Q&A With Shari Steele
From the February 2003 issue of CPU Magazine comes this interesting interview with the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
--> www.cpumag.com/cpufeb03/steele (you need to be a CPU subscriber to get the whole story; this is just an excerpt, alas)
Selected highlights:
On Digital Rights Management and new technologies:
I think that most people aren’t really paying attention to the battles that are going on right now, and they will lose their rights before they even know that anything has happened. There’s a huge discussion taking place right now on HDTV, the new digital television, that’s going to be the only thing transmitted a few years from now. I think by 2006 that’s supposed to be the only thing that gets broadcast. But there’s this big thing where you wouldn’t be able to receive the broadcast unless you have licensed players. The issue is whether or not technology companies need to really be limited by the entertainment industry’ requirements. Right now, it’s being done in standards committees rather than by Congress. But the CBDTPA would make it so that Congress is actually getting involved in making it illegal for technology companies to create innovative designs that haven’t been preapproved by the entertainment industry. And consumers have no idea that they’re not going to be able even to receive digital signals. They’re not going to be able to receive broadcast television. This whole battle is taking place right now without consumers having any concept of what’s transpiring.
On Homeland Security laws:
The antiterrorism legislation has made it so that the FBI can track your Web browsing habits, and they probably are doing it already if you’ve indicated at all that you’ve got any interest in what’s going on with the Palestinian terror groups. Or take al Qaeda, for example. If you go to al Qaeda’s Web site, just because you’re interested in knowing about al Qaeda, I think it’s pretty safe to say that your Web browsing habits will be tracked from now on.