Lessig

Yes!

Dr. Dean,

Just the idea of a White House blog makes me anxious to pull the voting lever today. Access to government is one of the many rights that have eroded.

Thank you,

Rob

Minor correction--SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative), not SDMA.

Thanks for your responses!

Regarding the DMCA, I feel that it stifles free speech. It prevents people from reverse engineering technology to find insecurities, even though there are many legitimate academic and scientific purposes for this.

One example of how horrible this is occurs with voting machines--there are electronic voting systems whose internals are protected weakly, but it's illegal to reverse engineer them to find vulnerabilities.

So, if there's an electronic voting machine that's very insecure, it's illegal for people to reverse engineer them to circumvent any weak security and prove that they're insecure. This "security through obscurity" will lead to weaker security schemes that aren't accountable. Anyone who would want to rig voting wouldn't feel restricted by the laws, whereas scientists wanting to study their security and show that they're insecure couldn't do this without facing legal ramifications.

As for copyright law, in brief, I feel that it's very unbalanced. The Constitution grants people the ability to have copyrights in order "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

But, why do copyrights need to last someone's whole life plus 75 years? It seems to me that this restricts the public domain, and it is extremely unbalanced in favor of inventors rather than the public domain. Copyright isn't a natural right and should only exist for a limited time--say, 25 to 50 years. Early on in US history, I believe that it was only around 15 years.

Of course, there are many other arguments against the DMCA and current copyright law, but these are a few that I feel are the most important.

Dr. Dean. This entry is an improvement over the last two, which seemed a bit disconnected from the discussion. I hope that you can give us further details in the next few days of blogging. Also, please tell us some personal information about yourself. What makes you tick? For instance you're an MD -- what scientific books have you read recently that may influence your thinking? The more we know about your background the better able we can help you.

Now, on to the subject at hand. I hope that the comments here help you formulate a rational copyright policy in your potential future administration. One question: can you even present a policy that reduces the monopoly power of the media given that you will inevitably depend on them for electoral success?

We hope the person that is in charge of reading the blog sent them to the President. I doubt that the President can read the whole blogs that are sent.

Sería una muy buena idea. Esperamos que la persona que se encuentre a cargo de leer los blog los envié al Presidente. Dudo que el Presidente pueda leer todo los blogs que se le envían.

Will, Dr. Dean answered one of your questions in the the blog entry that you are replying to: "It’s also clearly unconstitutional to detain indivduals and deny them access to a lawyer". This is exactly what was done with Jose Padilla.

On medical marijuana, Dr. Dean has said that he opposes the state-by-state approach, and will order the FDA to do the science to
reclassify it if appropriate (and it seems there's already enough in
the literature to provide evidence that it's effective for a number of conditions). I think that an FDA that reports to an M.D. rather than to a right-wing radical is likely to do the right thing. Pot might wind up having the same status as cocaine, which is approved as a local anaesthetic but
still illegal and controlled. So, he's to the right of me on this one, but if the FDA winds up approving pot for glaucoma and as anti-nausea for chemotherapy patients (as well as for a couple of other uses), this would then apply in all 50 states, not just liberal states that allow ballot propositions.

Me: Like others, I have to disagree with your use of the term "rape" to describe Disney's use of the public domain. I do think Disney is hypocritical for using public domain characters and stories, and not giving back. I am a big proponent of rolling back copyright extension and the DMCA. But taking freely available material isn't "rape."

Semantic precision is important. Sloppy terminology makes our arguments against Disney and company look hysterical and/or confused.

Interesting remark from Gov. Dr. Dean today: It’s also clearly unconstitutional to detain indivduals and deny them access to a lawyer.

While it's generally true that the constitution doesn't allow individuals to be detained without charge or counsel, there are certain exceptions, some better recognized than others. One is a prisoner of war exception, and this applies regardless of citizenship and place of detention, as it did during the Civil War. And another is the exception made when the government arrests on bench warrants issued in civil cases, such as suspected non-payment of child support. The prisoner-of-war exception has been operational since 1812, and it's not particularly controversial today, outside of reflexive Bush-bashing circles, except as to the definition of who's a POW and who isn't.

