Ask Congressman Boucher About Internet Regulations

U.S.Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) has co-sponsored an anti-spamming bill, questioned some of the DMCA, and has been asked by at least one online notable to think about a tax credit for Open Source coders. He's also a member of the Congressional Internet Caucus. We can think of no federal lawmaker more qualified to give us insight into the nitty-gritty of the legislative process, especially as it relates to the Internet. Our usual interview rules apply: post your questions below (one question per post, please), we'll forward 10 - 12 of the highest-moderated ones to Rep. Boucher, and will post his answers next week.

When will reps catch up with the lobbies?

Mr. Boucher, many of the political lobbies out there have slick web sites that detail bills coming up for a vote, suggest favorable candidates for upcoming elections, and allow their supporters to access all the information they could possibly want, all in one central location (ex: the NRA, the religious right, NORML, etc). Having spent many hours researching the candidates in this past November's election (local & state as well as national), I'm really discouraged by the lack of information available on the web sites of current representatives (if they exist at all). While representatives' votes are certainly a matter of public record, many representatives' web sites that I've encountered don't actually make this information available, and of those that do, even fewer publish the representative's rationalle for voting the way they did. It appears that lobbies are much, much better at using the internet to reach out to their supporters than politicians are.

The internet is quite possibly THE most cost effective way a representative has to reach their constituents, yet most hardly use it as more than a way to publish their contact information. If a rep wanted to be truly accountable, they could publish a few words about their recent votes, and why they feel they made the best decision possible for their district/state/etc. In my opinion, a representative who made decisions that were really in the best interest of their constituents - and repeatedly told them WHY those decisions where in their best interests - would be nearly impossible to defeat in reelection, yet most representatives don't do this.

My questions for you are these: Why do you feel most representatives aren't making more use of the internet to stay close to their constituents, what do you see being necessary to change this, and when do you think we can expect to see change come about?

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Corporatism

Why does it seem that laws passed on technological issues favor the corporations, and not the individual? Is this just perception, or is it truth?

Technology is a great opportunity to set us free, as people, across the world. Why does our government of the people, for the people, by the people pass laws that protect corporate interest (DMCA, and UCITA on the state level)? And why isn't more done to promote public participation in discussion of this kind of legislation?

Sorry for the loaded questions-- but it does *seem* the government favors business over personal freedom.

- tony

My related question...

As you know, copyright term lengths have grown incredibly since they were first established. Given that copyright was intended to benefit the public by making more works available to the public, how can a term length longer than most human lives be justified? Isn't this basically as bad as a perpetual copyright, especially in light of the fact that every time the leading edge of copyrighted works are about to become public domain, major copyright holders lobby Congress to extend the terms again, even retroactively?

Constitutionality

There seems to be more and more of an attitude in the Capitol to pass laws like the CDA, DMCA, etc. without a thought of their constitutionality -- lawmakers seem to be taking a "let the courts sort it out" approach.

The problem with this, apart from its mockery of "congress shall make no law...", is that it leaves the law in limbo for the months or years that it can take to get a final judicial ruling on the law's constitutionality. We won't have final word on which bits of the DMCA pass constitutional muster, for instance, for quite some time, even though a lot of us have projects or even livelihoods that depend on that outcome.

What can we do to discourage congress from ignoring the Constitutional import of its actions and leaving us in legal limbo waiting for the courts? What sorts of arguments can convince ppolitical parties and elected officials to listen to the Constitution as much as they listen to their donors and constituents?

--G

Avoid Hyperbole.

To call Carl Malamud's proposed tax credit a subsidy is a bit of hyperbole, and clearly intended to inflame the community. Nevertheless, it's important to set the record straight.

The tax credit Carl proposes doesn't subsidize open-source coders any more than the various deductions offered to business, large and small, subsidize them. It's a deduction. If it passed, and I spent a thousand dollars ($1000) on a computer to use in open-source coding, I wouldn't have to pay taxes on that thousand dollars. Depending on my tax bracket, in order to buy that computer without being able to deduct its cost, I might have to make up to fourteen-hundred dollars ($1400), just so I can give a thousand ($1000) to the computer company and four-hundred ($400) to Uncle Sam.

Now, Uncle Sam isn't giving me that four-hundred dollars. He's just agreeing not to take it from me as long as I'm using the money for open-source work.

