

Call Congress today to support HR 1892, "The Unlocking Technology Act" - sinak
http://fixthedmca.org/unlocking-technology-act.html?call=1

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sinak
When I posted this page last week with an "email your reps" form, a lot of
people commented to say that calling your representatives is much more
effective than emailing.

So I scrambled around, and was eventually introduced to the folks at
Call2Action, who've built a Twilio integration that makes calling really easy.
It took a couple of all-nighters (mostly because I redesigned the entire
site), but the page now has a number that you can dial that'll request your
zip code and then connect you to talk to your representatives.

At the moment, the leading bill in Congress on this issue is the "Unlocking
Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act." That bill is proposed by the
heads of the judiciary committee. It does absolutely nothing to correct the
problems with Section 1201 of the DMCA; instead it simply reverses the
Librarian of Congress's removal of the unlocking exemption. The problem is
that those exemptions only cover personal acts of circumvention, and not the
tools and services needed to make it happen. I'd be willing to bet that even
here on HN, very few of us have the skills to unlock a smartphone from
scratch. For unlocking software to exist, it needs to be feasible for
developers to invest time in building those tools.

The "Unlocking Technology Act" would not only make tools and services legal,
but would amend the DMCA to make circumvention of "technological protection
measures" legal as long as the purpose isn't piracy. That'd cover unlocking,
jailbreaking, modding game consoles, but also it'd enable removing DRM for
"fair use." For example, it'd make it significantly easier for documentary
filmmakers, teachers, archivists and remix artists to access content for use
in the course of there day to day work. And it would prevent security
researchers from being threatened under the DMCA when they try and publish
research about DRM.

This has become a bit of a personal project for me while I'm between startups,
and I'd really appreciate you taking the time to support it.

 __tl;dr Please take a few minutes today and call - this bill deserves our
support. __

~~~
tocomment
That's really cool how you got the phone stuff working!

What do you instead about having the user enter their own phone number and zip
code on the site and click submit. Then twilio calls the rep and the user?
That way the user doesn't have to even dial.

~~~
awwstn
I'm not totally sure, but I think it's helpful if the call comes from a local
area code. But, many of us have legacy area codes from places we lived 10-15
years ago, so it may not matter too much.

~~~
chimeracoder
Relevant XKCD: <http://xkcd.com/1129/>

In all seriousness, though, calling from a local area code _does_ make a huge
difference.

If you don't have a local phone number for some reason (recently moved, etc.),
then you can still call and identify yourself by name and say that you're a
constituent (note: say "constituent", _not_ "voter").

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protomyth
Bill Text for 113th Congress (2013-2014) H.R.1892.IH
[http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr1892ih/pdf/BILLS-113...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr1892ih/pdf/BILLS-113hr1892ih.pdf)
[pdf]

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sharms
The system worked flawlessly for me, and hitting * to automatically connect to
the next representative or senator saved a ton of time. Great work!

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mshron
Called. Thanks for putting this together! Slick experience.

I had some complaints that I was hard to hear; not sure if that was Twilio or
that I was calling through Google Voice.

~~~
sinak
Thanks for calling!

If anyone else has call quality problems, please let me know.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Do you have analytics? How is the response?

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nwinter
I started talking about supporting the bill and the lady answering the phone
(for Nancy Pelosi) rather abruptly switched me to the dedicated voicemail
system for these types of calls. I was expecting her to listen to it, but I
guess this would more efficient.

~~~
pwenzel
I was surprised to reach real people on the other end of the line, and for the
sake of brevity shortened my message to say that I was a voter and business
owner in the area that wished to voice support for H.R. 1892, and would
appreciate said representative's support as well.

Big ups for helping me get off my ass and pick up the phone. It feels
empowering.

~~~
Natsu
The one actual person I got was nice and listened to me, even though they knew
nothing about the issue at all. Everyone else dumps you to a full voicemail
box, which is pretty sad.

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jingoro
Done! Thanks.

