLINOIS Richard J. Durbin [phone]
SOUTH DAKOTA Tim Johnson [phone]
LOUISIANA Mary L. Landrieu [phone]

A TYPICAL CALL

"Hello, Senator _________'s office"

"Hi, I'm a constituent. I'm registering my opposition to
the broadcast flag amendment being introduced in the
Senate Commerce Justice and Science Appropriations
subcommittee mark-up on Tuesday, and in full committee on
Thursday."

(*** You can give your own reasons for opposing the flag
here. Here's a sample: ***)

"The Broadcast Flag cripples any device capable of
receiving over-the-air digital broadcasts. It give
Hollywood movie studios a permanent veto over how members
of the American public use our televisions. It forces
American innovators to beg the FCC for permission before
adding new features to TV. "

"This is an important issue which will affect all
Americans, and should not be inserted at the last moment,
with almost no debate."

"Please oppose the broadcast flag amendment. My name and
address are ___________________."

"Thank you for your time."

Re:Met a Bill I Like

[Doc Ruby]

How do you know my response wasn't a joke? FWIW, these days, with Congressmembers talking about assassinating judges, sympathizing with those who do, it's inevitable that people start making statements like yours, in every context, in complete seriousness. It's the job of the joker to make their joke clear. So next time, use your emoticons in the joke, or make the joke actually funny, so it's recognizable. :P.

Er...

[kahei]

...aren't Libertarians better known for _protecting_ commercial interests than for using government to enforce public rights??