[free-sklyarov] Fax campaign: was Ashcroft asked about Sklyarov or DMCA today?

Branden Robinson branden+serrfxylnebi at deadbeast.net
Tue Jul 31 01:06:15 PDT 2001


I presume C-SPAN covered the entirety of Ashcroft's confirmation hearings
today, but I was unable to watch it.  News reports that I have seen make no
mention either of Dmitry or DMCA.

Does anyone know if the subject was even vaguely broached to Ashcroft
today?  Even if he's not directly handling Dmitry's prosecution, Senate
confirmation hearings are an important forum.

Ashcroft isn't confirmed yet; if enough if us can get in touch with our
Senators there may be a snowball's chance that the subject can be brought
up and greatly increase the visibility of Dmity's plight.

Here's a link to a list of fax numbers (probably the only real method
available with the hearings already in progress) for all the current
members of Congress.

<http://www.ucar.edu/oga/useful_links/107th_congress.htm>

A few points that everyone probably already knows:
1) Only the Senate is responsible for confirmation hearings, so faxing your
   Representative won't do much with respect to the Ashcroft situation.
   Paper mail is probably preferable for non-time-critical issues, or so I
   have been told.
2) All Senators from a state are "at large", so it's worth it to fax both
   senators from your state.
3) Senators Leahy and Hatch are both promiment on the Senate Judiciary
   Committee, so it might be worth faxing them as well even if they don't
   directly represent you.  While both Senators voted for the DMCA (it
   passed 99-0 IIRC), both of them, especially Leahy, are on the
   "right side" of most technology, privacy, and intellectual property
   issues as far as I've been able to tell over the past few years, so it
   is worth it to be more solicitous with them than with, say, Dianne
   Feinstein.  (Though being hostile with any Congressman is definitely
   discouraged; it can't do any good.)

Good luck, and apologies if someone already brought up this tactic.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |       The key to being a Southern
Debian GNU/Linux                   |       Baptist: It ain't a sin if you
branden at deadbeast.net              |       don't get caught.
http://www.deadbeast.net/~branden/ |       -- Anthony Davidson
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