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December 1 is the last day to submit proposals (by 5p EST) to the Copyright Office seeking a 3-year DMCA exemption for noninfringing activities that are otherwise squelched by “digital rights management” (DRM) restrictions.

As we mentioned back in October, Congress has instructed the U.S. Copyright Office to consider every three years whether we need temporary exemptions to the DMCA’s blanket ban on circumventing “technological protection measures” (aka DRM) used to lock up copyrighted works.

EFF has participated in each of the two prior rulemakings (in 2000 and 2003), each time asking the Copyright Office to create exemptions for perfectly lawful consumer uses for digital media that are encumbered by DRM restrictions. For example, we asked that DVD owners be allowed to skip those “unskippable” ads at the beginning of DVDs. We asked that people who bought copy-protected CDs be allowed to get them to play on their computer. We asked that consumers be allowed to bypass region coding to play a DVD purchased in another part of the world. The Copyright Office rejected all of these proposals.

This year, we are not submitting any proposals. Where consumer interests are concerned, the rulemaking process is simply too broken. For example:

• No Tools. You can get an exemption for acts of circumvention, but the Copyright Office lacks the power to legalize circumvention tools. So, unless you are an engineer, a computer scientists, or can afford to hire them, you’re not likely to be able to take advantage of any exemptions granted.
• Impenetrable Complexity, Impossible Burdens. In order to effectively participate in the rulemaking, you need to wade through >200 pages of bureaucratic legalese and have graduate level understanding of copyright law. You have to persuade the Copyright Office that your activity is noninfringing and gather evidence that demonstrates a “substantially adverse effect” on noninfringing uses beyond �mere inconveniences or individual cases.”
• “Mere Inconvenience” = Ignoring Consumers. Where consumers are concerned, the Copyright Office discounts their concerns as “mere inconveniences.” So region coding is no problem, according to the Copyright Office, because you could just buy a separate DVD player from every region. Copy-protected CDs are no problem because you can play them on CD players, even if they won’t work in your computer. Where the copyright industries are concerned, in contrast, the Copyright Office presumes that DRM is the only thing that stands between them and financial ruin.

We have assembled a short report documenting why we believe the process is so broken that we have decided not to propose any exemptions this time. (We may support narrower, non-consumer proposals made by others during the reply period, which closes on Feb. 2, 2006.)

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“I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again.” “I’m an attorney, I will sue you.” “I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call.” “I’m going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you.” “You’d better get this through your thick skull.” “You have no idea who you are dealing with.”

This story is now on digg, slashdot, metafilter, boingboing and many, many other places.

I guess the time a company could threaten their customers is now officially over…

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Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding.

Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

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One person with whom the Pentagon’s top commanders have shared their private views for decades is Representative John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The President and his key aides were enraged when, on November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House calling for a withdrawal of troops within six months. The speech was filled with devastating information. For example, Murtha reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven hundred a week in the past year. He said that an estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will suffer “from what I call battle fatigue” in the war, and he said that the Americans were seen as “the common enemy” in Iraq. He also took issue with one of the White House’s claims—that foreign fighters were playing the major role in the insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers “haven’t captured any in this latest activity”—the continuing battle in western Anbar province, near the border with Syria. “So this idea that they’re coming in from outside, we still think there’s only seven per cent.”
Murtha’s call for a speedy American pullout only seemed to strengthen the White House’s resolve. Administration officials “are beyond angry at him, because he is a serious threat to their policy—both on substance and politically,” the former defense official said. Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha’s speech, Bush said, “The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they’re not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I’m going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch.”
“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

Christmas Season has began.

Merry Christmas everybody. Only 25 shopping days left.

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We’ve seen it before: an embattled president so swathed in his inner circle that he completely loses touch with the public and wanders around among small knots of people who agree with him. There was Lyndon Johnson in the 1960′s, Richard Nixon in the 1970′s, and George H. W. Bush in the 1990′s. Now it’s his son’s turn.

It has been obvious for months that Americans don’t believe the war is going just fine, and they needed to hear that President Bush gets that. They wanted to see that he had learned from his mistakes and adjusted his course, and that he had a measurable and realistic plan for making Iraq safe enough to withdraw United States troops. Americans didn’t need to be convinced of Mr. Bush’s commitment to his idealized version of the war. They needed to be reassured that he recognized the reality of the war.

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The address was accompanied by a voluminous handout entitled “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” which the White House grandly calls the newly declassified version of the plan that has been driving the war. If there was something secret about that plan, we can’t figure out what it was. The document, and Mr. Bush’s speech, were almost entirely a rehash of the same tired argument that everything’s going just fine. Mr. Bush also offered the usual false choice between sticking to his policy and beating a hasty and cowardly retreat.

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Mr. Bush hates comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. But after watching the president, we couldn’t resist reading Richard Nixon’s 1969 Vietnamization speech. Substitute the Iraqi constitutional process for the Paris peace talks, and Mr. Bush’s ideas about the Iraqi Army are not much different from Nixon’s plans – except Nixon admitted the war was going very badly (which was easier for him to do because he didn’t start it), and he was very clear about the risks and huge sacrifices ahead.

A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.

In his speech, Bush also talked about a letter found on the laptop of Corporal Jeffrey B. Starr:

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One of those fallen heroes is a Marine Corporal named Jeff Starr, who was killed fighting the terrorists in Ramadi earlier this year. After he died, a letter was found on his laptop computer. Here’s what he wrote, he said, “[I]f you’re reading this, then I’ve died in Iraq. I don’t regret going. Everybody dies, but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it’s not to me. I’m here helping these people, so they can live the way we live. Not [to] have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.”

There is only one way to honor the sacrifice of Corporal Starr and his fallen comrades — and that is to take up their mantle, carry on their fight, and complete their mission.

Bush left out the rest of the story.

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He died in a firefight in Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq. He was 22.

Sifting through Corporal Starr’s laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the marine’s girlfriend. “I kind of predicted this,” Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. “A third time just seemed like I’m pushing my chances.”

Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr died for his country. We honor his sacrifice.

The President of the United States should have respected his memory by being honest about Cpl. Starr’s story. He was not.

A swimming pool stands alone on the beach near Destin, Fla., Monday, July 11, 2005, after having been separated from the building complex by the effects of Hurricane Dennis passing through the area on Sunday. (07/12/05 AP photo)

Hey everyone, look at me! I’m running for president, and I’m absolutely *not* a liberal at all. No sir (or ma’am), I am a moderate and I care. I care so much, that sometimes care oozes out of my pores and drips onto the ground. And I mop it up because I don’t want anyone to slip and fall. That’s how much I care.

Want another example? I care about your little son, Timberland, whom you drive to Soccer practice every day in your 30 ton SUV. I care about him so much that I’m going to get those evil game companies that push violent games on him. I’m going to get them. I’m going to make them pay. Don’t you see how much I care?

VOTE FOR ME!