The child support exception is of more recent vintage, and should be of more concern to genuine civil libertarians because it affects thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people annually. Child support is a debt unlike any other, in which the debtor can be sent to prison for non-payment, and for which there is no right to counsel as long as it's charged as contempt of court (a civil law beef) rather than criminal violation of a duty-to-support statute.

Does this concern anyone, or do we believe that child support is so important to innocent children and their mothers that the end justifies the means?

I use the term Rape, because what they do is take, and take, and take, and not give anything back.

The term comes from the Roman mythical event, the Rape of the Sabine Women, in which the Romans invited the Sabine tribe to visit, and at a signal from the emperor Romulus, stole the women. Later, the Sabines attacked to win back their women, and the Romans killed them.

So, Disney "Rapes" the Public Domain the same way the Romans "Raped" the Sabine people: They take freely, and DO NOT GIVE BACK.

Clear enough in terminology?

Governor Dean,

I've been impressed with your campaign so far, and know many people who support you, but so far have remained on the fence as to who is best to take down our current fascist regime in Washington. The question of Intellectual Freedom is one of the key issues that is keeping me on the fence. Regarding the DMCA, as former President of the DePaul University Linux Users Group and a journalist in the IT field, may I offer a few suggestions:

The Constitution explicitly empowers Congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

So any act of Congress that can not be shown to "promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts" is contrary to the Constitution. Similarly, anything that is not a "limited time" is contrary to the Constitution. These are some of the main points that people interested in these issues talk about.

Another impact of the DMCA is that it has established a de facto "guilty until proven innocent" policy for copyright infringement. While it may not be part of the letter of the law, countless times in the past few years we've seen some small site shut down by a cease and desist letter from a large corporation, which the courts (the government) then insist the small site obey. That is, they are assumed to be in infringement unless they prove otherwise in court, and these small sites never have the money to go up against an army of lawyers on retainer at multi-national corporations. That is not dissimilar from warrant-less search and seisure, which is a portion of the Patriot Act that, according to another poster here, you oppose (and I agree with you).

It has also resulted in another loophole around warrants. Twice in recent memory (Verizon and SonicBlue), the courts have, using the DMCA as an excuse, ordered a company to turn over its customer lists and information about its private business dealings not to the court, not to the police, but to members of the RIAA. In essence we have deputized multi-national corporations with law enforcement power, but without any judicial oversight.

It should be noted that the same companies that would benefit from the FCC deregulations are the ones that are actively subverting the law via the DMCA and similar measures. (They are either the same corporate entity, or owned by the same corporate entity, such as the UPN network, division of Paramount, division of Viacom.)

I fully understand that not many voters outside those already interested in these issues will understand the lengthy details of these policies. That is one of the reasons why it has been so hard to raise awareness of these issues. That is why I mention the analogies to unlawful search and seisure. The 4th Amendment is something that most voters do understand (except under the Patriot Act, of course).

Quite simply, if our private physical property is to be protected from unlawful search, seisure, and destruction by the government or by others (including other people and other companies), then shouldn't our digital property be similarly protected?

For more on the damages of the DMCA, permit me to refer to you to an article I wrote last year, aimed at a high school audience.

http://www.digitalspeech.org/dmca.shtml

Thank you again for taking the time to speak with us this week.

(And about a White House Blog, very cool idea. T'would need a better interface than MoveableType, though. Maybe SlashCode?)

Me: I hate to clog this thread with quibbling, but both your etymology and definition of "rape" are incorrect. It actually comes from a Latin word meaning "abduct" or "seize" (check your dictionary).

Disney is not "abducting" or "seizing" Aladdin or Snow White; these characters are still freely available for the rest of us to use. Remember, Thomas Jefferson said that just as one can light a candle from another candle without diminishing the original flame, one can acquire an idea without diminishing the original source. That's the beauty of the public domain.

Again, I'm no fan of Disney, and I do think they are hypocrites, but their use of public-domain characters does not diminish others' access to them. So unlike the Sabine women, these characters and stories haven't been raped, abducted, or seized in any sense of those words.

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is... an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." --Thomas Jefferson

I'll not belabor this point further.

