[free-sklyarov] Mainstream Support

[Bob La Quey]

At 02:11 PM 7/28/01 -0500, you wrote:


>Outside of the hacker and digital communities, what "mainstream"
>organizations have, so far, said that they "agree"?
>
>Which ones might?

The civil rights movement was not invented last week by the programming 
community. Perhaps a quote from the ACLU history web site is in order,

<quote>
History of the ACLU

When Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1920, civil liberties were in a sorry state. 

Citizens were sitting in jail for holding antiwar views. 

U.S. Attorney General Palmer was conducting raids upon aliens suspected of holding 
unorthodox opinions. 

Racial segregation was the law of the land and violence against blacks was routine. 

Sex discrimination was firmly institutionalized; it wasn't until 1920 that women 
even got the vote. 

Constitutional rights for homosexuals, the poor, prisoners, mental patients, 
and other special groups were literally unthinkable. 

And, perhaps most significantly, the Supreme Court had yet to uphold a single 
free speech claim under the First Amendment. 
</quote>
http://www.aclu-il.org/history.html

We need to quit playing the lone ranger and do all we can to get
the ACLU, People for the American Way, Amnesty International and other 
old line organizations involved. I have written email and called all of 
these organizations but it will be a big help if people can actually find 
some free time, go to their offices, and solicit their help. 

Here are some starting points from which with a little 
surfing you can turn up local offices and contact information. 

http://www.aclu.org/
http://www.pfaw.org/
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://www.amnesty-usa.org/

Help grow this list of allies. We need to bring in as many of the old troops 
as well as the new blood. These old line organizations are well organized and 
can help both in turning out the troops and in providing resources to the legal 
effort.

For our part we need to recognize that for all their good work the old line
organizations may need some coaching on technical issues just as I belive we 
need coaching on the realities of successful civil rights action. 

Now for a real league with the devil let's try MilbergWiess.
http://www.milberg.com/ This could be a very innovative approach that
if it works would put the fear of god into the entire Silicon Valley
crowd. I am not certain what the angle would be, but I would love to
brainstrom with a creative young lawyer on an angle of attack. Just 
think how interesting this would get if the FBI were looking at a 
complaint against John Warnock for a violation of the DMCA by Adobe. 
The damn law is so absurd that Adobe may well have violated it themselves. 


>Is anyone attempting to solicit their aid in this?

I am. I would surely love to see some other members of the community 
work to solicit these organizations help. 


Bob La Quey     "I'm afraid the ACLU does not have the gift of making 
                 itself popular. Supporting the Bill of Rights, in fact, 
                 generally makes you about as popular as a whore tryin' to get into the SMU Theology School. 
-- Molly Ivins, Newspaper Columnist/Author