think of the children! (Re: [free-sklyarov] An Alternative Line of Argumentation)

[David Honig]

At 12:45 PM 7/22/01 -0500, Dave Sherohman wrote:
>On Sat, Jul 21, 2001 at 08:18:23PM -0400, Cousin Willie wrote:
>> "you're too dumb to understand what's going on here, but let me provide
this simple analogy", 
>
>You're right.  Coming up with a way to explain the case to random
>passers-by in 30 seconds or less which neither relies upon previous
>knowledge nor comes off as condescending is, to say the least, difficult,
>especially when it deals with something as esoteric as crypto.  If you
>think you can do a better job of it, please do.  A good capsule summary
>of the situation would do us all a lot of good.

[just joining the list..] 

I just sent off this note to my congresscritters.
It emphasizes the point that needs to be made in *real time*,
ie, get this programmer back to his family.  

This kind of focus might be communicable quickly to randoms.

In writing to congresscritters, I emphesized family-oriented-rube aspects
which will tug their endocrines more than rants.  Don't
want to be written off as intellectual fringe, want to be read as
typical voter.

I do not go into the problems caused by DCMA.  Solve that *later*.



............


Dmitri Sklyarov is a programmer for a
Russian software company.  The US software company Adobe, Inc
recently had him arrested after he spoke at a 
conference in the US.

As a citizen and programmer, I find it
frankly abusive that Adobe has chosen
to harass an employee of a company
it has a beef with.

Sklyarov reportedly has two little kids
at home.  As a parent of a little kid,
I find this horrific --no matter how
Mr. Sklyarov is treated in custody, he
will be worrying about his family on
the other side of the planet.

I urge you to look into the matter and
discover whether this was proper behavior
by federal agents prompted by Adobe.

thank you,