The interesting thing about copyright is that it protects individual artists, and not just Evil Multinationals Who Rape the Environment, Foul the Air, and Kill the Fishies. One such artist who would like this better understood is the punk rock genius and blogger Dr. Frank, who writes about people who want music to be free:

Sounds great. What I still can't figure out, though, as I've said time and again, is: if nobody has to buy anything, where do you get the money to make the recordings? It's hell of expensive. As it stands, you get it from a record company, which advances you the money in the expectation that it can be recouped by exploiting the resulting product; or you do it small-scale by yourself and or with friends, not calling it a company perhaps, but still stuck with the reality that every dollar you spend has to come from somewhere. But we're declaring this method, this entire model, illegitimate, a fallacy, an "ass".

What are we supposed to do, have a PBS-style pledge drive or something? Let me know if you really have figured out a way to record an album for free, because it would really help me out right now.

He explains the issues better than I can, so go check it out if you're genuinely interested in helping the Little Guy.

http://www.doktorfrank.com

I have no problem with limited-term copyright.

But when it's for over a century; when the balance is 99.8% for the artist... that's silly.

Patents don't last that long, and for good reason. Imagine if the automobile were still patented, and Ford the only company allowed to make them... now realize that that already applies to all copyrighted works.

Starts to look a bit silly, no?

And for Geheimbundler: The problem is that Disney then uses their own copyright to enforce pseudo-ownership. True, they cannot fully enforce it. But if you write something that even remotely resembles theirs... be prepared for lawyers. This comes down to even using the same NAMES.

In any case, let's rephrase then. Disney PILLAGES and PLUNDERS liberally from the public domain. Better?

Seems to be, yeah. Name-calling turns into sound bites after all, which is all that media (of either flavor) seems to know.

All Internet users would pay a surcharge on the assumption that they’d be downloading an average of X songs per month.

So my momma, living on a fixed income and struggling to pay for her prescription drugs, has to subsisidize your music habit in order to use the Internet to flirt with her boyfriend?

Sorry, dude, but that's a non-starter.

The treason comment was more a reaction to the "wartime president" to "criticism thereof is treason" self-contained thread than any of your comments. General frustration boiling over, basically.

"The beef" is that the administration is almost certainly being a bit slack in terms of the following provisions of the Geneva Convention:

• No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
• Prisoners shall have opportunities for taking physical exercise, including sports and games, and for being out of doors. Sufficient open spaces shall be provided for this purpose in all camps.
• Immediately upon capture, or not more than one week after arrival at a camp, even if it is a transit camp, likewise in case of sickness or transfer to hospital or another camp, every prisoner of war shall be enabled to write direct to his family, on the one hand, and to the Central Prisoners of War Agency provided for in Article 123, on the other hand, a card similar, if possible, to the model annexed to the present Convention, informing his relatives of his capture, address and state of health. The said cards shall be forwarded as rapidly as possible and may not be delayed in any manner.

Etc, etc.

-jdm

> As to Digitial Millenium Copyright Act and other copyright issues, we’re still developing a policy on these items...

From a business perspective, DMCA is a balancing process, between the authors of information and the marketers / distributors, the publishing industries.

Authors always think that publishers make too much money, and publishers always think that authors do. Book publishers pay authors their measly 10% or maybe at most 15%, of net -- after "expenses", the way they _don't_ do in Hollywood nowadays, for "stars" anyway -- and those "expenses" can wipe out profit entirely, for a long time. Book "stars" who get advances are pretty rare: the book publisher needs 5,000+ copies sold to break even, nowadays -- so that means authors and publishers who work on less, like most academics and too many "beginners", all go broke.

And authors, too, have an unrealistic estimation of the value, and the cost, of marketing and distribution. Many of them found this out the hard way recently in the Dotcom Bust: it's not enough simply to put up a fancy website -- it's never enough, in sales, to wait for the customer to come in -- you have to go out to get the customer, and then you have to distribute, and handle returns, and manage complaints, and do billing and collections, and...

Whether all of that is worth all of the expenses plus 90% of the profits, well... but it _is_ expensive, and most of the Dotcommers who did go Bust did so because they underestimated it: ask any venture capitalist who lost on them.

So I don't think DMCA, again from a business point of view, is so much a matter of the complex legal issues which it certainly represents as it is an economics transition, and a "changing industrial structure" question. In Lessig you have the nation's leading expert on DMCA legal issues, anyway. The underlying economics question for you, though, to me seems to be how far are you willing to readjust, now, the continuously-adjusting financial balance between authors and publishers?

