[JagMicker]

For those TL;DR'ers out there, here's a summary:

The White House understands the petition and claims to agree. However, they aren't going to do anything about it other than wait for the "legislature" to address the issue.

You might as well petition the corporate owners of the major cell. carriers, as they are probably the only ones who will do anything about this.

[ChuckMcM]

So you can do what I just did, write your congressional representative and include a copy of the statement from the Whitehouse. My argument was simply, this is what the people want, the executive branch agrees, its up to you guys to make it happen so please do so. I can only imagine how hard it will be to be re-elected if you were to not support such legislation when it came up in favor of one of your big donors (AT&T). Sincerely, ....

The process is slow, but it is pretty durable. I've got both the petition and the Whitehouse response in my notebook, and we're in an 'off' year but next year we'll put a bunch of new candidates up for congress, this will come out again as a test to see if they did what was demanded or not. So the stage is set assuming we use the tools given us :-)

[zanny]

> its up to you guys to make it happen so please do so. I can only imagine how hard it will be to be re-elected if you were to not support such legislation when it came up in favor of one of your big donors (AT&T).

It isn't in favor of AT&T. At all. Having platform lock in means after they sell you a device they can price gouge you indefinitely and since you probably bought the device outright since you aren't on a 2 year contract and thus have the option to change carriers, you probably don't want to just ditch it immediately.

Platform lock in is good for device manufacturers, carriers, and business, but bad for consumer freedom, choice, and market competitiveness. And there is no multi-billion dollar lobby for the the latter.

[ChuckMcM]

AT&T has been a large donor in the past to various PACs and congressional races where the candidate favored not giving the end user choices. In my correspondence with my representatives I often go to OpenSecrets.org and look up who has been funding the person I'm writing like this: https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N000...

It helps to know who they got money from, because if I ask them to take a stand that their donors won't like, that is where the counter argument will come from. Sometimes you can cut that off before it happens by going to the donors site(s) and looking for white papers or position statements that outline their arguments for what it is they believe.

[qlkzy]

ChuckMcM is agreeing with you AFAICT --- it's "not supporting X in favour of AT&T" i.e. preferring AT&T over the people.

[atonse]

Funny with the quotes around legislature.

The executive branch of gov't cannot make laws. It's that simple. But if they needed to somehow override something without waiting for Congress, there are vehicles like Executive Orders. But they are more like exceptions and statements of policy, and still not substitutes for legislation.

Either way, the ideal solution here IS for congress to draft legislation. That is the only solution that'll be permanent, long term, and clearer to discuss (or dismiss) in courts.

In no way shape or form, is this AT ALL an urgent matter that they have to address by doing an Executive Order. As much as I'd love to have my iPhone unlocked, it ranks near to the bottom of what I'd like the President to focus his energy on, especially when signing Executive Orders that are supposed to actually carry weight.

If we want Obama to sign an executive order, then we must present a case as to why this is so urgent that it can't wait for Congress to draft legislation.

This is the best we could've hoped for, without really wishing that Obama was a dictator that could wave his hands and invent laws overnight.

Edit: I for one fully support what ChuckMcM says - at this point, we should contact our congressmen and tell them this is important to us, and that we want to see legislation drafted sooner rather than later.

[MichaelGG]

To be fair though, isn't that how the US government is supposed to work? It's not like the President can just arbitrarily change laws.

[brown9-2]

Yes, and a large amount of people who propose petitions on change.org seem to not understand this.

[drharris]

Um, that hasn't stopped the past few administrations from doing exactly that.

[leetrout]

Or the current one... Or at least the current regime's attempts to use executive orders to ignore the legislative process. Par for the course.

[arbitrage]

You do know that the executive branch doesn't actually write laws, right? By the definitions of the U.S. Constitution, the "legislature" in fact is required to write laws that can address the issue.

The Executive branch can influence or request actions of Congress, and it sounds like they're trying to do just that. But they don't have a magic sword that can cut through bureaucracy, which it seems that many people are criticizing them for not having. :/

[smacktoward]

If it wants to, an administration can work through friendly Members of Congress to get a piece of legislation it wants into the hopper. The White House (or some cabinet agency) writes the bill and passes it to a friendly member; the friendly member introduces it under their own name; then they work together to whip up co-sponsors.

What this response indicates is that the Administration agrees with the petitioners on this issue, but not strongly enough to spend any political capital on it. Working the Hill in this fashion requires calling in favors, and a favor called in on cell phone locking is a favor that can't be called in on some other issue.

[methodin]

And this is an okay practice in your eyes?

[ryguytilidie]

This is pretty much the outcome of every single petition on the whitehouse site.

-Someone requests some completely common sense thing happen. -Thing interferes with huge company making lots of money. -Whitehouse says something like "while we agree with you, we wont do anything to help, cheers!".

Cool, thanks representatives of the people?

[mpyne]

> Cool, thanks representatives of the people?

Congress represents the people. The Executive branch carries out the law enacted by the representatives of the people.

The leader of the Executive branch is really the most input people get into the Executive branch (and even what we have now is much more representative of a popular vote than what the Constitution's framers had originally intended).

[gmisra]

Or you might want to take "DR" less literally and actually read the statement and realize that changing unlocking rules doesn't require legislative intervention. The Library of Congress oversees the designation of DMCA exceptions, and the specific act in question was the non-renewal of an existing unlocking exemption. The LoC stated today (as part of a coordinated response to the petition) that this set of exemptions will be re-reviewed: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2013/13-041.html

[fennecfoxen]

It's extra funny because this White House doesn't actually meet with the legislature. I think they had something like a 9-minute meeting with the Speaker of the House during the whole sequester-deadline rigamarole -- and that mostly as a token gesture after they were getting called out for not meeting with the legislature.

Obligatory Disclaimer: No comment is herein offered on the merits of the positions of the Republican Speaker of the House or the Democrat President with regards to the recent sequester-deadline rigamarole.

[mikeash]

What can they do about it besides try to get Congress to change the law?