Stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate
December 5th, 2002 by Jay Sulzberger in
Coders! Designers! Artists! Businessfolk! Computer Owners! Users/Builders of the Net! Citizens! And All the Tribes!
Right now, the Federal Communications Commission of the United States of America is preparing to hand down a regulation, the so-called Broadcast Flag Mandate. This regulation would make it a felony to own, sell or use important free software tools of communication, such as GNU Radio, Project GNU's software-defined radio program. The issue here has nothing to do with copyright infringement, despite the claims of the RIAA, the MPAA and the AAP; the Broadcast Flag Mandate would make purely private use of GNU Radio a felony. GNU Radio is a program that allows any computer equipped with an antenna and an analog-to-digital card to function as both a radio and TV receiver. Both analog and digital broadcasts can be received and played once the antenna, the card and the program are installed. GNU Radio is not yet complete; as of today GNU Radio cannot receive and play digital TV broadcasts, but within the year, G* willing, it will be completed.
It is important to stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate because, if promulgated, it would set a precedent allowing the government of the United States to directly dictate exactly what you do with your computer, even in the privacy of your own house. It would set the precedent that the government of the United States may directly outlaw the production, sale and use of untrammeled computers like the one billion "personal computers" that have been freely produced and sold up until today. It would set the precedent that the government of the United States may directly enforce that all computers sold must contain both spy machinery and remote control machinery--machinery that would be controlled by Infotainment Central and The Secret Police. Under the Broadcast Flag Mandate, it would be a felony to disable the spy and remote control machinery.
The FCC will accept comments regarding the Broadcast Flag Mandate until 5:00 pm EST, Friday, December 6, 2002. You can send comments from the NY Fair Use site and/or follow the official instructions below.
The EFF has done the major work in exposing the plot to impose the Broadcast Flag Mandate.
In Section 4.12 of the Final Report of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group, the Englobulators propose that the Broadcast Flag Mandate should create two classes of Americans:
a small class consisting of licensed employees of certain cartels and monopolies, who would be allowed to use general purpose computers; and
the rest of us, who would not be allowed to own and privately use general purpose computers.
It is important to understand Section 4.12 because the Englobulators have claimed and will continue to claim the Broadcast Flag Mandate would not affect private use of computers. But the Englobulators know this claim is false. They know that the Broadcast Flag Mandate would so cripple computers that they demand a special exemption for themselves so they may still use untrammeled computers.
Brett Wynkoop alerts the Ancient Order of Hams about the Mandate. This discussion is worth looking at for several excellent posts from people who understand the Broadcast Flag Mandate would mean the end of amateur work in digital radio and TV. There are also posts from people who simply cannot believe the Broadcast Flag Mandate actually has been proposed.
Declan McCullough asks, "Why have you not written to the FCC?", and Slashdot responds.
The Digital Speech Project presents some of the effects and some of the history of the proposed Broadcast Flag Mandate.
GNU Radio speaks out, including Eric Blossom's clear statement of what the Broadcast Flag Mandate would mean for GNU Radio.
Email submissions should be sent to ecfs@fcc.gov.
Email submissions will allow printable ASCII text only.
Email submissions must be contained in the body of the e-mail rather than attachments.
Email submissions must contain only one document per submission; multiple documents will be ignored.
Email submissions must adhere to the format of the Electronic Transmittal Form for email filings.
Email filings must be accompanied by information containing the ECFS Document Index Terms. For automated processing via email, this must be computer readable. For this, you must use a free-format, computer-readable form, as described below, using SGML tags.
The requested info is to be placed after the text in angle brackets.
The tagged info should be contained on a single line.
Change the text after the brackets.
[Apparently you do not need end tags, see examples below.]
<PROCEEDING>, <NAME>, <ADDRESS1>, <CITY>, <STATE>, <ZIP>, <DOCUMENT-TYPE>, and <TEXT> are required.
List of DOCUMENT TYPES:
For assistance in using ECFS, please call (202) 418-0193 or submit an email to ECFSHELP@fcc.gov.
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<PROCEEDING> | PUT-DOCKET-NUMBER or RULEMAKING-NUMBER HERE (02-230/) |
<DATE> | FILED-DATE-IN-MM/DD/YY-FORMAT |
<NAME> | APPLICANT-OR-PETITIONER-NAME |
<ADDRESS1> | ADDRESS |
<ADDRESS2> | ADDRESS |
<CITY> | CITY |
<STATE> | TWO-LETTER-STATE-CODE |
<ZIP> | ZIPCODE |
<LAW-FIRM> | LAW-FIRM |
<ATTORNEY> | LAWYER-NAME |
<FILE-NUMBER> | FILE-NUMBER |
<DOCUMENT-TYPE> | TWO-LETTER-DOCUMENT-TYPE-CODE (See list of DOCUMENT TYPES; here, CO for comment) |
<PHONE-NUMBER> | SENDER-PHONE-NUMBER |
<DESCRIPTION> | EMAIL-COMMENT |
<CONTACT-EMAIL> | EMAIL-ADDRESS-RESPONSE-DESTINATION |
<TEXT> | ACTUAL TEXT OF MESSAGE |
Dear FCC...