Every publishing innovation, since Gutenberg and before, has caused a realignment in these terms. "Authorship" doesn't necessarily go back that far, but "ownership" does: the moment some 15th or 16th c. noble saw "money" in the new technique, the "dedication fee" and the "copyright fee" were born... So, same difference: DMCA is simply the latest chapter in a long financial interest-balancing tug of war.

The publishers won, on this DMCA round, I think. I basically agree with Lessig's position, as I understand it, and I sympathize greatly with Eldred. The Internet, and the new digital technologies generally but particularly the Internet, have provided the "author" with all sorts of new tools enabling a circumvention of the "publisher": an awful lot, of what those antiquated and top-heavy hierarchical industries -- like the print publishers and the movie studios and the music companies -- used to perform for society now no longer is needed.

But a lot of it still is. The Dotcommers found that out the hard way... For every harp-player out in Australia who has no chance of ever interesting Disney in marketing and distributing her little music disc -- who now can "go direct" via the Internet, and reach the entire world -- there is a Metallica rock group which still needs some giant marketing & distribution "publisher" machine. There are a lot of "little guys", but there also are a lot who aren't little -- and we, the public, need _both_ of them -- unless we're all going to listen only to Australian harp music, or only to Metallica...

So I believe, myself, that the DMCA legal issue is phony, somewhat: being used as a cover-up, by some, for other things. There is an underlying economic, and therefore political, problem beneath the legal arguments: the publishing market simply has changed -- new techniques have been discovered / developed which now make it possible, for some, to circumvent the older industry. The market will adjust to this, as witness the checkered recent fortunes of Universal, and Vivendi, and of print publishers everywhere -- but while it does, we need to avoid "hard-coding" anything legal into the fluid economic developments.

I would rely on Lessig, for this. His books and arguments make the case for the "little guy" pretty decisively and eloquently. But I wouldn't forget that the mass of us consumers -- Metallica fans and Danielle Steele readers and Australian harp music lovers and the rest -- still need the big publishers and movie houses and record companies, too, for some things. Marketing and distribution are not cheap, and amateurs can't do them. So if your policy backs away from DMCA, as I believe it should, let it do so with heavy input from old knowledgeable corporations which are in "the biz": they won't like what you are doing, but they know it's needed, and -- being "businesspersons" -- they will be happy to have been consulted, at least because they'll be looking closely for some profit advantage for themselves in your new policy, anyway...

I am very interested to know the Dean campaign's position on the coming peak in world conventional oil production that may occur around 2010 according to some retired expert petroleum geologists (see Dr. Colin Campbell). After the world peak is reached (US48 production peaked in the early 70s), there will be no possiblity of increasing the amount of conventional oil produced. How can the world economy grow without an increasing amount of energy? How can the "third world" develop in this environment? Renewables can help alleviate the slide down, but they cannot power the economic growth we are used to in the USA.

The Bush administration knows full well of this problem (see comments by Texas energy investment banker Matt Simmons) and this obviously played an important role in decision to invade Iraq.

Are you going to begin to educate the American public about "peak oil" if you take office?

Governor, a quick look at your list of campaign donors showed that you might be relying less on the usual Hollywood fatcats than some of your Democratic campaign rivals have. Were you immediately about to use Larry Lessig’s blog to announce a long-overdue stand against the DMCA and other atrocities? That’s what I hoped a few days ago.

Now, however, at least for the moment, you’ve let me down. A lifelong Democrat, I may or may not vote for you in the primary. But I can guarantee that will never happen if you continue to wimp out on copyright matters. You’ve had weeks and weeks to decide. Just when might you finish “developing a policy.” Come to think of it, can’t you use a Polaroid or even go digital? Forget politics; a Net-friendly position is simply the right one to take. But if you must be “pragmatic,” it’s clear that your boosters on the whole are anti-DMCA. Chris Suellentrop, writing in Slate, is correct: “Dean wants to be Napster, but his supporters are more like Gnutella: They don’t need to go through Dean to connect with one another.” And that is especially true on Net-related issues such as copyright.

