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All Hail The New Republican Congress
Posted by Raul Ruiz on Thursday, November 07 @ 10:37:09 EST News

MSNBC is running a brief story on how the new Republican legislature will deal with technological issues as a result of committee chairmanships being changed. Though the article cites that issues such as the DMCA aren't likely to get much attention, one aspect of the Republican takeover is that Senator Fritz Hollings, a.k.a. Senator Disney, will no longer chair the Senate Commerce committee. It is expected that Senator John McCain, who has not adopted such a pro-Hollywood attitude as Hollings, will be the new chair of the committee.

I have my doubts. Republicans are typically branded as being very pro-business. It wouldn't surprise me if they trumped some more of our rights in the digital realm to make a buck or two. McCain's top political contributors may be seen here and here. (Thanks to OpenSecrets.org)

 
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Re: All Hail The New Republican Congress (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Friday, November 08 @ 09:35:35 EST
Well, we will of course have to see. It's worth noting, though, that McCain's contributors, like many Republicans, are tilted far more towards computer, telcom, and tech companies. Now, of course those compaies are far from blameless. Still, those companies massively oppose Fritz's CBDTPA.

Not all businesses are the same, and in many cases different industries or companies are on different sides of bills. The Republicans are generally less pro-Hollywood; Sen. Hatch even held hearings where he defended Napster and proclaimed his belief (disagreeing loudly with Hilary Rosen) that backups of CDs were obviously legal.

The biggest civil liberty danger from Republicans, of course, are misguided anti-obscenity laws. We shall have to see if they've learned their lesson from the last two. (Mostly struck down by the courts.)


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