I'm sure you'll see a lot about it, but Dave Winer puts it well. I'm still fuming. The fuckheaded laws in the US are unbelievable!
--nat
Leave it to the $cientologists and the SSSCA to put me in the unforseeable position of agreeing with Dave Winer on something...
--rjray
The laws occur because of these factors:
So, I can't understand it, but I feel more than qualified to pass laws about it.
Re:It's believable
pudge on 2002-03-22T19:05:28
I agree with some of that, but I think there's more to it. That is, you put most of the blame on the electorate, whereas I think most of it goes on the part about "industry pressure".
All laws are passed due to pressure of some kind. Usually that pressure comes from a special interest group. If the law is important, usually you'll have people on both sides give the pros and cons and arguments about it, and the representatives can decide (in theory) based on those. If the law is not so important, it might just pass or fail without discussion.
But laws about complex issue where the lobbyists are primarily on one side of the issue, and the electorate doesn't know anything about it, and the elect don't know anything about it... and essentially you get laws written by the lobbyists. Sure, there's the EFF, and sometimes the ACLU. But they can't compete with the money behind the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA. The corporations behind these organizations write the laws -- these draconian provisions could not possibly be the idea of any representative -- and for the most part the representatives who vote don't have much opposing pressure to balance it out. You don't have much debate, you have corporations saying we need it, and representatives believing it, and the public not caring.
Of course, some politicians may be bought off, but honestly, in this case it wouldn't really be necessary. Why buy what you can get for free?
I suppose maybe I am saying that yes, the electorate is to blame, but not so much for being ignorant about the issues involved here -- that is necessarily the case -- but for allowing this type of system to continue, where our laws are written by lobbyists instead of elected representatives. I have no direct solution to the problem, though anything that forces the government to seek out and heed opposition is a Good Thing. Our private donations to the EFF will never be enough, though it's not a bad place to start.
The first to plead his case seems right,
Until another comes and examines him.
-- Proverbs 18:17
Re:It's believable
jdavidb on 2002-03-22T20:55:03
Very true. But I still think any congressman who's ever voted for a law "because we need to get tough on computer crime" after ever having made the statement, "Oh, computers are just too complicated for me," ought to be ashamed.
Actually, I tend to feel that anyone under the age of 70 who's ever made that statement should take it back. In other areas of life, we call that "giving up," and it's not looked upon with respect.
Re:It's believable
pudge on 2002-03-22T21:16:37
Ashamed of being ignorant, or ashamed of legislating while being ignorant? Neither is a shamable offense. Most legislators are ignorant about many things, as most people are, as you and I are. They can't not make laws just because they are ignorant; they need to trust various people to give them opinions and facts. And in many cases -- such as this one -- the balance is lopsided.
As to saying "computers are too complicated," it is not that computers are, but these issues certainly are. You could study nothing but these issues for months and just begin to understand them. To really understand them well you need years of study of both the intricacies of copyright law and precedent as well as the various ways technology is used in regard to intellectual property and what other possible remedies and actions might include. It's extremely complex for anyone, let alone someone who doesn't focus primarily on either technology or copyright, as is the case with most legislators.
Re:It's believable
TorgoX on 2002-03-23T23:27:15
Congress is elected from the general populationHardly. They're elected from something far worse than even the general population -- lawyers!
No law (hah hah!) says that congressmen must be lawyers. But almost all of them are.
Re:It's believable
pudge on 2002-03-23T23:53:02
Yes, and it is our shame. We are expected to believe that only lawyers can understand the law, that legislators are just another form of lawyers, that They are more capable than Us. Bah, I say, Bah! If our law is too complex for the lay man, it is not by initial design, it is because -- surprise! -- the lawyers made it more complex along the way. Congress was supposed to be a place where people of all types could represent their area of the nation. Now it's a place where lawyers can represent the special interests that got them into office.
I think at the root, in part, of the continued centralization of power of the federal of government over the years is the push to make it easier to stay in office by making it harder to be qualified to deal with the complexity. It's yet another in my long list of reasons for term limits.:-)
Re:It's believable
jdavidb on 2002-03-24T05:52:31
On a side note, I've always been of the opinion that programmers would make good lawyers. Anyone with the patience to go through a 10,000 line source listing and examine every effect of every line has just the right mind for the job.
And with that, I'd like to announce my candidacy for...
Re:Off with his head!
pudge on 2002-03-24T00:19:33
I'm not sure how serious you are, but I don't think we should send them to prison. I do think we should more readily impeach/recall/remove them, however.Re:Off with his head!
chaoticset on 2002-03-26T16:39:55
Personally, I've always thought that if being elected to any public office carried an automatic death sentence, commuted until the end of any elected offices you gain, people would enter the races and run for offices a little less cavalierly.At least the social whores and the power-hungry would think twice. And we'd get riskier types in.
;)