You needn’t pander, though; just show a conscience and maybe a tinge of the better form of populism. Clerks and cops should be able to enjoy free or at least affordable information to reach sound decisions as parents and voters. Suppose a chemical plant is about to set up operations near their homes. Will a nurse not only be able to retrieve EPA information, but also benefit from easy online access to copyrighted books and local news articles about past effects of the chemicals involved? How familiar are you with blue-collar workers and others with demanding and inflexible schedules, especially in this era of waning union influence? Probably very much so, as an MD. Surely, then, you know how tired many working people are at the end of the day, especially mothers. Secretaries lack the same control over their schedules as $70K-a-year soccer moms. And wired libraries could empower the non-Volvo set more than just access to the conventional variety--however much we need brick libraries, too. Isn’t it, in fact, time for a well-stocked national digital library system, usable from home, to augment badly funded local branches? Support could come through a mix of public and private funds to assure maximum freedom of expression. The system could offer not only the usual forms of downloading but also provisions for file-sharing--with fair compensation for publishers and writers.

Meanwhile, for an example of the need for a balanced copyright policy and the just-described library system, I invite you to drop by http://www.teleread.org/blog/2003_07_01_archive.html#105837575530658585 on the Teleread.org site. You’ll read of the mothers and fathers at Rucker Stewart Middle School in Gallatin, Tennessee, who scraped up $750 for classics for their school—500 books they could have downloaded off the Internet for free. “What morons,” the copyright gentry would say. “No,” I would say, “what a persuasive example of the ignorance that a better information system could fight.” These are simply good people deprived of the facts and knowledge they needed for their children to enjoy thousands of classics, at no charge, from Gutenberg.net. Al Gore failed Rucker Stewart Middle School—despite the talk about a little Tennessee girl being able to dial up the entire Library of Congress. Far more entertainment executives sat on the White House’s NII Advisory Council than did teachers and librarians. A supposedly ex-copyright lobbyist, still plying his old trade, presided over the writing of the Green and White papers. Maybe you can do better than Clinton and Gore.

Alas, however, information on the Net isn’t enough by itself. The digital books, the scientific writings, the art, the music, must be a true part of our schools and libraries, with training and other forms of support at the local level. Much good can and should be done privately, such as through Gutenberg; but if we really want to take full advantage of the economies of the technology, we also need to do more. Will you distinguish yourself from so many of your fellow politicians and take a good stand on both copyright reform and the need for a well-stocked, well-integrated national digital library system of the kind discussed at http://www.teleread.org ? And if you can eventually inspire other Democrats and, yes, Republicans, too, then so much the better.

Meanwhile you might pay close attention to some thoughts of Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who publishes InstaPundit.com and who in many ways is probably my political opposite. How correct he was in observing at FoxNews.com: “Democrats are left with a choice: side with fatcats, and against consumers and popular artists, or turn on a constituency that has been a major source of campaign funds.” Can you please break us out of this destructive loop?

David Rothman, for TeleRead.org | dr@teleread.org

Author, “Copyright and K-12: Who Pays in the Network Era?”

http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/rothman.html

(A paper commissioned by the Department of Education under Bill Clinton but unfortunately still timely in most respects)

Re double posting. Sorry, people. Not the best connection around here right now, and that threw me off. Ideally under President Dean, the White House will be friendlier than the present one toward technological innovation--including the net.connection variety ;-) - DR

I've been trying to come up with a simple way to explain why the DMCA is bad, in a way a sympathetic politician might grasp. Here's what I've got now:

Dr. Dean, you're undoubtedly familiar with the Freedom-Of-Information Act (FOIA). It provides a means for citizens to examine the workings of our government (social architecture). As a topic, the Freedom-Of-Information Act is certainly not something the average voters cares about. But to reformers, to people participating in government, it's a critical issue.

The DMCA is a kind of technical Secrecy-Of-Information Act. It provides a means for corporations to *severely* punish citizens who examine the workings of our computerization of society (technological architecture) As a topic, this Secrecy-Of-Information Act is certainly not something the average voters cares about. But to reformers, to people participating in technology and society, it's a critical issue.

And just as an argument of National Security is used against the Freedom-Of-Information-Act, a similar argument about Crackers/Pirates is used to justify the Secrecy-Of-Information Act.

