The New Freedom

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007...9:57 am

Harry Reid (D-NV)’s Corrupt “Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention” Amendment

It was bad enough when it was the industry versus college students. Now the federal government is getting involved.
Harry Reid, Corrupt As Fuck
Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to get his own amendment attached to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act. His amendment would require universities to do the following things:

* Report annually to the U.S. Education Department on policies related to illegal downloading.
* Review their procedures to be sure that they are effective.
* “Provide evidence” to the Education Department that they have “developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.”

Essentially, force colleges to buy technology they don’t want to (which doesn’t even work anyway), spy on all their students, and hand them over to the authorities. News source, Text of the bill from gpo.gov.

He even has the audacity to call it “Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention,” proving that he doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about anyway, as supposed copyright infringement isn’t the same thing as theft no matter who you’re talking to.

So why is he adding this amendment? Have his constituents in Nevada been calling for more lawsuits and punishments for students that engage in such harmful practices and restrictions for the institutions that harbor those criminals? Of course not, Harry Reid is just corrupt as fuck. Exactly how much did it cost for the entertainment racketeers to buy Harry Reid?

$285,501

And he’s not even in their Top 20 Recipients. Hilldog took the top stop with an astounding $950,768.

The whole goddamn system is broken. Corporations buy and sell politicians, using campaign finances as a system of legalized bribery, and they do this openly and proudly. Now, students are going to be spied on and punished as a result of this mass corruption.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation have posted an Urgent Action Alert to get people to call their senators to protest this blatant injustice. I actually called my House rep over the recent Internet Radio Royalty bullshit. I spoke to a nice secretary who told me the Rep couldn’t really do anything about it but she would pass along my message. It felt good to almost actually be able to talk to somebody who apparently can’t do anything about the problem. Seriously, try it (especially if you’re in Nevada!). Bonus points if you suppress your urge to yell “Legalize it!” and hang up.

Also, if anybody is interested, GNU-founder/UNIX-Beard-God Richard Stallman gave a talk called Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks at the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club. He describes the history of copyright and how it’s been completely turned around by industry lawyers in the past few years, going from serving the public good to protecting nobody but the publishing industries and totally buttfucking everybody else. Worth watching if you’re interested and have the time.