People might be wondering where I fall in this whole political mess of Obama vs. McCain. Well, let me just lay it all out there. I’m an Obama man. Now, I’m going to be posting reasons and thoughts as to why I think he is the best, but I will try to be fair and post negative things about him as well. However, as you read my posts on this, it would serve you best to keep in mind my political bias.

With that said, here is a clip that I found to be very funny. This, not so much about attacking Palin, as much as attacking the right-wing news casters. I am not a fan of many of the right-wing news agencies, and this brings a certain sense of satisfaction to me.

There has been a pretty heated debate between the White House and congress for some time now, namely over the telecom immunity. Why is it such a big deal? Well, it’s a huge deal. And I’m angry and upset with the bill that is being pushed through congress right now. And this is why.

The backdrop for the situation is fairly simple. The US Government approached several telecom (telecommunication) companies to hand over phone call records and other communication type records. This isn’t completely out of the ordinary. However, this was done without a warrant. Which means that any telecom that conceded to the government’s demands broke the law. It also means that the government broke the law.

An argument that I’ve been hearing tossed around is that if the government asks you to do something, and it is illegal, you shouldn’t be able to be punished for doing what the government demanded. No. Flat out no. That is wrong, and there is no nice way to put it, that is stupid. We do not have to give in to the government’s demands if they are illegal. In fact, I think it is our duty to not give in to their demands.

Okay, so what’s the big deal about granting them immunity? Well, it doesn’t hold the telecoms responsible for the actions. Two, and perhaps more disturbingly, it absolves the government of any wrongdoing. Third, it allows the government to ask the telecoms to give information over without a warrant in the future.

If a lawsuit is brought up against the telecoms, the Attorney General only needs to say that it was requested by the US government for internal protection purposes, and the lawsuit stops. No information is disclosed. Nothing. We know nothing other than the government wants it. This is bad news on so many fronts.

If you’re interested in the article I found about it, it’s here.

This is a steady erosion of our constitutional rights. And I’m frustrated that the Democrats, who were so vehement in their opposition to this bill, have seemed to buckle with the new version. President Bush has been clear that he would veto any bill that doesn’t grant immunity to the telecoms.

This shows a strong favoring to big business (by letting the telecoms get away with this) and a distinct lack of concern for privacy rights for individuals. I cannot begin to express my disgust at the possibility of this passing (which it seems certain that it will).

I don’t often engage in political discussion, but certain important decisions are coming upon us.

Agree or disagree, that’s up to you.

President Bush said this recently:

And I thank you for wading in. There’s a lot of legal complexities on the FISA renewal debate, but the real issue comes down to this: To defend the country, we need to be able to monitor communications of terrorists quickly and be able to do it effectively.

And we can’t do it without the cooperation of private companies. Unfortunately, some of the private companies have been sued for billions of dollars because they are believed to have helped defend America after the attacks on 9/11. Now the question is, should these lawsuits be allowed to proceed, or should any company that may have helped save American lives be thanked for performing a patriotic service; should those who stepped forward to say we’re going to help defend America have to go to the courthouse to defend themselves, or should the Congress and the President say thank you for doing your patriotic duty? I believe we ought to say thank you.

If you are unfamiliar with the FISA bill, you should read up on it.  While I won’t go into any detail about the FISA bill, I would like to comment on Bush’s description.  He’s discussing the telecommunications industry (i.e. your phone company) and the warrant-less tapping of our phone lines.  The company’s gave in to government demands to assist, and now many of their customers are suing them for this.

The Bush administration wants to make these companies heroes.  They want to make the customers that are suing the telecomm industry look like they are not patriotic.  This is madness on too many levels for me to count.  There is no way to justify warrantless tapping.

But any way you look at this, the people have the right (and I would argue responsibility) to sue the telecomm industry for giving into the Bush administration’s demands without considering their customers.

Think about it this way.  If the President can declare that we are in the midst of a national security crisis and he needs to tap all of our phone lines, who is going to define what a national security crisis is?  If the constant threat of terrorism is a national security crisis, then we are going to be perpetually watched.  The things that we say will be monitored and recorded by our government.  I know tossing in 1984 is cliche, but this truly does smack of Big Brother watching you.

