EFF: You Have 48 Hours to Stop the Broadcast Flag

[mbellot]

June 20, 2005

Rumor is afoot that Hollywood is taking another crack at the Broadcast Flag on Capitol Hill, this time by sneaking a Flag provision into an appropriations bill before the Senate.

If what we hear is true, the provision will be introduced before a subcommittee tomorrow and before the full appropriations committee on Thursday. That gives us 48 hours to stop it.

EFF's action alert, geared to people with senators on the committee, is here. Public Knowledge also provides a number of excellent talking points in an email urging readers to phone their senators:

The entire release:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/003720.php

[RealStyro]

Here is a more direct link to the EFF Action Center...

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?page=UserAction&cmd=display&id=145

Note:
This action alert is restricted to constituents whose senator sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee. That means only residents of Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, or Wisconsin can use it.

[somebodeez]

Senate punts on broadcast flag option
Published: June 23, 2005, 3:31 PM PDT

At a meeting reserved for voting on spending bills, not one member of the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed an amendment authorizing federal regulators to mandate the broadcast flag.

Consumer groups had predicted that such an amendment would be offered at the 11 a.m. PDT meeting and had asked their supporters to contact senators in opposition to the idea. Their worry: The broadcast flag could be injected into an appropriations bill for the Federal Communications Commission.

The strategy seems to have worked. "The broadcast flag amendment was not included in the bill," said Virginia Davis, press secretary for Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

more -

http://news.com.com/Senate+punts+on+broadcast+flag+option/2100-1028_3-5759807.html

And from EFF:

You did it!

Following thousands of faxes and mails and calls to Appropriations Committee Senators, the amendment was not introduced in either sub-committee or full committee. The Broadcast Flag is now a red flag to politicians in Washington.