[free-sklyarov] The Web site and 'writing your congressman' ( fwd)

[Daniel Orr]

I feel privileged to get email from you, as I am a long time admirer of your
work. Congrats on a well deserved EFF Pioneer Award. 

I'd keep the letter to about two pages, any longer and they're going to stop
reading. As Kennedy is on the Judiciary Committee, I would recommend calling
his DC office and asking "Who is the legislative aide who handles Judiciary
Issues?" Address one letter directly to the LA by name. Send a second letter
(it can even be the same letter) addressed to the Senator. 

Credentials will help particularly in the letter addressed to the LA. Keep
in mind though, a staff of forty of so has to cover every imaginable issue
that comes up from encryption policy to dairy subsidies. The DMCA is a very
important issue, but it is still a niche issue. Congressional staff are
overworked and poorly paid, this results in high turnover and aides who
don't necessarily understand the issues they are assigned to as well as they
should. Don't be offended if your credentials don't mean as much to them as
they do to the members of this list. 

The second letter will be received by the mail director who will assign it
to the Legislative Correspondent who responds to letters on related issues.
You may get a form letter back, it may be a more detailed response. It
depends on how familiar the office is with the DMCA. 

The two letters are important because one will be read by the LA who advises
the Senator directly on the issue and may choose to write a personal
response. The second will go in the office's correspondence management
database and will be included in tallies of future letters on that issue. So
when Sen. Kennedy asks his staff "What have we been getting a lot of mail
on?" the legislative correspondent can respond "the DMCA" and cite your
letter. 

Hope this is helpful.

Dan



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Seth Finkelstein [mailto:sethf at sethf.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 6:13 PM
> To: free-sklyarov at zork.net
> Cc: Daniel Orr
> Subject: Re: [free-sklyarov] The Web site and 'writing your 
> congressman'
> (fwd)
> 
> 
> Daniel Orr wrote:
> > 
> > I am a former aide a U.S. Senator.
> > ...
> > Persuading Congress to amend the DMCA is a matter of 
> educating them. Most
> > members have little idea as to the law's impact. Letters 
> from constituents
> > are a good way to get them to sit up and take notice.
> 
> 	Thanks Daniel. I'm a constituent of Senator Kennedy, and he's
> on the Judiciary committee. I've been thinking I could write a long
> letter to him, pulling out all my credentials, and making a liberal
> oriented argument against the DMCA. Question for you: Does any of
> that matter? That is, does a pages-long letter count even
> marginally more than a short one? Is the key aspect the letter
> itself, and sounding halfway-not-insane (:-)), rather than cites
> and credentials? Or does it really matter if I puff myself
> (or would that be negative, since I'm not an ordinary citizen then?)
> Thanks for some insight here.
> 
> -- 
> Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  
http://sethf.com
http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html