Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
At 06:52 AM 9/3/96 -0500, Jon Lebkowsky wrote:
"Uncompromising" is not an "element of legislative influence," at least not on this planet.
Dead wrong: The pols always say "We would like your help in writing legislation, but if you want to contribute to the legislation you must accept reasonable compromise". But we do not want legislation, so we do not want to help write legislation. We want to delay legislation for as long as possible, for the longer the delay, the more the balance of power favors the net and disavors the pols. Therefore the correct strategy is simply to attack any politician who shows any interest in legislating on our issues. We have no friends on Capitol hill, and if we did have friends, it would still be necessary to denounce them as enemies. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com
But we do not want legislation, so we do not want to help write legislation.
We want to delay legislation for as long as possible, for the longer the delay, the more the balance of power favors the net and disavors the pols.
Therefore the correct strategy is simply to attack any politician who shows any interest in legislating on our issues.
We have no friends on Capitol hill, and if we did have friends, it would still be necessary to denounce them as enemies.
I agree with the general sentiment behind this, but I think it may go a bit overboard. For example, it is worthwhile to support Pro-CODE and SAFE (the two crypto bills now floating around in Congress). On the surface they both appear to threaten the viability of the Bernstein, Karn and Junger cases, but in reality neither of these bills have a chance in hell of passage. "What's the point then?", you may ask. They slow down the Administration, which is pushing *very* hard and fast to get GAK adopted internationally, and to get US software companies to knuckle in to GAK in exchange for slightly relaxed export controls. Make a lot of noise about the bills, and you screw up the administration's plans, since they have to divert at least some energy to fending the bills off or they *will* pass. You do that, but keep the legal staff working solely on the cases, and you have more breathing room to get the cases through the Supreme Court before it's too late. And, in the event you lose the cases, you still have slightly less than a chance in hell of getting one of the bills passed and salvaging *something*, or simultaneously or alternately, just deploying more crypto tech such as S/WAN (which EFF is committed to as of the most recent board meething), since the Adminstration has been slowed down. The more tech deployment you have, the more irrelevant the Administration's noises are. The point being: Don't let disgust of a process or thing deter you from milking that process or thing of all it is worth, provided you sacrifice nothing significant in the process. It has to be a judgement call. On some other issues this tactic does not work. Any legislation about porn on the Net needs to be slammed down, because any such legislation will get gutted by theocrats and turned into a censorship bill, as an example. Choose action based on careful thinking, not kneejerk reaction, that's my motto, for what it may be worth. -- <HTML><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/"> Stanton McCandlish </A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech@eff.org"> mech@eff.org </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/"> Electronic Frontier Foundation </A><P> Online Activist </HTML>
participants (2)
-
James A. Donald -
Stanton McCandlish