[Discuss] [OT] Smart Phones

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Tom Metro wrote:
> White House: It's Time to Legalize Cellphone Unlocking
> http://allthingsd.com/20130304/white-house-its-time-to-legalize-cell-phone-unlocking/
> 
> The actual more troubling aspect was that carriers were leveraging the
> (horrid) DMCA "anticircumvention" provision to make it a criminal
> offense to take the steps necessary to unlock your phone without carrier
> permission.
> 
> ...the White House said was:
> 
>   "The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that
>   consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking
>   criminal or other penalties."

Legislators trip over each other rushing to introduce legislation to
legalize unlocking of cell pones:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/5/4068602/senator-klobuchar-cell-phone-unlocking-bill

  ...Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has announced that she will introduce
  a bill this week to address the issue. ...her legislation will "get
  rid of the ban on unlocking cellphones."

  ...several lawmakers today said they want to pass legislation to
  legalize cellphone unlocking, including Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who
  is introducing a bill named the Wireless Device Independence Act.
  Several other lawmakers are said to be interested in passing
  legislation to legalize cellphone unlocking, including Senate
  Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Rep. Darrell Issa
  (R-CA), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).

  Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Palo Alto), Ranking Member on the Communications
  and Technology Subcommittee, also announced her intentions to
  introduce legislation "eliminating the ban on unlocking cell phones
  and other mobile devices."

(That was an article from last week. I haven't heard if any of those
efforts went anywhere.)

Interesting what a petition can lead to. The article makes no mention of
any of the proposed legislation taking action to repeal or diminish the
DMCA.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/