From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Sep 21 2002 - 16:59:14 MDT
This ended up being quite a rant. Fortunately for me, no one will read it
anyway so the Revelation about CBS news contained herein will go, as usual
with my posts, completely unnoticed, along with my middle-of-the-night
free association. Think of the scorn I'll be saved!
On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Jack Kolb wrote:
< http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-dtv20sep20(0,3005383).story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology >
>
> Digital TV Switch Pushed
> Congress: In draft bill, lawmakers propose steps to speed transition. It
> would make most analog TVs obsolete by 2007.
> By EDMUND SANDERS
> TIMES STAFF WRITER
>
> September 20 2002
>
> Government leaders are motivated to switch to digital TV largely by
> economics. The sooner broadcasters switch to digital signals, the sooner
> they will be required to return billions of dollars' worth of analog TV
> spectrum, which the government plans to auction off for other uses,
> probably wireless services.
>
> Some critics say the government is pushing a technology that consumers
> don't really want.
Innovation may have driven this country's material progress directly, but
it did not come from legislative fiat or Big Brother thuggery. Forcing
technology down people's throats is not the way to increase creativity,
maximize the possibility of the best solution, or avoid being stuck in
some hi-tech form of Old Think. In this case, the story cited makes it
clear that a major motivation is to privitize the broadcast spectrum at
enormous profit for someone, but not mine. Already the airwaves, leased
"in the public interest" have been so removed from supervision that the
Fairness Doctrine has been abandoned, quality children's programming has
been largely abandoned, and there are more ads than ever, apparently at
louder volume. All this while Dumbo's Occupation Regime is working, even
at this moment, to allow further media consolidation and bring newspapers,
radio, television, and even Internet access into fewer and fewer hands.
The geek community has, meanwhile, been up in arms for some time, largely
ignored by the consolidated media, over DRM-- Digital Rights Management--
which is what makes it illegal for you to play DVDs on the wrong computer
operating system, buy and sell DVDs except where the industry allows,
listen to CDs that you bought yourself-- except where and how officially
approved.... One "side effect" of mandatory digital Television will be
that broadcasters (aided by Microsoft, Intel, and others with
appropriately crippled hardware and software) can then make it both
illegal and impossible to tape TV shows for later replay, do frame
captures, and so on.
Right now, the witch hunter over unauthorized hard drive content is based
on the war on "terra" and on "copyright violations"-- such as the
unsupported and undocumented (!) $cientology cult allegations that just
had Dutch reporter Karen Spaink's house invaded by police searching her
computer for the secrets of Xenu a week or two ago. And that's in a
comparatively Free country! It's all about the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) and the legal geniuses of Mousewitz
protecting their hegemony and the creativity of our grandparents'
generation, no matter what the social costs of thwarted innovation or
suppressed facts-- as if progress or liberty can thrive in an atmosphere
of secrecy.
In a democracy, the people need to know exactly who DID Dickhead Cheney
talk to about his anti-American energy policies? and How did his business
experience selling product to the Iraquis and others lead to the events of
September 11? Even if the coming war is not designed to take people's
minds off the economic collapse resulting from our divisive plutocrats or
to finagle more elections, it might at least hide the evidence in case
there ever IS a commission to find out what happened Sept. 11 and why and
how-- as there was for Pearl Harbor and other significant turning points.
Instead, the "Christian" soldier currently marching at the head of the
church militant, subverting science, education, and fundamental
constitutional principles in his wake, would surely find it easier to rule
once the gummint steps into your computer for file inspection the way it
steps into your bedroom or your doctor's office to sort things out the
"Christian" way.
While it's copyright this and terrorist that, and occasionally fighting
the war on (some) drugs and the war on "kiddy porn," the additional
limitations of the increase and diffusion of knowledge represented by the
end of analog broadcasting and the additional constraints that will
facilitate can only be expected to facilitate further official secrecy and
disinformation.
Pete Seeger got kicked off telvision for singing "The Big Muddy," and
Lenny Bruce for saying a four-letter word ("snot"). That kind of
censorship is petty ante compared with what's happening now, and this move
toward digital control is only another part of that. It's disguised as
open access, but it's designed to rip off a valuable resource and sell it
like water rights, like primary education, like a mess of pottage. It's
an extension of media concentration that effectively enslaves artists
(see the brilliant commentary by Janis Ian, who's just back with more
analysis), limits your ability to use your own disks in your own home by
creating new "rights" for the sellers, and to exchange information--
including source code you write yourself.
