FYI... ------------- Begin Forwarded Message ------------- Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 10:15:36 -0500 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: Colorado state senate delays vote on "mini-DMCA" bill ---- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 15:39:14 -0700 To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> From: Charles Oriez <coriez@oriez.org> Subject: state DMCA - delayed in Colorado Thanks to the publicity on the politech list over the weekend, a couple of state senators heard from their constituents yesterday, and the Colorado version of the legislation (HB1303) was laid over for a week. It had been scheduled for final passage in the State Senate today. Of course now the folks who raised the issue in the first place have to finish the job. It isn't dead, merely delayed. http://www.leg.state.co.us/2003a/inetcbill.nsf/fsbillcont/A2F0DA113DF2BFC087256CC2006BFB94?Open&target=/2003a/inetcbill.nsf/billsummary/FFD96D398232513587256CBF00543930 charles oriez coriez@oriez.org 39 34' 34.4"N / 105 00' 06.3"W ** --- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:10:40 -0500 From: Peter Olsen <pcolsen@comcast.net> Subject: RE: An analysis of Michigan and Colorado "mini-DMCA" bills In-reply-to: <5.1.1.6.0.20030330100203.01f1db70@mail.well.com> To: declan@well.com Cc: balunis@buffnet.net, Charles Loukus <cloukus@earthlink.net>, Jon Christopher Olsen <joncolsen@bigfoot.com>, Eric Carl Olsen <olsenec@valero.com>, Seth Olsen <solsen@students.uiuc.edu>, Jeff Olsen <jolsen@c-hmfg.com>, Randy Olsen <rolsen@c-hmfg.com>, James Beaupre <beaupre@mit.edu>, Lou Marinelli <lmm1442@yahoo.com>, Ruben William Duran <duranr@umich.edu> Message-id: <000a01c2f743$df899340$0301a8c0@waldo> Declan, Although I'm not (and never have been) a lawyer, I think there is a danger of these laws becoming "charges of opportunity" Suppose someone is accused of another crime for which there is not sufficient evidence to sustain a charge, but law enforcement finds evidence of a VPN or a router employing network address translation. Would this evidence be enough to sustain a further search warrant? Suppose law enforcement authorities gain access to a computer for another purpose and find encrypted files. Could those files be construed as an attempt to conceal the "origin or destination of a communication service"? This last example brings up the problem of "If you're not guilty, prove your innocence. Just decrypt the files for us." I understand that this is a common tactic, even though it seems to fly in the face of my (engineering) understanding of the Fifth Amendment Take these comments for what they're worth. I have an agreement with some of my lawyer friends: I don't practice law and they don't practice engineering. We all believe the public is safer for both sides of the understanding. Peter Olsen, P.E. pc_olsen@yahoo.com --- Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 15:13:04 -0800 To: declan@well.com From: "A.Lizard" <alizard@ecis.com> Subject: Re: FC: An analysis of Michigan and Colorado "mini-DMCA" bills At 10:02 AM 3/30/03 -0500, you wrote: Sounds like making sure that this law is rigorously enforced against its biggest violators would be the fastest way to get it off the books and to make sure it doesn't get reintroduced anywhere else. The options for the organizations in violation would be either to close down or move to somewhere where they can do business. The biggest violators would be large corporations and the Michigan state government. Are there any IT shops of substantial size that *don't* violate this law? Collecting proof should be easy enough, but some organization to systematically tell the rest of us what to look for and where to send it would be helpful. Forcing government to act on this might be more difficult. Perhaps the EFF or one of the other activist organizations might have some ideas about that. A.Lizard --- Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:44:55 -0500 From: Dave Emery <die@die.com> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Cc: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: FC: An analysis of Michigan and Colorado "mini-DMCA" bills On Sun, Mar 30, 2003 at 10:02:12AM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: There is another side to the MPAA's super-DMCA state legislation. In addition to its impact on use of encryption, vpns, firewalls and so forth it also sets forth new non-federal restrictions on possession and used of radio receiving equipment. While some of your readership may have different perspectives on this, it appears that several of these mini=DMCA bills might well be read to ban ownership or use of Big Ugle Dish (BUD) type TVRO satellite dish setups, or at least those used for private viewing of unscrambled sports backhauls and newsfeeds as opposed to being subscribed to scrambled programming services. This private viewing has been generally legal under federal law (Satellite Viewers Rights Act), but very few of the program providers have actually given any kind of express consent for the public to watch and thus the mini-DMCA provisions requiring such consent would possibly render even possession of such dishes illegal in states where such laws are in effect. And while the argument is more stretched, it also seems that someone might argue that police scanners used to monitor public safety communications (expressly permitted under federal law) might fall under this rubric too, as the public safety agencies may not have give express consent. Under the Mass. bill this would criminalize mere possession of such radio equipment. -- Dave Emery N1PRE, die@die.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493 PGP fingerprint 1024D/8074C7AB 094B E58B 4F74 00C2 D8A6 B987 FB7D F8BA 8074 C7AB ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH evening reception in New York City at 7 pm, April 1, 2003 at CFP: http://www.politechbot.com/events/cfp2003/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- End Forwarded Message ------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Gregory Hicks | Principal Systems Engineer Cadence Design Systems | Direct: 408.576.3609 555 River Oaks Pkwy M/S 6B1 | Fax: 408.894.3400 San Jose, CA 95134 | Internet: ghicks@cadence.com "The trouble with doing anything right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." When a team of dedicated individuals makes a commitment to act as one... the sky's the limit. Just because "We've always done it that way" is not necessarily a good reason to continue to do so... Grace Hopper, Rear Admiral, United States Navy