If You Want To Know How Supporting Techdirt Can Help Shift The Debate In Washington DC, Read This
from the important-stuff dept
Wondering if coverage like ours can really make a difference? In 2014, former Senate staffer Jennifer Hoelzer sent us this unsolicited piece about Techdirt's influence on lawmakers in the SOPA fight. With today's encryption debate now shifting back to Congress, she's given us her support in republishing the story (with a few minor edits) to drive that point home. If you want quantitative data to go with her anecdotal experience, you can see this Harvard study that highlighted Techdirt's influence in that debate. Please help us do the same for the fight over encryption as well.
Help Techdirt Make Sure Congress Doesn't Sell Out Our Privacy & Security
Hi. My name is Jen... and I was once a Congressional staffer who knew so little about Internet policy that I had no idea how little I knew about Internet policy. (I think this is where you're supposed to supportively say, "Hi, Jen," and reassure me that this is a safe space for me to continue my embarrassing confession. Because it gets worse.)In late 2010, when my former boss -- U.S. Senator Ron Wyden -- announced that he was putting a hold on the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) – the predecessor to PIPA and later, SOPA -- I not only didn't know how the DNS system worked, I'm not sure I knew what infringement meant. (I'm not proud of these things, but they're true.)
If my boss hadn't involved himself in this issue, odds are I would never have heard of it and, heck, if by some chance I had learned that the Judiciary Committee had unanimously passed legislation giving law enforcement (what their press release called) "important tools" to go after illegal activity, I probably wouldn't have given the issue any thought beyond thinking it was nice that Democrats and Republicans remembered how to work together.
Worse yet, when my chief of staff stopped by my office to let me know that the Senator would be placing a hold on the legislation, I didn't drop what I was doing to alert reporters or ask one of my deputies to pound out a press release. I'm not sure I even looked up from my computer.
Honestly, it didn't occur to me that anyone would consider what my boss did that afternoon news, until I got a Google News Alert that a blog called, Techdirt, had written about it.
Now, in my defense, the above does not mean that I was lazy or willfully ignorant. From the outside, I realize Congress doesn't appear to do anything, but there are so many bills and issues swirling around Capitol Hill at any one time that it's a challenge just to stay on top of the sliver of them that pertains to your job. On an average day, Senator Wyden could go from a breakfast forum on health reform, to a committee hearing on tax reform, to introducing legislation on renewable energy, to questioning the forest service on resources for firefighting, before giving a floor speech on NSA surveillance, and that would just be before noon. So, the odds of my being on top of something that happened in a Committee my boss wasn't assigned to -- like the Judiciary Committee -- were slim.
Furthermore, my deputies and I -- as Wyden's communications director -- could barely keep up with all of the questions and requests we got from reporters. We didn't have the time or resources to tweet about everything he did, let alone proactively promote all of his work. I mean, just writing and distributing a press release can take a few hours, coming up with a messaging strategy, educating reporters, planning events and writing the various one-pagers, FAQs, op-eds and speeches needed to support a successful advocacy campaign can take days, weeks, even months and that's if nothing else is going on (which is rarely the case).
The day Senator Wyden put a hold on COICA, was the same day he introduced legislation to amend the Affordable Care Act with Senator Scott Brown. I was getting inundated with questions from reporters and bloggers wanting to understand "why in the hell he'd do such a thing," plus the Democratic caucus wanted us to put out and promote a statement pushing for the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which had my deputy tied up, in addition to the various other things that tended to make the end of session a sprint.
I didn't jump at the opportunity to publicize my boss's hold announcement, because I didn't know enough about the issue to judge its news value, let alone explain it to reporters or write a quick press release, and I didn't have the time to learn enough about it to do any of those things before the end of the day. So, I told my chief of staff "great" and went back to talking to reporters about health policy.
Again, I'm not proud of the above story, but I was moved to share it, when I read that Techdirt's coverage of the COICA/PIPA/SOPA debate ultimately cost them more than 50% of their advertising revenue and has since forced them to operate at a loss.
I don't want to imagine a tech debate without Techdirt in it.
I can't even begin to imagine how the COICA/PIPA/SOPA debate would have gone without Mike Masnick and Techdirt's coverage.
But I can imagine where I -- personally -- would have been without Techdirt's coverage. All I have to do is close my eyes and remember November 18, 2010. Now, as much as I'd like to tell you that Mike's November post on Ron Wyden's COICA hold changed everything for me, it didn't. One post couldn't make me an expert on Internet issues any more than a single story could have won the debate. But I can say the more I learned about the issues surrounding COICA and later PIPA and SOPA – and the more confident I grew in my knowledge and ability to explain those issues -- the more involved I got, the more press releases, speeches, FAQ's and blogs I wrote in support of Ron's work, the more reporters I talked to, coverage I influenced, and interviews I secured for the senator.
I can also say, I wouldn't have been able to do any of those things (at least not well) without Mike Masnick and the rest of the guys at Techdirt, because they're the guys who taught me tech policy.