I'll plug my Library Of Congress DMCA testimony http://sethf.com/anticensorware/hearing_dc.php again as a very real-world example of the social benefits and personal perils of fighting secrecy.

Hello; I'm one of the mob that drifted in thanks to the news of Dean's blog-week. I certainly knew about Lessig, at least :)

I feel for the bind of any politician on a blog, even one willing to be strategically blunt like Dr. Dean. If he gets too specific about DMCA now and changes his position later he'll offend worse than being vague now. Everything he says he being watched and gauged. Unless you are as thorough-goingly unreflective as Mr. Bush that has to wear on a pol.

I do think you can say "Well, I'm not ready to declare my position on the DMCA, but my position will be based on my respect and concern for the public commons, fair use, and the public domain" etc. Call it a meta-position is safe enough and less traditonally 'political.' than simply failing to engage the subject.

As for me, I think what is more important that the term of copyright is that one's right to parody and comment on works not be infringed; there is increasing pressure to silence, for example, negative book reviews which quote the text. You are all well aware of these trends of course.

MY saw is what is happening to software & technology: aggresive software patents and the shift towards disallowing reverse engineering are barriers against competition that almost can't be beat. How can anyone but a giant corporation compete against, say, the "One Click" patent? Or companies that patent applications of algorithms? Or human genes, or what have you.

-thomas

Lessig and the EFF could advise you best about the DMCA. In general though the best principle to focus on is whatever allows, encourages, and protects the right of individuals and small businesses to innovate.

There's this line that a corporation's growth pattern can go over, where innovation becomes less important than protecting margin or attacking other companies from a monopolistic position. If monopoly can be limited, if smaller businesses and individuals and inventors can be encouraged, then it encourages that old Yankee ingenuity that I think of as the positive side of being American. When our laws encourage us to litigate defensively though, while our corporations might attain short term defensive advantages, I believe we're actually stunting our own long-term growth. In other words, help out MacGyver rather than the bully.

Emphasis on smaller business and american innovation will also help solve the issue of our jobs being drained offshore, because usually those offshore efforts come from companies that are so large that they have already decimated their competition. I personally don't believe in creating laws that prohibit offshore jobs because it is a negative control. We should be advocating MORE freedom of movement, not less, and creating policies that encourage more American innovation is a positive way to accomplish the same goal of creating more American jobs.

In addition, I hope you will also consider advocating changes in patent law - not in RELAXING standards to allow faster patent approvals as the current administration does, but in tightening up standards to return patent applications to their original standards: focusing on actual inventions and implementations, not on obvious thought patterns and ideas like software algorithms and business processes.

Finally, I hope you will appoint intellectual-property people that aren't blind ideologues, but that are honestly up to the task of reconciling very difficult oppositional forces and recommending unorthodox solutions. We citizens deeply want certain objectives, and we often have flawed reasoning on the best way to accomplish those objectives due to our lack of perspective. We're more open to creative solutions than the polls think we are...

Governor Dean,

Thanks for reading this far down in the comments.

I'm excited at how your campaign has embraced the internet. I think you're on the cusp of embracing that change yourself. Keep going.

You've said you're new to blogging. Have you taken a look at Gary Hart's blog? ( http://www.garyhartnews.com/hart/blog/ ) Senator Hart is a good blogger. His posts are meaty, thoughtful, and direct. They're worth examining.

Blog entries like that are more valuable than you realize. They energize your supporters, they convert those on the fence, and they make voters feel *connected* to you.

That, I think, is the greatest lesson of your campaign so far. Voters will reject candidates and campaigns they cannot feel connected to. If you can make enough people feel connected to your campaign, you will win. Period.

This form of connection is as cheap as they come. While it's important to reach out using every avenue available, the time and effort you spend blogging will pay some of the highest dividends. It's your secret weapon at this point, something neither Bush nor your competitors for the Democratic nomination seem to perceive.

I've watched and read your Great American Restoration speech. I've seen you hold a room full of folks spellbound talking about balancing the budget. I hope you'll make it a priority to set aside a block of time every couple of weeks and write about your vision for our American future. Write about the things you feel passionate about.

We'll listen. And we'll vote.

Governor Dean,

Yesterday, I told you about my experiences with the Patriot Act as an undergraduate, thank you for making your position known to this community and thank you for answering my question.

