Challenge to David Wagner on TCPA

[David G. Koontz]

Jon Callas wrote:
> On 8/1/02 1:14 PM, "Trei, Peter" <ptrei at rsasecurity.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>So my question is: What is your reason for shielding your identity?
>>You do so at the cost of people assuming the worst about your
>>motives.
> 
> 
> Is this a tacit way to suggest that the only people who need anonymity or
> pseudonymity are those with something to hide?
> 

The following had been mysteriously pared off my first response to
the above:

Anonymity is generally considered a a requirement for the political
process in the United States to protect the right to express political
speech without regard to being harrassed by those in power.  There
have been several federal court decisions in the last few years that
have struck down laws limiting anonymity for political speech.  One
that comes to mind was a requirement in Chicago, I think that required
the authors name on political phamplets.

Would a law requiring such technical measures for controlling access
to copyrighted information as proposed by representatives of Disney,
et. al. in the U.S. Congress recently that incidentally by design
prevented anonymity be found to be unconstitutionally limiting freedom
of political speech on the internet by its chilling effect?

On a slightly different note, copyrights are given to authors for
a limited time.  Should any technical protection mechanisms enacted
subsequent to law also be required to adhere to those limits? (as
in copyright expiry)  This could have the nice side effect of not
allowing extensions to copyrights be issued retroactively.  One
could also hope that fair use were enforceable under any law,
preventing copyrights from becoming absolute.

We could see society reshaped to fit poorly written laws.  Something
George Orwell could have foreseen.











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