SSSCA flame

[Ron Peterson]

Grrr.

Well, I sent my /second/ letter to my (previous) Senator: Tom Daschle.
Yes, that's right, I am an apostate South Dakotan.  I figure (say 'figure'
with a drawl) that although I am now a Massachusetts voter, I might as
well take advantage of my prior association with our Senate majority
leader.

Anyway, just so you can point out spelling and grammatical errors and
other stupidities, this is the text of what I wrote.  I submit this
for feedback, because I'm hoping to refine and whittle my argument.
I'm not done sending letters.  I encourage others to write to congress
as well.

--

Senator Fritz Hollings will testify about his proposed SSSCA
legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee on October 25.

Passage of this legislation would have disasterous consequences.
Specifically, should SSSCA become law, it would abolish what is
referred to in the computer community as "Free Software".  Free as in
liberty, not free as in free beer.  (For more on this point, you might
refer to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html).

SSSCA masquerades as an attempt to control digital content delivery,
as an attempt to protect copyright holders from having their product
stolen by "pirates" on the information superhighway.  In short, the
content producers want to have absolute control of the information
they produce, from the studio, all the way to your ears and eyeballs.

The legislation being proposed in support of this goal has
consequences far beyond the dubious goal of establishing absolute
control over information (libraries anyone?).  In order to achieve
this measure of control, this legislation outlaws free software.  It
outlaws the efforts of innumerable contributers, millions of lines of
code, all for the purpose of further enriching Senator Holling's
campaign contributers, like Disney Inc.  It outlaws software produced
and used by NASA.  It outlaws an operating system, Linux, that may
very well turn out to be the only viable alternative to Microsoft's
monopoly of PC operating systems.

As stated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Eben Moglen:

"If the computer closest to your eyeball and eardrum has a free
software operating system, the whole rest of the pipe doesn't matter:
sound on its way to the sound card, or video on its way to the screen,
can be copied or sent anywhere by the OS kernel.  So the content
industries cannot -- so long as they adhere to their present obsolete
business models -- tolerate the existence of any user-modifiable
operating system for computers. Period."

The United States government should allow competing business models to
compete.  If content producers are concerned about copyright
violations, they should seek remedies which do not outlaw, which
literally criminalize, the heretofore beneficial and legitimate
contributions of some of our nation's most intelligent and caring
citizens.

The SSSCA legislation proposed by Senator Hollings should never see
the light of day.  It's proponents should be ashamed.  Should the
SSSCA become law, it would criminalize the work of many of this
country's brightest and best citizens.

I am concerned all the more because of the all-consuming nature of
recent events.  I am afraid that this legislation will slip under the
radar.  We are fighting for freedom.  Our country was founded on the
principle of freedom.  Please do what you can to dismember legislation
that takes freedom away.

My thoughts are with you and your staff.  Be well.


-- 

-Ron-
https://www.yellowbank.com/

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