I'd like to tell you, or your staff, the the DMCA also posses a real threat for the many reasons outlined herein. Professor Lessig is a visionary in the area of copyright reform and it would be wise for any serious candidate for the Presidency to seek his advice on these important issues- and to name him to the bench.

The DMCA endangers technological advancement in this country. Like the "Patriot Act", it has a chilling effect on academic discourse by outlawing some common techniques in the field of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. This administration has impeded the progress of Science- you have my vote- if elected please reverse this alarming trend.

Respectfully,
Matt

Governor Dean,

It is an honor to write to a gentleman who himself has the honor to be among so many truly wondrous souls as are the Democratic contenders during this historic presidential election. (May it be an election, and not a selection, this time!)
And may whomever among you rises to the top, embody the best in each...Sharpton's humor, Braun's sagacity, Edwards' universality, Kucinich's vision, Kerry's gravitas, Gephardt's care for the worker, Lieberman's wit, Clark's wisdom...and your intuition and courage.
Any one of you would be better for America and the world. May you all bring out the best.

After Bush, what we know we need is, among other things -- many other things -- information, sunlight, truth, wisdom. Well, that's 4 things. Sorry. But blogging (which you all should do for the sake of feeding us information and openness) is a way to let us know the goods before we buy.
We were cheated last time.

White House blog? Under Mr. Secrecy? A few more months, and a legitimate President might do so.

May your better angels guide you all...

-Dave K. Beckwith
Charlotte, NC

Richard Bennett said:

Justin, do you have any reason to believe the POWs in Gitmo are being treated poorly, other than your reflexive hatred of the President? All the accounts I’ve seen say they’re being treated in way that’s very sensitive to their religious and ethnic ways, and that most of them are gaining weight.

The only news I have on the "Enemy Combatants" (I don't think they're even POW's, since technically there is no war) is that they are being held incommunicado, refused lawyers or any contact with the outside world, and they've been there that way for many months now. That's not how the United States should be treating prisoners. We're supposed to be supporting the Geneva Convention, and it's hypocritical to only apply it to our people.

Yes, I understand that we’re used to dealing with formal declarations of war against states

LOL. When's the last time we officially declared war against someone? I don't think we even declared war against North Vietnam, it was just a bunch of executive orders and resolutions of Congress. Declarations of war are apparently passe'; if you declare war, you give your enemy time to react and take up defensive positions, which costs American lives. Can't have that!

Do you propose, Benjamin, that we ignore Al Qaeda, or better yet, present arrest warrants to the governments that harbor them in hopes that we can put them on trial individually with court-appointed counsel? This doesn’t strike me as a realistic strategy.

Maybe not realistic, but certainly if we value the ideals we are supposedly fighting for we should seek to apply them equally. Especially to our enemies! Otherwise we're just another big nation with a big military throwing our weight around trying to bully other countries into doing our bidding.

Governor Dean,
It's been reported that the Secretart of Defense admits our troops will be in Iraq for the next five years. If, and when you win the election, and are in office, do you plan to retract these troops, and if so, any specifics would be enlightening.

Also, I'm aware of your plan on medical marijuana; would you plan to expediate the rate at which the FDA is given the chance to put it through it's trials; or do you plan to let it run it's course, and agree with their decision if and when it does?

I want to second "me"'s observation that Disney has made a fortune off the public domain and should now be forced to do the right thing and contribute to the same.

Do you propose, Benjamin, that we ignore Al Qaeda, ...

You might want to reread my post, as I said no such thing, and said as much.

... or better yet, present arrest warrants to the governments that harbor them ...

Harbor who? Members of Al Qaeda? Certainly. If a nation provides material support, such as safe haven (see Afghanistan), they risk facing the rightful wrath of the US. If they turn them over, we try them. I don't see what's so unreasonable about that.

...in hopes that we can put them on trial individually with court-appointed counsel?

What do you mean, "in hopes"? If you're issuing an arrest warrant, you're doing it because you have reason to believe they have are are planning to commit a crime.

This doesn’t strike me as a realistic strategy.

I guess I'm not clear about what you think is, although you give me the distinct impression that it involves giving the government a great deal more power to the government than I, or I imagine our founding fathers, think is wise.