Re: Fight, or Roll Over?

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>]

"Robert A. Hayden" writes:
> On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> > Anyone who is saying that it is impossible to fight the legislative
> > battles hasn't been thinking. It takes millions of dollars,  but there
> > is a lot of money out there to be had in my opinion.
> 
> Nobody's saying it's impossible, what we're saying is that we don't have 
> the resources to DO that on the scale that is needed.

Since when?

> Maybe Microsoft does, but we don't.

I must admit to only having an academic knowledge of this process, but
I strongly suspect that you are incorrect -- everything I've read,
watched and learned of indicates to me that there are enough people
and companies with an interest here to raise a few million
dollars. Consider that Netscape alone is a very wealthy company that
would have its marketing plans strongly disrupted by this new piece of
congressional trash.

A few million isn't enough to destroy carreers on the scale of the
NRA, but its enough to make things very messy for people.

> What we can do, however, is to shape the culture of the net.  That
> culture will have to eventually be listened to by DC.

The beltway crowd doesn't log in. They ignored the petitions sent to
Leahy for S.314 because they didn't think of the people who sent the
petitions in as "real". I doubt they will understand the net for many
years to come, whereas we have to stall out the NSA and company now.

Incidently, unlike the NRA, I believe our task is merely to stifle
legislation for about five years, at which point it will be too late
for legislation.

Perry