Send Congress Back to School, 2002-08-19
Why lawmakers should stop legislating the Internet until they understand it better.
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They are like doctors who drill holes in our heads to relieve their own headaches.
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Valenti smiles and says, "Pay it."
Coverage of the "Hack Bill" has been so prominent that the subject itself is almost hackneyed.
Fortunately, every intelligent human being with an ounce of technical perception has denounced the bill for the utter folly that it is. Unfortunately, most of those inhabiting a seat on Capitol Hill will have to push away a pound of obscurity before they can begin to address the issue.
That's the part that scares me.
Momentarily deferring elaboration, let me say that I am aware that many are speciously equating the Berman Bill with my "hack-back"
Berman, in contrast, calls for inflicting willful and deliberate damage directly on the end user and/or ownership entity by any third party copyright holder who presumes the target is illegally sharing content. There is an unbridgeable chasm between the two.
That being said, my fear is the developing trend of our representatives, who are supposed to speak for us and represent our voices, to draft proposed laws that ultimately restrict our freedoms and increase our costs while focusing revenue streams and business opportunities onto a select few.
For all of its proposed power, implication, and potential for abuse, the Berman Bill is only about 1,600 words in detail. One would think that a technology bill would be, at the very least, somewhat technical. It isn't. For instance, the definition of a "peer-to-peer file trading network" is "two or more computers which are connected by computer software that is primarily designed to enable the connected computers to transmit files or data to other connected computers."
You and I would call that the "Internet."
Granted, he does attempt to further qualify possible targets, but in the use of equally ambiguous language, he fails grievously. Additionally, the requirement for deploying any given offensive action is that the copyright holder must submit technical details of the attack to the Attorney General seven days prior to production use. They don't have to get an 'okay' -- they just have to submit it.
In a
Legislative Quackery
You see, there is inherent danger in having lawmakers legislate technology when they have no understanding of what it really is. They are like doctors who drill holes in our heads to relieve their own headaches.
Similarly, Fritz Hollings' Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act will require that any "digital media device," being any hardware or software product that can reproduce copyrighted works in digital form, be enabled with a standard security technology that is reliable, renewable, resistant to attack, readily implemented, modular, applicable to multiple technology platforms, extensible, upgradeable, and not cost prohibitive.
Of course, no one has any idea what that is.
But, that ignorance does not keep them from submitting a bill that will require any qualifying device to adapt the technology within a year of them figuring it out. Yes, you read that correctly- they want to pass a law now that will require anything that can reproduce a digital signal to adopt technology that has yet to be determined.
To be fair, I should mention that there is a deadline for arriving at what that technology will be. However, in representation of his best political form, Hollings has written into the bill that upon reaching that deadline, it can be extended. Bravo.
And don't forget the implications of the original
When it comes to technology and the law, we are still in our infancy. Now is the time to educate ourselves, and our representatives, as to the implications of our actions, lest we find ourselves maturing into a troubled adulthood.
