[dubfan]

The special interests behind legislation like CISPA have professional lobbyists and millions of dollars to pay them. If you're a private citizen and want a law passed at the federal level, you need to have a cute and young white child who died due to something your law legislates against. Otherwise you don't stand a chance of being heard.

[rayiner]

That's a bullshit excuse. If you can't raise a few million dollars for your cause, it's probably because nobody gives a shit about your cause.

You think we got clean air, clean water, etc, legislation passed because Sierra Club and Earth Justice are rolling in money? No, it's because they have a cause that people care about and passionate volunteers that dedicate their lives to fighting for it. It's not the system's fault that people don't understand nor care about stuff like CISPA.

[dubfan]

They've also got politicians who would love to go to their constituents during campaign season and tell them "Look, I supported clean air!" Contrast this to opposing civil liberties restrictions, which can very easily and effectively be spun by political opponents as leaving America open to terror attacks. Even with the PATRIOT Act, something much more substantial than CISPA, political opposition has been limited to some relatively marginal politicians who are extremely popular in their jurisdictions and not likely to be ousted.

[rayiner]

> They've also got politicians who would love to go to their constituents during campaign season and tell them "Look, I supported clean air!"

Because there are people who actually care about clean air.

> Contrast this to opposing civil liberties restrictions, which can very easily and effectively be spun by political opponents as leaving America open to terror attacks.

Supporting environmental legislation is very easily spun by political opponents as costing America jobs.

The amount of political opposition to environmental laws is otherworldly. There are a few companies here and there making money off things like Rapiscanners, but the companies whose profits are hurt by environmental regulations account for trillions in US revenue each year. Everything from Exxon Mobil to small chemical plants with $10 million in revenues. And while "think of 9/11" has a certain impact, it's not only fading but even at it's peak never compared to the visceral cultural opposition towards environmental laws. Industries impacted by environmental laws are literally ways of life in many parts of the country. People in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, etc, fight to allow coal companies to keep poisoning them as part of their cultural heritage.

To put things into context: adding up U.S. box-office, DVD/Blu-Ray/etc, and music (digital and CD) revenues doesn't break $40 billion a year. Apple by itself made more than that last quarter. Exxon by itself makes 10x as much in a year, and there are 8 other petroleum companies in the Fortune 100. But environmentalists somehow manage to get some wins. While tech people whine incessantly about how "the system" is why they can't make any headway against the RIAA/MPAA.

[nitrogen]

The RIAA/MPAA/News Corp/Disney/etc. own the means of communication to the masses. This is changing with the Internet, which is why they are so opposed to Internet-friendly legislation.

[rayiner]

So? When have you ever seen them actually use that to push theirn legislative agenda? Tech companies are far more active in using their status to push politics (e.g. SOPA protest).

[nitrogen]

Pushing their agenda: "You wouldn't download a car"?

Not covering other agendas: basically any news agency ever that only covers one side of a story (e.g. anti-gun-control news stations only reporting positive gun news, pro-gun-control stations only reporting negative gun news, no news stations reporting on anything outside the viewer-driving manufactured hot button issues). Another example, though this is an isolated case, there was a station in Nevada during the 2008 campaign season that only showed the polling numbers of their selected candidates, even though another candidate was polling higher than some of the ones they listed.

[chc]

Actually, the MPAA have shoved their legislative agenda down the throats of moviegoers for many, many years now. Why do you think there are still people who make the mistake of calling copyright violations "theft" even after billions of bytes have been wasted on that semantic debate? Because a constant stream of propaganda has been devoted to drawing that connection in all of our minds.

[AnthonyMouse]

>Contrast this to opposing civil liberties restrictions, which can very easily and effectively be spun by political opponents as leaving America open to terror attacks.

How is that different from anything else? Pollution controls are painted as "job killing regulation" or "will raise the price of energy" or whatever this year's talking points are.

I kind of get the feeling that the reason things don't get done is only that people think they can't do anything. So they don't write to Congress or protest or donate money to EFF, and then their pessimism becomes self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing.

If you want change then you have to make it happen.

[nitrogen]

It's not the system's fault that people don't understand nor care about stuff like CISPA.

Actually, it is. The "system" (or, more accurately, the emergent collective behaviors of well-moneyed groups acting in their self interest) tells the masses what to care about, and thanks to being brought up by the "system", they eat it up. Thanks to the direction of the "system", we still have political debates about the age of the Earth, evolution, and other emotionally loaded issues that have no actual bearing on matters that have a substantial impact on the future of the planet.

[likpok]

So start soliciting donations and hire your own professional lobbyist. The amount of whining about how the political process is broken because it actually takes work to influence legislation is a little ridiculous.

[ori_b]

Better: Start forming a coalition of private individuals and companies, and use that group to hire lobbyists. The game is broken, but you can't win if you refuse to play.

[mindslight]

You can certainly enjoy your life a lot more if you take your ball, go home, and play with your computer. Who knows, computers may even turn out to be popular in a decade's time.

[nitrogen]

I've come to the conclusion that mainstreaming a technology results in the technology conforming to the mainstream, rather than the mainstream adopting the interests of the early adopters of the technology.

[rayiner]

Which is precisely how it should be. Technology is for the use and convenience of the masses--it's not a vector for political minorities to spread their ideological viewpoints. My mom doesn't need to listen to Vint Cerf's politics to use the TCP/IP to trade pictures of my kid with my wife's mom.

[mindslight]

Yes, clearly the capabilities of technology shouldn't inform people's philosophies. They should continue to receive their views via mass media social pressure instead.

[bconway]

Yet somehow the Loud Commercials Lobby lost to the Reasonable Volume Commercials masses. Too bad that couldn't have been something important.