---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 12:23:57 -0400 From: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org> Cc: shabbir@vtw.org, fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu, brock@well.com, telstar@wired.com Subject: Re: INFO: Democratic convention chats online! Be there! (8/25/96) Declan: What are you thinking?! In a world where we have very few real friends, I simply don't understand what you are trying to accomplish. It's fine (and healthy) to raise concerns about the particular positions a member of Congress takes (hell, I don't agree with everything Leahy does), but to simply dismiss Leahy as a 'no friend of the Net' is naive and counterproductive. Look at the record. Leahy is hands down the strongest supporter of the Net in Congress. Period. No other Member (including our small but growing handful of other friends like Burns, White, Wyden, Cox, Eshoo, etc) has been a more forceful or consistent advocate for your causes for as long as Leahy has. What exactly do you want? Perhaps we should elect you to Congress and see how well you can do. Of course we are not going to agree with our friends on every issue. If Leahy takes a position you don't like, I'd suggest you talk to his office. I have found in my experience that Leahy's staff (and him personally) will take the time to listen when presented with a well presented argument. I'm also confused about another thing: which hat were you wearing when you wrote this? If it is your "advocate" hat I think it must covering your eyes. If it's your "journalist" hat, you need to do a bit better job of checking your facts in the future. Go a head and reject the "Beltway politicians". It's fashionable, sure, but what does it really accomplish? Some of them are dangerous. Others are sympathetic. The fact is that short of armed rebellion they are going to be here for a while. I shudder to think of the wrath our opponents could wage if we all threw up our hands packed up our bags and left town. Face the facts. Members of Congress have a lot of constituencies to deal with, and we are a small and relatively powerless faction. We can do a lot to change the outcomes of policy debates (if I didn't believe that I wouldn't be doing what I do everyday), but we have to be realistic, recognize where we fit in to the process and who are friends are. One thing's for sure - we have A LOT more enemies than we have friends. Most members of Congress don't really understand us or our issues. Many are willing to learn, and some have been real champions for our causes. But none of them are gong to continue reaching out a hand to us if we bark and bite when we don't get 100% of our way. Zealots rarely win (though it sure is fun to throw bombs). Sorry for the public thrashing, but this kind of attitude REALLY gets under my skin. Flames welcome (though response is not guaranteed <g>), Jonah At 6:45 PM 8/25/96, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Sun, 25 Aug 1996, Voters Telecommunications Watch wrote:
[Notably missing from this schedule are Senators Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) and Russell Feingold (D-WI) and House member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). All three have impeccable cyberspace credentials and we look forward to seeing them online.]
As Shabbir and Steve know, I'm a huge fan of VTW and congratulate them for their successful efforts to keep netizens up-to-date on what's happening in the meatspace body politic.
But VTW's statement above is, unfortunately, untrue and misleading.
Even though Sen. Leahy opposed the CDA, his stance on privacy illustrates that his "cyberspace credentials" are anything but impeccable. His crypto bill, introduced before Pro-CODE, would liberalize some export controls but impose new and unprecedented criminal penalties for the use of crypto associated with a crime. Worse yet, as recently as this month Leahy has been clamoring to fund the invasive wiretapping legislation ("Digital Telephony") he shepherded through Congress two years ago.
Equally distressingly, Leahy demonstrated his "impeccable cyberspace credentials" by cosponsoring the Senate online copyright bill -- aka the Hollywood Media Mafia's wet dream. (Yes, these are the same rapacious folks who are demanding that the Boy Scouts and summer camps pay cash to sing "God Bless America" and "Puff the Magic Dragon.") Opposed by the American Library Association, EFF, and teachers' organizations, Leahy's bill would slam fair use rights online and could make it a crime to browse the Net without a license.
When VTW heralds Leahy as a friend of the Net with "impeccable cyberspace credentials," they do the Net a disservice. Leahy is in no way a true friend of the Net; I don't know of any Beltway politican who is.
-Declan
// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com /
** THE FIGHT FOR FREE SPEECH ONLINE CONTINUES TO THE SUPREME COURT ** It's not too late to be a part of history -- Join the Lawsuit <http://www.cdt.org/ciec> -- <ciec-info@cdt.org> -- Jonah Seiger, Policy Analyst Center for Democracy and Technology <jseiger@cdt.org> 1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20006 PGP Key via finger (v) +1.202.637.9800 http://www.cdt.org/ (f) +1.202.637.0968 http://www.cdt.org/homes/jseiger/