This whole idea is important because many open-source coders don't want the hassle or overhead of creating a business entity just to be able to deduct the expenses involved in delivering code to the community. I, for example, would not benefit from this credit at all, because I already have a sole-proprietorship established under which I do all of my consulting and open-source work. All Carl's proposal does is extend what people like me can do to ordinary folks who just want to write code and don't care about generating income and revenue from it.

Taxes and the Internet

This year, in my home state of Ohio, the legislation introduced a "Voluntary" tax on Interenet purchases. That is, I can tell them that I purchased X amount of books online and they'll tax me accordingly.

Even though this tax is "Voluntary" I have been informed by my accountant that I have to pay this tax, reguardless. Thereby, my state is taxing purchases that were made "out of state" as it were.

My question is, how do you feel about taxation of the internet, specifically "Voluntary" ones like the State of Ohio has implemented?

Free Speech and Computer Code

Congressman Boucher--

I applaude your questioning of some of the facets of the DMCA, and as a resident of Virginia, I am quite proud that an elected official from my state is one of the first to question these overly restrictive copyright laws. Your fight for the people will not go unnoticed.

I have a question pertaining to uncompiled code and freedom of speech. My understanding is that source code is just language, like that of an essay or poem. Essays and poems cannot (for the most part) be "banned" by the government as they are First Amendment protected speech.

How is it that high-powered organizations like the MPAA have won lawsuits against web sites that have done nothing more than make a link to uncompiled code? Aren't these sites and the programmers that wrote the code protected under First Amendment free speech?

Thank you for your time, efforts, and hopefully your answer.

Be honest about this one...

If all of the cost and security questions surrounding internet-based voting suddenly went away (i.e., it was cheaper and just as secure as, well, butterfly ballots), what would be the next obstacle to overcome? Do you think politicians would really be open to making voting easier, or would this get the same lip service as campaign finance reform?

Thanks!
Brent Ozar

What can non-US citizens do?

As a resident of another country - also a so-called democracy - I've been watching with positive alarm as US citizens' rights get further and further eroded by big business interests. Any advice for the rest of the world's geeks? Should we just be pumping out code and documentation that makes a mockery of US Law? Or are there more direct ways of voicing our concerns?

Balancing Copyright & Consumer Interests

Current policies have tended to concentrate on the protection of copyright grantees (e.g. protection from having their product undercut by counterfeiters) without regard to the fair use rights of consumers (e.g. the right to make copies of purchased recordings for backup or to use them in different devices, such as transferring CD tracks to an MP3 player). What policies would you favor to protect both?
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Stop the erosion of our "fair use" rights!

I am concerned about the on-going attack against the public's rights under copyright law.

1. The Legislature recently passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, extended copyrights to far beyond the "limited times" mentioned in the Constitution. This act does not "promote... useful arts"; it promotes individual gains. Disney has borrowed greatly from the Public Domain and returned nothing. Bach's heirs didn't expect to be rich from their father's work; they wrote their own. Art and science used to belong to the people (after 28 years). Now it belongs only to the richest corporations. No works produced after 1910 have entered the public domain because the term keeps getting extended. A society with
no Public Domain art is bankrupt.

2. The Courts have recently upheld the portions of the DMCA that prohibit "circumvention devices". In effect, these provisions remove our "fair use" rights under copyright law to produce critical reviews, parodies, and scholarly derivative works. There is also no provision for the release of protected works when the copyright expires.

3. The FCC (part of the Executive Branch) has approved the use of "content protection" as part of the broadcast HDTV specification. This ruling destroys the public right to record broadcasts and view them at our leisure (a right upheld by the Supreme Court in the Betamax case).

Is seems that all three branches of our government have turned against us. What can we do take back our rights under copyright law, without breaking the law?

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DMCA issues

First you seem to have many reservations concerning the DMCA. However, do you think we are better off with it? Candidly, would you rather see the DMCA amended in the manner you propose, or would you rather see the DMCA abolished completely?

