[DMCA-Activists] Re: AOTC lists the bad Coders in Washington

[Seth Johnson]

This is a GREAT tool, Kevin!  Congrats to AOTC for the
inspiration!

(I've pasted the website text below.)

Seth

Kevin Marks wrote:
> 
> http://www.aotc.info/archives/000152.html#000152
> 
> > The best code in the world can be foiled by a single bug. One careless
> > line of code can crash an entire program.
> >
> > Lawrence Lessig calls laws "East Coast Code," and it only takes a few
> > buggy laws to strangle freedom and innovation in technology. Laws like
> > the DMCA, the Hollings Bill, and the CDA threaten to put the American
> > technology juggernaut up on blocks.
> >
> > AOTC has researched the sponsors of eight bad Internet laws and
> > compiled a list of their most prolific campaign contributors. These
> > laws were written and sponsored by a tiny handful of lawmakers, backed
> > by a tiny handful of wealthy financiers. These bad coders and their
> > backers have done more damage to computing, the Internet and freedom
> > than all the virus authors, spammers and crackers combined.

----

> http://www.aotc.info/archives/000152.html#000152

November 03, 2002

The Worst Coders in Washington 

The best code in the world can be foiled by a single bug.
One careless line of code can crash an entire program. 

Lawrence Lessig calls laws "East Coast Code," and it only
takes a few buggy laws to strangle freedom and innovation in
technology. Laws like the DMCA, the Hollings Bill, and the
CDA threaten to put the American technology juggernaut up on
blocks. 

AOTC has researched the sponsors of eight bad Internet laws
and compiled a list of their most prolific campaign
contributors. These laws were written and sponsored by a
tiny handful of lawmakers, backed by a tiny handful of
wealthy financiers. These bad coders and their backers have
done more damage to computing, the Internet and freedom than
all the virus authors, spammers and crackers combined. 

The Laws

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), H.R.2281 

1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) flooded
American technology with punishing legal action, jailing
scientists and destroying companies. The DMCA's
"anti-circumvention" provisions have trumped the First
Amendment and have given copyright holders a whip hand over
every use of the material they sell to their customers. 

Communications Decency Act (CDA), S.314/ H.R.1004 

1995's Communications Decency Act turned the Internet into a
First-Amendment-Free zone. Speech that would be absolutely
protected in the "real world" was criminalized if
transmitted over the Internet. After a protracted court
battle, a Philadelphia Federal Court zapped this buggy code,
declaring the CDA un-Constitutional. 

Child Online Protection Act (COPA, "CDA II"), S. 1482, H.R.
3783 

After the defeat of CDA, anti-freedom groups and their
lawmakers launched a second salvo, COPA. COPA was a narrower
attack than CDA, limiting itself to websites hosted by
commercial entities, but no less un-Constitutional. The
courts stopped COPA dead in its tracks, but today, the
Supreme Court is deliberating over whether to unleash COPA
on America. 

Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act
(CBDTPA, "The Hollings Bill"), S.2048 

This virulent Trojan Horse, written by Senator Ernest
"Fritz" Hollings and friends appears to be a law that
promotes technology, but it carries a deadly payload. Under
this proposed law, technologists will have to come to film
and movie studios on bent knee and beg for permission to
ship new hardware and software. The film and music companies
who worked to ban every innovative technology from the
player piano to Marconi's radio to the VCR and the Internet
itself would be in charge of all future innovation in
America. 

P2P Piracy Prevention Bill ("Berman P2P bill"), H.R.5211 

Representative Howard Berman's (D-Cal.) P2P Bill opens a
hole in the security of the American judicial system. Under
this proposal, copyright holders are free to take illegal
countermeasures against any member of the public whom they
believe to be engaged in copyright infringement. A law that
lets a group of people break the law sounds like an
oxymoron, but it's worse than that: by affording a "right of
revenge" to movie and music companies, Berman's code
legalizes vigilanteism, stripping law-enforcement agencies
of the ability to police attacks on Internet users. 

CIPA, H.R. 4577 

CIPA is a denial-of-service attack on schools, libraries and
children. Under CIPA, schools and libraries that receive
certain Federal funds are required by law to censor the Web,
using filters provided by snake-oil salesmen that raise the
cost of providing Internet access to kids while spuriously
blocking informative sites that carry information that
appears in our schools' mandatory curriculum. 

The Lawmakers

These lawmakers in Congress and the Senate wrote more
anti-technology legal code than any of their co-legislators. 

Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS 3rd district) 3 bills
$230,900
DMCA, COPA, CIPA 

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX 21st district) 2 bills $87,112
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill, COPA 

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK ) 2 bills $375,339
CBDTPA, CIPA 

Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY 27th district) 2 bills $200,938
DMCA, COPA 

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA 26th district) 2 bills $212,991
DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill 

Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH 4th district) 2 bills $184,998
COPA, CIPA 

Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC 6th district) 2 bills $114,747
DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill 

Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC ) 2 bills $532,980
CBDTPA, CIPA 

Rep. Bob Franks (R-NJ 7th district) 2 bills $661,784
COPA, CIPA 

Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR 3rd district) 1 bill $99,350
COPA 

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ ) 1 bill $1,050,321
CIPA 

Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD 6th district) 1 bill $50,500
COPA 

Rep. Jack Metcalf (R-WA 2nd district) 1 bill $185,377
COPA 

Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY 1st district) 1 bill $115,980
COPA 

Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO 6th district) 1 bill $145,162
COPA 

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-IL 6th district) 1 bill $83,500
DMCA 

Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH 5th district) 1 bill $107,849
COPA 

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL 15th district) 1 bill $139,759
COPA 

Rep. John R. Kasich (R-OH 12th district) 1 bill $235,185
COPA 

Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-MT ) 1 bill $506,126
CIPA 

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO 7th district) 1 bill $175,636
COPA 

Rep. Mark W. Neumann (R-WI 1st district) 1 bill $167,765
COPA 

Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA 4th district) 1 bill $78,765
COPA 

Rep. Vince Snowbarger (R-KS 3rd district) 1 bill $106,774
COPA 

Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-PA 8th district) 1 bill $98,185
COPA 

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM 1st district) 1 bill $232,960
COPA 

Sen. J. James Exon (D-NE ) 1 bill $0
CDA 

Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK 1st district) 1 bill $98,852
COPA 

Rep. Stephen E. Buyer (R-IN 5th district) 1 bill $115,160
COPA 

Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN 7th district) 1 bill $126,499
COPA 

Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $76,604
DMCA 

Rep. Jon D. Fox (R-PA 13th district) 1 bill $200,834
COPA 

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL 6th district) 1 bill $92,743
COPA 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA ) 1 bill $389,544
CBDTPA 

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI 3rd district) 1 bill $47,719
COPA 

Rep. Ronnie Shows (D-MS 4th district) 1 bill $210,650
CIPA 

Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL 4th district) 1 bill $266,944
COPA 

Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY 24th district) 1 bill $92,380
COPA 

Rep. Jon Christensen (R-NE 2nd district) 1 bill $230,552
COPA 

Rep. Max Sandlin (D-TX 1st district) 1 bill $215,450
COPA 

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA 4th district) 1 bill $55,500
DMCA 

Rep. Greg Ganske (R-IA 4th district) 1 bill $177,885
COPA 

Rep. J. C. Jr. Watts (R-OK 4th district) 1 bill $135,705
COPA 

Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT 6th district) 1 bill $279,554
COPA 

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO ) 1 bill $477,360
CIPA 

Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL 9th district) 1 bill $92,011
COPA 

Rep. Jr. Nethercutt, George R. (R-WA 5th district) 1 bill
$142,127
COPA 

Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA 9th district) 1 bill $106,339
COPA 

Rep. Linda Smith (R-WA 3rd district) 1 bill $52,494
COPA 

Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN 6th district) 1 bill $248,500
COPA 

Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY 1st district) 1 bill $169,715
COPA 

Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL 15th district) 1 bill $383,959
CDA 

Rep. Jay Kim (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $116,574
COPA 

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX ) 1 bill $422,932
CIPA 

Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN 6th district) 1 bill $145,282
COPA 

Rep. Michael Pappas (R-NJ 12th district) 1 bill $80,749
COPA 

Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL 16th district) 1 bill $106,699
COPA 

Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-IL 4th district) 1 bill $75,534
COPA 

Sen. John B. Breaux (D-LA ) 1 bill $343,769
CBDTPA 

Rep. David L. Hobson (R-OH 7th district) 1 bill $104,922
COPA 

Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL 1st district) 1 bill $177,481
CIPA 

Rep. Thomas J. Manton (D-NY 7th district) 1 bill $118,494
COPA 

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA 43th district) 1 bill $127,625
COPA 

Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA 16th district) 1 bill $103,800
COPA 

Rep. John Jr. Conyers (D-MI 14th district) 1 bill $99,110
DMCA 

Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR 1st district) 1 bill $248,322
COPA 

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI 6th district) 1 bill $121,673
COPA 

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL ) 1 bill $442,151
CBDTPA 

Rep. Jr. Istook, Ernest J. (R-OK 5th district) 1 bill
$93,284
COPA 

Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI ) 1 bill $732,850
CIPA 

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX 6th district) 1 bill $162,944
COPA 

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC 9th district) 1 bill $147,741
COPA 

Rep. Pat Danner (D-MO 6th district) 1 bill $112,950
COPA 

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX 5th district) 1 bill $207,111
COPA 

Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL 8th district) 1 bill $326,487
DMCA 

Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-NY 20th district) 1 bill $149,306
COPA 

Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL 11th district) 1 bill $200,075
COPA 

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL 19th district) 1 bill $107,500
P2P Piracy Prevention Bill 

Rep. Sue W. Kelly (R-NY 19th district) 1 bill $168,550
COPA 

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC ) 1 bill $386,450
CIPA 

Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC 5th district) 1 bill $118,275
COPA 

Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA 10th district) 1 bill $185,621
COPA 

Rep. Phil English (R-PA 21st district) 1 bill $163,562
COPA 

Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-NY 22nd district) 1 bill
$164,098
COPA 

Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-OH 3rd district) 1 bill $94,000
COPA 

Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $148,450
CIPA 

Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA ) 1 bill $376,525
CDA 

Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY 2nd district) 1 bill $214,076
COPA 

Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-AL 1th district) 1 bill $109,835
COPA 

Rep. John E. Peterson (R-PA 5th district) 1 bill $60,556
COPA 

Rep. Sonny Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $0
DMCA 

Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC 11th district) 1 bill $90,864
COPA 

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI ) 1 bill $247,429
CBDTPA 

-- Statistics on campaign contributions courtesty of
opensecrets.org. Thanks to volunteer Benjamin Owens for
compiling the data here. Posted by doc at November 03, 2002
02:14 PM