From: Christian Szegedy (szegedy@or.uni-bonn.de)
Date: Mon Sep 10 2001 - 09:46:07 MDT
> Let me go further: the FASTEST way to build public support for
> draconian legislation of this type in the UK would be to somehow
> link DRM circumvention tools to handguns in the public mind.
I agree completely.
We should keep in mind: the extreme position of the politicians
against cloning has mainly one reason: a book called "Brave New World".
No politician can afford to be associatad with a negative utopia. More
concretely: no politican can afford to be associated with something
which is FEARED. It does not matter whether it is well found or not.
Therefore, I think the best way to get support against this legislation
associate it with Orwells 1984. Altough I don't like the book itself,
it has certain symbolic strength and it is widely known.
It is embarassing, but the public does not care about laws, until it is
not shocked. Distributing fear is the most elementary manipulation which
is adopted by every politician quite early, even by the most tolerant and
libertarians ones. I dislike this method, but if we want to communicate
efficiently, we need it. At least our fears are really honest and
realist.
Remember the power of fear: it led to gun control and the drug war.
Let us look it as a game: who generates most fear in public against the
other side, wins.
Our chances are not bad: the supporters of this copyright enforcement
legislations don't have any logical way to generate enough fear to
collect public support for their laws. The only thing they can hope for is
either pushing through the laws unrecognized or generating the
fears emotionally. If we connect computer hacking and technology with drugs
and guns. Then they'll get it for free.
I am completely sure that this menace can not be fought by technical means
such as secure distributed networks and underground hacking. Our intentions
are not to copy illegal stuff and live in fear, but work and develop freely,
accelerate progress and be accepted. These goals are not to be achieved by
more advanced technology, only by politics.
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