[wordup] look who's trying to fuck us!

[Adam Shand]

look they're trying to fuck us!  whoever would have guessed ... while
slashdot isn't the most definitive news source.

right now i feel like a fucking prophet ... and i'm pretty upset about it.

From: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/21/2054226

Senator Hollings and the SSSCA
Posted by michael on Friday September 21, @01:43PM

An Anonymous Coward writes: "You probably suspected some sort of "follow
the money" thing was behind Sen. Fritz Hollings' support of SSSCA , the
draft bill that would make using 'any interactive digital device that does
not include and utilize certified security technologies' illegal in the
U.S. This proposed law could effectively outlaw Linux and most Open Source
software, depending on how judges interpret it. A NewsForge story details
where Sen. Hollings' money comes from. Guess what? His biggest
contributors are entertainment industry companies, their lawyers, and
their lobbyists. The story also says Hollings and his staff refused to
comment on the bill, and staffers the reporter talked to refused to even
give their names." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of VA Linux.

From: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/09/20/2047211

Senator Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) avoids talking about SSSCA Thursday
September 20, 05:33 PM EDT - By Dan Berkes

Picture a future where distributing Linux is a crime punishable by a hefty
fine and a prison sentence. If that sounds ridiculous, then you haven't
run into the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act . It's the
very latest -- and most bizarre -- word in political back-scratching from
one of South Carolina's U.S. senators. And he'd rather not talk about it,
thank you very much. It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the
public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device
that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that
adhere to the security systems standards adopted under section 104.

This is the heart of the new Security Systems Standards and Certification
Act (SSSCA), a draft of legislation proposed by U.S. Senator Ernest
"Fritz" Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina. Yes, it is vague, and
perhaps intentionally so. The SSSCA raises a number of questions, none of
which its politically powerful sponsor feels compelled to answer. Repeated
calls to Hollings' office were routed to voicemail or message-takers, and
on two occasions, an individual who was unable to do anything -- including
providing his name -- other than repeat the phrase "I'm simply not
qualified to comment on this matter," to any question I asked until I hung
up the phone.

What is the ominous-sounding section 104, with its security systems
standards? According to the draft legislation, the companies that make
digital devices and the companies that own copyright content are expected
to sit down together and, within 12 months of the SSSCA's passage, come to
an agreement on copy-protection standards. If what these two camps agree
on passes muster with the Department of Commerce, eventually compliant
copy-protected devices will be created using those standards. If, after
two years (Commerce can extend the deadline by another 12 months) the two
parties can't agree, then the Department of Commerce can create its own
legally-binding standards.

When calling Hollings' office, I merely wanted to know the answers to the
following questions:

* What, exactly, is a digital device? Are we talking about just computers,
or are we talking about computers, plus MP3 players, television sets, and
VCRs? Are we talking about everything digital, and does that mean that the
next alarm clock I buy will have to prohibit copying, even if was never
intended for that use in the first place?

* How will this affect fair use provisions that currently allow copying of
recordings I own for my personal use? Will the argument be that I'm still
allowed to make such copies if I can find a pre-SSSCA device, but if I buy
such a device from, say, a secondhand store, will that land the shopkeeper
(not to mention me) in jail?

* And yeah, what about Linux? How do you make the operating system, where
every column inch of source code is available for inspection, SSSCA
compliant? I think this may be a self-answering question: You can't -- not
unless some drastic changes to current licenses and code distribution are
made, and there's probably a better chance that the city of Berkeley,
Calif., would open up a municipal rifle range before that happens.

These questions didn't sound too unreasonable, at least not when I jotted
them down on my Palm. A few answers from Hollings could go a long way in
relieving what must be, at least only partially, misplaced fear and
anxiety over the broad and vague definitions. Not that it would help much,
but it would certainly be better than the deafening silence.

If there's a certain level of paranoia in Hollings' office regarding the
SSSCA, perhaps it's understandable. From all perspectives, this is nothing
more than a blatant attempt to offer a return on investment to campaign
donors. As the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, one of the most
important committee chairs on Capitol Hill, Hollings has attracted quite a
stable of high-profile donors over the years.

According to Federal Election Commission data presented by campaign
contribution watchdog Open Secrets , there are five major media and
entertainment companies in the top 20 list of Hollings' most generous
campaign donors. They include AOL Time Warner ($33,500), Fox parent News
Corporation ($28,224), Viacom's CBS ($16,632), the National Association of
Broadcasters ($22,000), and Walt Disney Co. ($18,500). The individual
donors from those companies include a flock of high-ranking executives
from various News Corp/Fox subsidiaries, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone, and
Ted Turner from AOL Time Warner. Since 1995, employees from companies
producing television, movies, music, and other media content have sent
Hollings $287,534, making the entertainment industry his second most
generous supporters.

Those individual donations look like small potatoes, especially when you
find out that they cover the past five to six years of campaign
contributions. It's illegal for corporations to spend money on federal
elections, and individual donors aren't allowed to to contribute more than
$1,000 to a candidate for federal office, or more than $20,000 per year to
a political party. Not that this stops anyone from doing it, and doing it
legally through something known as soft money.

Soft money has been around since 1978, when a Federal Election Commission
made an administrative ruling that allowed money to be donated to
political organizations for the purpose of building party structure. The
activity and the money that fueled it was never intended to be used to
influence the outcome of a federal election. The only problem is that the
FEC has no power to investigate where soft money is applied once it enters
the political machine. And it is not, by any stretch of the imagination,
hard to figure out what AOL Time Warner and Disney want when each donated
over $1 million last year to the major American political parties. Nor
does it take a cluster of Linux supercomputers to figure out that such
money may eventually wind up being spent by the more connected members of
that party -- the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, for example.

Even with such staunch support from the nation's media giants, they're
only number two on Hollings' list of top givers broken down by industry.
The top spot goes to a combination of lawyers, law firms, and influential
lobbyist groups. Individual supporters include legal eagles from Verner,
Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson, and Hand ($28,508) who represent virtually
every major sports league and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flohm ($2,500), who
currently have their hands full with representing Compaq's side of its $25
billion merger with Hewlett-Packard. And then there's Tony Podesta's
high-profile lobbying firm, which represents such friends of fair use as
RIAA and the MPAA. Taking up the rear are individual donations from
lawyers, many with experience in technology and intellectual property
litigation.

It's important to remember that the SSSCA is a draft of a bill that may or
may not be introduced in both houses of Congress. Unfortunately, it's a
draft that's just gained a sponsor in the House of Representatives. The
good news from many watchdog groups is that the bill, in its current
state, isn't expected to get past committee. The bad news is that some
parts of it will likely survive or be resurrected in any number of other
bills that could be introduced in the next Congressional session.

Now sure, I can understand that perhaps our Congressional leaders are
little preoccupied, what with last week's events. And I don't mean to
vulgarize or trivialize that tragedy, but it's times like these when our
elected leaders should be under the most intense scrutiny. Unpleasant
regulatory surprises have a way of sneaking in the back door when the
voting public is otherwise engaged.