That's not to say, I didn't work with really smart people who taught me a lot, I did and they did; but with Techdirt, I never had to ask a stupid question or admit what I didn't know. (I just kept reading.) Techdirt's posts were consistently straightforward, easy to understand and timely. Sure, another site might put together one or two good posts or a definitive explainer, but reading Techdirt every day was like taking a college course on the issues with every new post helping me understand a new aspect of what I'd learned previously. I often found some of the site's shorter posts and illustrative examples the most helpful, because they were the examples I ultimately used to explain the issues to others. For example, I've yet to find a better way to get someone to see the potential harm bills like SOPA and PIPA can do to free speech than pointing out that Universal once tried to blacklist 50 Cent's personal website, a fact I learned from a 6/21/11 Techdirt post, entitled "Did Universal Music Declare 50 Cent's Own Website A Pirate Site?" (Seriously, that story alone helped me convince at least a dozen – non-tech – reporters to write about the issue, not to mention all of the Hill staffers I shared it with.)
If you care about your privacy and security, you want Techdirt to be at full strength in the encryption debate. You want them to be educating more lawmakers and their staffers (like my former self) to understand these issues and be confident enough in their knowledge to take a stand against invasive government.
I'm donating to Techdirt's campaign because I know where I would have been without their work and I don't want a tech debate to take place without them. I hope you will do the same. It's also a great way to say thanks.
Help Techdirt Make Sure Congress Doesn't Sell Out Our Privacy & Security
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: all writs act, congress, crypto wars, education, encryption, washington dc
Companies: apple
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Thanks!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Created Problems...
You have to ask yourself... why is congress so busy that they do not have the time to "PROPERLY" attend to their duties?
Do they like it this way?
Are they willfully ignorant of the economy and by proxy the lives they fuck over with this?
Do they even care that their schedules are so busy that they are fundamentally unable to even function as a human fucking being representing multitudes of other human beings?
There is an insidious problem from the bottom up in Government and it starts with "The People" completely refusing to learn what their proper place is inside a liberty focused republic, and continuing to vote in politicians based on zero facts and buckets of lies and misdirection.
You can indeed fool most of the people most of the time... and with very little effort it does seem!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Created Problems...
I could say that about many private sector CEOs/owners/employers, so is that reflective on our society as a whole? I do agree about the need for a tasking study if all the Senators and Representitives are that busy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Created Problems...
The reason for this is because they have nothing complex to think about so to stay busy in their own minds they do this to fill in the gaps.
This is also a side effect of self important people. They have some need to show that they are highly productive and therefore more valuable, regardless of weather or not their production quality is even decent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Created Problems...
This problem is systemic - the accumulation of decades of corruption, complacency, and ever-increasing greed by those in power. When the only candidates up for election are people who will extend the status quo instead of effecting any real change, you get our current situation:
- Corporations are buying laws which increase their profits at the expense of The People
- CEOs are suing the government when it tries to regulate monopolies
- Officials who try to actually change things end up hung from nooses made of red tape
When those in power take their positions for the sake of said power, the only people who progress and get promoted are those who support that very same system. It's hard to climb high enough to fix the current power culture when everybody above and around you has a vested interest in keeping it broken - after all, a broken system is how they got their job. The system supports itself by making sure that people who support it, those who want the power, get more of it than those who don't.
This is a historic trend and has happened all over the world; this is how villages gained chiefs, chiefs became warlords, warlords became kings, and kings turned into absolute dictators.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There Goes the Neighborhood
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nice but - millionaires asking for money is not in my game plan
So Imma gonna let 'em.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Nice but - millionaires asking for money is not in my game plan
Not sure who you're talking about, but I can assure you that we are *not* millionaires asking for money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Nice but - millionaires asking for money is not in my game plan
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'd help but...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I'd help but...
Beacon has been a really useful platform for us in terms of managing the crowdfunding process, but if you'd prefer to just give directly there are ways to do so at our own "insider shop":
https://rtb.techdirt.com/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Senator Burr NOT Responding
He is on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Senator Burr NOT Responding
He's not just on it, he chairs it. I would guess that he and his staff are not fans of Techdirt.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Senator Burr NOT Responding
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: reading Techdirt every day was like taking a college course
I enjoy Tech Dirt. But popularity eventually devolves into some propagandist conglomerate buying out a site. So congrats to those with stock options, but please, can we talk about actual issues a while longer before TD goes the way of Wired and the Amazon Post?
Thanks!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: reading Techdirt every day was like taking a college course
Best way to avoid that kind of thing? Have enough readers support the site directly! :)
Either way, we've been at this for almost 19 years now. Going to take a lot to shut us up...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: reading Techdirt every day was like taking a college course
I've always wondered how the trolls and shrills haven't put together their own crowdfunder for this :)
Oh and what's with the extra $1 from what it used to be? Inflation? or did Dark Helmet up his price! bwahahahahaha
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cheers, Mike! Troll tears are good for the soul.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]