Secondly, you support the "fair use doctrine" and also feel that methods to circumvent protection measures such as CSS should not be criminalized; at least in as much as the goal of such circumvention is within the spectrum of fair use. You also support watermarking and other methods to protect the copyrights of digital media with the reservation that the rights of home recording rights are not impeded.
However, both digital (CSS) and traditional analog (macrovision) protection schemes are fallible. Clever individuals can circumvent them, either for illicit purposes or not. Decriminalizing methods to circumvent these "protection schemes" does little to protect the copyright holder's interest outside the scope of current law (not in the DMCA). Would your proposed amendments to the DMCA protect from prosecution *any* individual who devised a circumvention method (for any purpose) and distributed it freely. A prime example of this is software such as the DeCSS.
This is of course, assuming they are not guilty of other infractions that do not fall within the scope of the DMCA with regard to creating or distributing a circumvention method.

Spyky

Copyright and Patent

Given the recent extensions of copyright and patent protections, both in time and in scope, and the indefensible behavior of the offices of the Government charged with administering those systems in granting overly-broad patents and excessive copyright renewals, will Congress act to reform the intellectual property system in the United States?

Thank you for your time.

Where's the foundation?

In the abortion debate, Roe v. Wade used privacy rights derived from the Bill of Rights as a legal foundation from which freedom of choice could be defended. What specific portions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights do you see as focal points for constructing a legal framework that protects individual privacy in the years ahead?

Will their ever be competition in software?

The appeals court main concern in the Microsoft remedy was that we're just replacing one monopoly for another.

The prevailing software business model is unique with it's "proprietary lock-in". Assuring lack of competition in software applications.

Proprietary formats, standards, protocols, etc... lead to the "software vendor lock-in". Microsoft didn't invent this... they were doing ASCII along with everyone else when IBM was doing EBCDIC (Later, of course, MS with their monopoly would do TrueType while everybody else had already standardized to Postscript). They're also not the only software vendor to do this: every Unix consortium is comprised of vendors using one hand to shake, the other to stab in the back (trying to get others to abide by the standard, while they proprietarily create modifications to the standard).

Open source has a chance to create a level, standards based, playing field. Allowing true, balanced, competition.

When Compaq, and others, reverse engineered the IBM PC Bios, the PC revolution was ignited: anybody could make a motherboard or an adapter card, or memory (The MS OS and the Intel CPU were the only proprietary pieces left atop this open hardware platform). The prices came down, the innovation moved at record pace.

But, even if the current "proprietary lock-in" paradigm ends, the patent office, in granting frivilous software patents, may be providing the next lock-in paradigm.

Can and will congress legislate and mandate the proper regulations aimed at the software industry to end the "proprietary lock-in" paradigm (this also means modifying the DMCA to omit those portions that protect the lock-in) and assure that there are sufficient restrictions in the patent laws to limit the number and scope of software patents?

NOT copy

decode and view

Haven't we got enough trouble with the semantics of this issue already?

How to Get Representatives to Listen?

I am becoming increasingly frustrated as a citizen trying to explain technology issues to my Minnesota representatives. I never hear any responses from them, and I certainly have no indication that I will ever be heard unless I become a lobbiest. My question is, how can people who understand technology issues get in touch with, educate, and explain points of view to their elected officials?

Votes are sometimes NOT a matter of public record

While representatives' votes are certainly a matter of public record

Not for an anonymous voice vote; both the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?] [everything2.com] and the DMCA were passed this way [everything2.com]. What are they supposed to record publicly, the decibel levels of the ayes and nays?

All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.

Why

in the USA is it legal to possess a piece of equipment designed to kill a human being but it's illegal to possess a piece of software designed to copy the content of a DVD?


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Let us know

There has been alot of questions about the DMCA, but I want you too tell us clear out. Did you vote for the DMCA? If you were not elected then( I'm from FL, I don't know your history) Would you vote for it today?

________

Internet and legislation

A recent article stated that most legislators ignore their incoming e-mail because they get far too much of it to read. How do you think that the Internet could be best used to encourage public participation in government? Do you think that there is a way for many thousands or millions of people to participate without overwhelming our representatives, and without having creative programmers and e-mailers skew perceptions of public desires?

Protecting our rights

The general trend since the Internet became a mass public resource has been for government to attempt to find ways to monitor people using it (Carnivore for example), to listen in on their communications (Key escrow), or to use the Internet as a means to remove consumer rights in favor of total control by businesses (DCMA). How do you feel about these technologies and laws, and how do you propose to keep the Internet a place where ordinary citizens can communicate and conduct business without giving up the rights that they have in the physical world?

How to get your peers to reply to emails...