Example 1 (law firm)
<PROCEEDING> | 97-21 |
<DATE> | 11/22/97 |
<NAME> | Jane M. Doe |
<ADDRESS1> | 902 Snyder Lane |
<ADDRESS2> | Apt. 34 |
<CITY> | Wichita |
<STATE> | KS |
<ZIP> | 20530 |
<LAW-FIRM> | Smith & Jones |
<ATTORNEY> | Robert Smith |
<FILE-NUMBER> | 2314 |
<DOCUMENT-TYPE> | CO |
<PHONE-NUMBER> | 410-555-4657 |
<DESCRIPTION> | Email Comment |
<CONTACT-EMAIL> | jdoe@public.com |
<TEXT>
Dear FCC,
Our client, XYZ Company, supports the local-access station WXXX. Please review the enclosed materials for further explanation. Thanks.
Jane M. DoeAttorney-At-LawSmith & Jones
Example 2 (individual)
<PROCEEDING> | 00-221 |
<DATE> | 6/12/01 |
<NAME> | John P. Doe |
<ADDRESS1> | 123 Kennedy Drive |
<ADDRESS2> | |
<CITY> | Newark |
<STATE> | NJ |
<ZIP> | 07103 |
<LAW-FIRM> | |
<ATTORNEY> | |
<FILE-NUMBER> | |
<DOCUMENT-TYPE> | RC |
<PHONE-NUMBER> | 973-555-7893 |
<DESCRIPTION> | Email Comment |
<CONTACT-EMAIL> | jdoe@commercial.com |
<TEXT>
Dear FCC, I don't want to pay more for my phone. Please remove the surcharge and let competition rule. Thank you.
Joe
Jay Sulzberger is the corresponding secretary of LXNY, New York's Free Computing Organization.
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Re: Stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate
On December 11th, 2002 Anonymous says:
I concur with the first person on this thread. I expected better of Linux Journal; I expected a well thought-out clearly written article which informed the reader.
The article's intended audience is clearly the individual who doesn't know about the FCC mandate, not someone who is already knowlegable . Consequently, this article needs to provide factual examples and a more thorough explaination of the issues at hand.
Re: Stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate, deadline is actually midnig
On December 6th, 2002 Anonymous says:
The FCC deadline, for emailed comments, is actually
midnight EST end of Friday 6 December 2002.
Right now the FCC system seems to be jammed.
NY Fair Use has applied for an extension of the deadline.
For further information:
http://www.nyfairuse.org/cgi-bin/nyfu/news
To have a look at already filed comments go to
http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/comsrch_v2.cgi
and put only 02-230 into the Proceedings field and hit the "Retrieve Document List" button at the bottom of the page.
A coorected version of the first announcement is at:
http://www.lxny.org/announce/2002/FCC.6.December.2002.html
The MPAA and the RIAA have commented.
So have TiVo and Disney.
Home Tapers have commented.
Hams have commented.
Richard Stallman and many folk of the Free Software Tribes have commented.
We need every comment we can get, and the best comment is your own comment in your own words.
Jay Sulzberger
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org
Re: Stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate
On December 5th, 2002 Anonymous says:
To the Nice Troll that started ths thread....
Take the time and do some reading on this issue. Stop asking to be "spoon-fed" everything and get involved. Otherwise, you will get exactly what others want you to have, not what you want to have.
The info is out there.....Read it!
Re: Stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate
On December 5th, 2002 Anonymous says:
You may call them a troll, but I came to exactly the same conclusion when I read the article. WTF is the Broadcast Flag Mandate? A well written article would start out by stating the proposed law and then suggesting to the reader what the effects might be.
The idea of reporters is to extract the essence of a story for a large audience. This article is FUD.
Re: Stop the Broadcast Flag Mandate
On December 6th, 2002 Anonymous says:
I'm all for basic freedoms on the Web, but you all lost about 95% of computer/Web users with all the --how to post an email with opinions to, um, the FCC, maybe. Hey most of us out here care about freedoms but most of the people out here in "cyber-land" are low-end users trying to do a job or in my case teach kids (we homeschool) My kids know a whole lot more about computers than I do. I have to agree that the article should have been written with the "every-man-on-the-street" in mind. If the only protest of a bill like this comes from high-end users rather than the cross section of Web users then it isn't going to get the recognition it deserves. And it sounds like it may need some recognition! However from the info given in this article I haven't any idea how to go about giving my opinion. Sorry, but some of us need to be "spoon-fed"!!
For future reference...
On December 5th, 2002 Anonymous says:
This article would be a great deal more compelling if it set aside the sweaty-toothed frothing tone for a moment or two and actually made an attempt to explain what the proposed law is and why it would be bad.
I'm afraid that to gain my support you'll have to do a lot more than just invoke the spirit of anti-globalization and anti-commercialism sentiment and actually try to present an argument supporting your views.
Tossing around vague and unsubstantiated invective like "...not be allowed to own and privately use general purpose computers" just makes the article easier to ignore. No pretense of rational thought or reasoned position seems to exist here.
Re: For future reference...
On December 5th, 2002 Anonymous says:
nice troll.
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