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March 1, 2002

When computers are outlawed Charles Dodgson has more on the profoundly creepy SSSCA, loveable ol’ Senator Hollings’s plan to prevent you from ever owning a real computer again. Hollings may get his way, too. Before you count on some imagined coalition of sensible liberals and moderates stopping this, you might want to inspect how much money Big Entertainment is spending to buy members of Congress, and which members it is that they’re buying.

Dodgson nicely summarizes the breathtaking arrogance in the details, too; in essence, SSSCA wouldn’t just regulate the entire future of computing for the convenience of Big Entertainment; it would also make them the regulators.

This is the kind of proposal that’s so comprehensively awful that one can hardly avoid the suspicion that its promoters’ real aim is to get a “compromise” in which they get some fraction of what they’re demanding. But even a bill only a quarter as bad as SSSCA would be a catastrophe.

What I believe: I believe that somewhere, there’s a long-term Republican strategist hoping and praying that something like SSSCA happens, and that it will be (as seems likely) something that can be fairly blamed on “liberal” politicians, or at any rate Democrats. If you were impressed by the way “gun control” has peeled blue-collar voters away from the Democratic Party, wait until you see how effectively something like SSSCA will alienate the knowledge worker class. Certainly, just speaking for myself, I’m watching this story, and I’ll never again vote for any Democrat who supports this unconstitutional, destructive, immoral proposal. Pry. Cold. Dead. Fingers. [09:00 AM]

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