Keeping America safe from drugs and porn and "copyright terrorism" will
certainly be aided by the theft of analog, and eventually will assist in
weeding out those who don't participate in the regularly Hate Minute, but
laws mandating technology are inherently limiting. We'd have been as
ill-served by compelling a change to 33 1/3 rpm vinyl (or eight-track
tapes) as by a ban. But the days when trust-busting brings out the voters
have been replaced by stolen elections and organized hoodwinking of the
people. Soon our star-spangled resident-in-thief will have a glorious new
union-free Homeland Security Office to replace the people's government, a
reorganization created without open input, without sunshine, and so far,
except for Sen. Robert Byrd, almost without debate. Ah, then we can relax
knowing that secrecy has replaced open-government to protect us and that
we will never again have to fear the dangers of whistleblowers or Freedom
of Information Act requests.
I digress. Do I make myself even partly clear? I fear that this DRM
(Digital Rights Management-- a term you should know well, since it is the
stomping boot Orwell so memorably envisioned) activity currently being
built into hardware and software will quickly become just another means to
restrict information and debate. Even as crippled CDs and DVDs spread, the
digital revolution for broadcasting will facilitate central control of who
has access to information and who can use it.
On Sept. 11 of this year, at 8:00 in the morning, Los Angeles radio
station KNX broadcast the CBS hourly report with the shocking news that
Osama Bin Laden was reported dead in an Afghan cave from a bombing last
December. The report was death was initially offered without detail, then
elaborated and sourced to an al-Qaeda bulletin board (?) in the Sudan. The
report was not picked up by anyone else, was not repeated that evening,
was not on the KNX1070.com website, and presumably was not true. No one
else I know heard this report. I never saw any explanation, retraction, or
denial.
If it had been on television, with digital broadcast restrictions intact,
there is even less chance there would be a record of it except in the
memories of the viewers-- memories that dailyhowler.com makes clear are
already at the mercy of corrupt and dishonest reporting. (Did YOU know the
alleged Alligator Alley terrorists PAID their highway tolls like everyone
else? Did you know that Dumbo, a politician holding office, PERSONALLY
authorized law enforcement to arrest the Buffalo terror "cell"?)
> The proposal also requires the FCC to settle a spat between
> entertainment companies and technology firms to implement a
> copy-protection technology, known as a broadcast flag, designed to
> protect over-the-air digital shows from being copied and redistributed
> over the Internet. The draft requires the technology to be installed in
> all digital devices by Jan. 1, 2006.
>
> Hollywood has lobbied hard for a government mandate on the broadcast
> flag. But the Tauzin-Dingell proposal would be a setback for
> broadcasters that must upgrade their transmission facilities with
> expensive new equipment. A spokesman for the National Assn. of
> Broadcasters declined to comment Thursday.
A setback for broadcasters? It still lets them have absolute control over
whether or not you can copy or play anything they produce. In fact, by
making Everything digital, that control is concentrated and facilitated.
> Some electronics firms worry that the technology mandated by the draft
> will not work and predict that consumers will reject it.
The way voters rejected Dumbo. Who cares what consumers think?
> One technology group, Digitalconsumer.org, called the draft "clumsy and
> dangerous" and warned that its proposals would make millions of existing
> VCRs inoperable.
Who cares what consumers think?
> In a statement, Tauzin said, "While we prefer marketplace solutions,
> clearly it is time for us to provide leadership in this area. By doing
> so, we hope to ensure that consumers benefit in a meaningful way from
> this exciting transition."
Sounds like the exciting transition to privatized Social Security and
tax-funded religious education. "Leadership" does not mean "compulsion."
> A vote is not likely until next year, but lobbying from various
> industries and consumer groups has been underway since June, when Tauzin
> abandoned efforts to mediate a private-sector settlement.
The founder of PGP probably had encryption in mind when he spoke the words
in my .sig file, but his thought is even more widely applicable today.
--
When making public policy decisions about new technologies
for the Government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies
would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the
Government to deploy those technologies. --Philip Zimmermann
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
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