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by ChuckMcM 4858 days ago
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 :-)
1 comments
zanny 4858 days ago
> 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.

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ChuckMcM 4858 days ago
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.

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qlkzy 4858 days ago
ChuckMcM is agreeing with you AFAICT --- it's "not supporting X in favour of AT&T" i.e. preferring AT&T over the people.
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