We've been discussing how much email our political leaders get, and how it is usually ignored (with good reason).
My question is what is the best way to write to our congressmen to get our perspective read and to receive a prompt reply? Is it better to write a letter, or is email finally finding its nich in politics? What are your stipulations that must be met before you actually read inquiries from constituents?

Please pardon my poor spelling skills (I am an engineer, not a writer).

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Region-less Representatives?

The increase of free-access communication creates "virtual communities" in which a special interest group (say, Open Source Supporters) can congregate. However, since representation is distributed by district, this group has difficulty being represented since it may lie in the minority in many voting districts.

Do you think the possibility of the creation of region-less senators or represenatives exists?

Except in the case of local or state govenments, it seems unnecessarilty arbitrary to elect representatives by state.

AFAIK, it'd be easier to get region-free DVD players than representatives. ;)

How do you keep up?

With the recent story [slashdot.org] on the flooding of emails to representatives, I want to know how you deal with that flood? Do you rate snail mail a higher priority than email?

Overall cluefulness?

A few years ago, it seemed like legislation was being passed to regulate the Inetrnet without the most basic knowledge of how it works. One got the impression that legislators thought the Net is like television and that it would be straightforward for US laws to control its content.

Today, people may argue with a lot of the laws being passed but it seems to me that at least lawmakers now understand what it is that they're trying to control - that it's not television and that it's not inside the United States. Is that perception correct? Do most members of the House and Senate at least have a rough idea of what the internet is? Do all of them at least have a high-ranking staffer who does?

Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

Internet Taxation

What is your opinion on taxing products purchased via the internet? Should they be given the same 'protections' and standing as mail-order purchases?

Online Privacy

Greetings,

How do you feel on-line privacy should be addressed?
Through guidelines, or legislation and regulation? If the latter, what would you like to see included in such legislation and what type of enforcement mechanism should be used to maintain such laws?

Thank you,
-nowt

Microsoft's Education

Microsoftie Jim Allchin has recently stated that he sees the need to 'educate' the federal legislature about what he feels like are the 'dangers' of open source and free software.

Do the majority of legislators have an opinion on open source or free software? If so is this opinion negative or positive. What's the best way advocates of open source software can get their opinions heard when the 'closed source' companies such as Microsoft have so much 'Soft Money' to throw around?

Legislative guidelines

Speaking broadly, what do you feel is an appropriate role for government in regulating a trans-national and somewhat anarchic medium like the Internet? What steps would be prudent protection of citizens and consumers, and what would represent legislative overreach?

Thanks for your time,
- Brad Heintz
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Taking back the 'Net

Much recent technology legislation - most notably the DMCA and UCITA - seem unreasonably skewed toward large corporate interests seeking copyright, patent, and licensing protections in the digital world they don't enjoy in the analog world. I don't think it's a secret to anyone that such legislation is all but purchased outright through campaign contributions and soft-money party donations.

Many American citizens, unfortunately, don't have sufficient education or interest to be able to assess how technology legislation affects them, their wallets, and the media they consume, and the mainstream media don't help them understand the technical issues, the legislative process, or the influence of money in politics any better.

My question related to this is: What can the more technically-aware citizenry do to steer the law back to a more reasonable course? How can we convince or coerce our elected representatives into replacing sane limits on copyright, sane policy toward retail taxation in digital markets, and a sane approach to regulating the Internet that recoginizes the opportunites and limitations inherent in the medium?

Thanks,
- Brad Heintz
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Copyright laws

Let me preface this by saying that I respect copyright, and feel that creators deserve a limited period of time to enjoy sole profits from their works. However, it's become obvious that special intrests have corrupted the copyright system to insure that they can receive sole benefits for long after our founding fathers intended. My question for you is twofold: How long do you feel is an appropriate amount of time for copyright protection, and is there legislation pending to fix the problem with copyright?

e-Rate, Federal strings and censorship

Mr. Boucher,

What is your opinion of the "Gore tax", aka the e-rate Internet access subsididy? Specifically, how do you view:

• The fairness of the tax on telephone users;
• The value obtained for the money distributed via the tax;
• The various bills pending to attach strings (such as Internet filtering) to this money?

Would we be better off eliminating the e-rate and getting rid of the subsidies and strings, or is this worth trying to fix the problems while keeping the busybodies in check?
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