[DMCA-Activists] Declan on Activism

[Serge Wroclawski]

I'm sure others read the Declan McCullugh story either in Politech or /.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-949275.html?tag=politech

This is an interesting article... I've known Declan for a while, and I
think he's on our side against these laws and the situation we're in now.

I simply can't agree with him that we should not involve ourselves
directly with these political activities for the following reasons:

1) We can't afford to
   Even if we believe that Declan is right- that we can nullify laws by
practical means, that does not solve the problem. Thw law will not go
away. I do not see a technical means for making the DMCA go away other
than by using technologies which would hide our work and identities,
further emphasizing the connection in some people's mind that "hackers"
are criminals.

2) It doesn't help non-geeks
   The VCR case against Sony in 1984 helped more than just Sony- it helped
the entire population gain explicit rights that were threatened.
Similarly, if we make technologies which help only us- those technologies
will never reach a large audience. For some, this may be acceptable
(having the "good life" for oneself), but for us in the Free Software
community, this should not be acceptable. I see our vision as to spread
freedom to all people, not just the select.

3) We may not be able to keep this up forever
   We can currenly fight the big powers with skill. We can find a way to
break the DVD encryption code, or something else, without a great deal of
difficulty. But how long can we keep it up? I have doubts that the
opposition will stay "dumb" for the next 20-30 years.

4) Lobbying by professionals
   Declan is right in one thing- we're not necessarily the best at
lobying. But neither, necessarily, are other people in other industries.
They're smart about it. They choose individuals within thier organization
which are, or they hire professionals. We may find that it's necessary to
self-censor- that is not always trying to represent our point, in
recognition that sometimes, the ones who are the most passionate aren't
always the best ones to speak (this is a very difficult lesson). And when
we give money to other organizations like the FSF, EFF, Public Knowledge
and so on, we may want to encourage them to do more professional lobying
for us.

5) Get involved with local community
   If we can help get a foothold in local government (town governments) or
at least help be an asset to the community by offering
training/education/computer resources, then we'll be a lot better off by
having a strong user base. The more that regular people hear about us and
our work , then we will be able to get a base of people on our side- some
of which may be useful as lobyists or contributors (code, education,
volunteer time, money).



I agree that we need to continue working with the tools we have to further
our Freedom, but doing this and working with the legal aspects are not
mutually exclusive.

He gives the example of PGP, but leaves out the government sued Zimmerman,
and that it was Eben Moglen who defended Zimmerman and got the
cryptography export laws changed.

We must continue to fight on all fronts if we want to win.

- Serge Wroclawski