Another way to think of it.  How much of your personal privacy rights are you willing to forego for claims of increased security?

Wikipedia has a fairly extensive page on what DRM is. Essentially (for those of you too lazy to read the wiki page) DRM is a way to limit the uses of digital media to certain programs or hardware. For example, if I purchase a song from the internet, I may only be allowed to play that song through the software I purchased it from. DRM is the bane of all things digital. It is bloat, it is overhead, it is the digital shackles that constrains the content you and I have legally purchased to be used in limited settings and in awkward ways.

Content providers will claim that DRM empowers the users, such as noted by Microsoft itself. The claim is that DRM enables the user by making it easier to access and play content. Boing boing notes a very interesting article that discusses a letter from a DRM maker. I urge you to read this article as it highlights the common arguments that are presented by DRM providers as well as pointing out the flaws in it.

Highlighting a few of the flaws with DRM: first is the concept of the “analog hole“. When you store the file on your computer, it is in digital format. In this format it can be locked down by DRM. However, as soon as you start to play the music or video, it must be transferred to analog at some point (i.e. what you hear or what you see). The problem with DRM is that in this analog state it can be easily recorded and redistributed.

Second, think of DRM as a lock and key. The DRM is the lock. You, as the user, must provide a key to use this software. This is true as well for DVDs. For a side rant, I purchased a computer DVD player. I purchased a DVD. I should now be able to legally play that DVD on that DVD player, should I not? The actual answer is NO. I shouldn’t. I also need to have software that has paid to legally “unlock” the content on the DVD. This is only available through software that you have to pay for (or software that is free, yes, free, but is illegal here in the United States. Curse you DMCA, curse you).

But back to the lock and key concept. For the user to legally play the locked content, the DRM providers must give the user the key at some level. Do you see the flaw here? They try their best to hide the key. The problem is that by providing the key to the end user (which you must do to allow the user to play the content), you’ve essentially given them the ability to unlock any of that content. They only need to look for the key hard enough (which happens all of the time!).

Content providers have gone too far with DRM. If you don’t believe me, have you heard of Sony’s rootkit fiasco? If not, look here, here, here, here, here, or Google for “Sony Rootkit”. Use of such dangerous software tracking techniques shows an almost complete disdain, distrust and contempt for their users. This is a prime example of how DRM use is tied to the assumption that you, as the user, will pirate their digital goods.

MLB had a major problem with this as well. They changed their servers in 2007 from the 2006 servers, effectively making all of the pre-2007 DRM-laden videos unusable. Then, they tried to tell many customers that they would have to repurchase the previously downloaded content. Since the problem may not be readily obvious, allow me to explain. If you need to connect to a remote computer every single time that you want to view the content that you legally purchased, your viewing ability is contingent upon that computer being online at the time. In other words, if you bought video A from company B, and company B goes under, your DRM-laden video A that requires you to verify with company B is now useless. Think of it as a DVD that you bought in a store. You try to play it one day only to find that it can’t play because the store that you bought it at went out of business, and as such your content is no longer valid.

The issue with DRM is this: it assumes that you will be a thief and either steal the content, or distribute the content. It does nothing to empower the end user. It cripples the content, cripples access to the content, makes the end user jump through countless hoops just to use the content, and adds extra overhead. Plus, as DRM is constantly being cracked by hackers, the companies have to continually develop new DRM schemes. I have no data to look at, but I wonder how much money they would save if they removed DRM in the first place.

DRM is intended to stop pirates and hackers. The problem is that pirates and hackers know how to get around DRM. Instead, DRM ultimately ends up punishing legitimate users who only want to play their content that they legally bought and own when they want, where they want, and how they want. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous to think that you couldn’t play a DVD on any DVD player you wanted, in any house, at any time? If that seems ridiculous to you, why would you want to have a video or song that you can only play on x number of computers if y conditions are met?