The Worst Coders in Washington

The best code in the world can be foiled by a single bug. One careless line of code can crash an entire program.

Lawrence Lessig calls laws "East Coast Code," and it only takes a few buggy laws to strangle freedom and innovation in technology. Laws like the DMCA, the Hollings Bill, and the CDA threaten to put the American technology juggernaut up on blocks.

AOTC has researched the sponsors of eight bad Internet laws and compiled a list of their most prolific campaign contributors. These laws were written and sponsored by a tiny handful of lawmakers, backed by a tiny handful of wealthy financiers. These bad coders and their backers have done more damage to computing, the Internet and freedom than all the virus authors, spammers and crackers combined.

The Laws

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), H.R.2281

1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) flooded American technology with punishing legal action, jailing scientists and destroying companies. The DMCA's "anti-circumvention" provisions have trumped the First Amendment and have given copyright holders a whip hand over every use of the material they sell to their customers.

Communications Decency Act (CDA), S.314/ H.R.1004

1995's Communications Decency Act turned the Internet into a First-Amendment-Free zone. Speech that would be absolutely protected in the "real world" was criminalized if transmitted over the Internet. After a protracted court battle, a Philadelphia Federal Court zapped this buggy code, declaring the CDA un-Constitutional.

Child Online Protection Act (COPA, "CDA II"), S. 1482, H.R. 3783

After the defeat of CDA, anti-freedom groups and their lawmakers launched a second salvo, COPA. COPA was a narrower attack than CDA, limiting itself to websites hosted by commercial entities, but no less un-Constitutional. The courts stopped COPA dead in its tracks, but today, the Supreme Court is deliberating over whether to unleash COPA on America.

Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA, "The Hollings Bill"), S.2048

This virulent Trojan Horse, written by Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings and friends appears to be a law that promotes technology, but it carries a deadly payload. Under this proposed law, technologists will have to come to film and movie studios on bent knee and beg for permission to ship new hardware and software. The film and music companies who worked to ban every innovative technology from the player piano to Marconi's radio to the VCR and the Internet itself would be in charge of all future innovation in America.

P2P Piracy Prevention Bill ("Berman P2P bill"), H.R.5211

Representative Howard Berman's (D-Cal.) P2P Bill opens a hole in the security of the American judicial system. Under this proposal, copyright holders are free to take illegal countermeasures against any member of the public whom they believe to be engaged in copyright infringement. A law that lets a group of people break the law sounds like an oxymoron, but it's worse than that: by affording a "right of revenge" to movie and music companies, Berman's code legalizes vigilanteism, stripping law-enforcement agencies of the ability to police attacks on Internet users.

CIPA, H.R. 4577

CIPA is a denial-of-service attack on schools, libraries and children. Under CIPA, schools and libraries that receive certain Federal funds are required by law to censor the Web, using filters provided by snake-oil salesmen that raise the cost of providing Internet access to kids while spuriously blocking informative sites that carry information that appears in our schools' mandatory curriculum.

The Lawmakers

These lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate wrote more anti-technology legal code than any of their co-legislators.

We don't vote people into office; we vote them out!

Select your state so that you can print this document, take it with you to the polls and stick it to your states representatives.

All States Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

1. Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS 3rd district) 3 bills $230,900
   DMCA, COPA, CIPA
2. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX 21st district) 2 bills $87,112
   P2P Piracy Prevention Bill, COPA
3. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK ) 2 bills $375,339
   CBDTPA, CIPA
4. Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY 27th district) 2 bills $200,938
   DMCA, COPA
5. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA 26th district) 2 bills $212,991
   DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
6. Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-OH 4th district) 2 bills $184,998
   COPA, CIPA
7. Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC 6th district) 2 bills $114,747
   DMCA, P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
8. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC ) 2 bills $532,980
   CBDTPA, CIPA
9. Rep. Bob Franks (R-NJ 7th district) 2 bills $661,784
   COPA, CIPA
10. Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR 3rd district) 1 bill $99,350
    COPA
11. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ ) 1 bill $1,050,321
    CIPA
12. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD 6th district) 1 bill $50,500
    COPA
13. Rep. Jack Metcalf (R-WA 2nd district) 1 bill $185,377
    COPA
14. Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY 1st district) 1 bill $115,980
    COPA
15. Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO 6th district) 1 bill $145,162
    COPA
16. Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-IL 6th district) 1 bill $83,500
    DMCA
17. Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH 5th district) 1 bill $107,849
    COPA
18. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL 15th district) 1 bill $139,759
    COPA
19. Rep. John R. Kasich (R-OH 12th district) 1 bill $235,185
    COPA
20. Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-MT ) 1 bill $506,126
    CIPA
21. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO 7th district) 1 bill $175,636
    COPA
22. Rep. Mark W. Neumann (R-WI 1st district) 1 bill $167,765
    COPA
23. Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA 4th district) 1 bill $78,765
    COPA
24. Rep. Vince Snowbarger (R-KS 3rd district) 1 bill $106,774
    COPA
25. Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-PA 8th district) 1 bill $98,185
    COPA
26. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM 1st district) 1 bill $232,960
    COPA
27. Sen. J. James Exon (D-NE ) 1 bill $0
    CDA
28. Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK 1st district) 1 bill $98,852
    COPA
29. Rep. Stephen E. Buyer (R-IN 5th district) 1 bill $115,160
    COPA
30. Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN 7th district) 1 bill $126,499
    COPA
31. Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $76,604
    DMCA
32. Rep. Jon D. Fox (R-PA 13th district) 1 bill $200,834
    COPA
33. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL 6th district) 1 bill $92,743
    COPA
34. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA ) 1 bill $389,544
    CBDTPA
35. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI 3rd district) 1 bill $47,719
    COPA
36. Rep. Ronnie Shows (D-MS 4th district) 1 bill $210,650
    CIPA
37. Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL 4th district) 1 bill $266,944
    COPA
38. Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY 24th district) 1 bill $92,380
    COPA
39. Rep. Jon Christensen (R-NE 2nd district) 1 bill $230,552
    COPA
40. Rep. Max Sandlin (D-TX 1st district) 1 bill $215,450
    COPA
41. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA 4th district) 1 bill $55,500
    DMCA
42. Rep. Greg Ganske (R-IA 4th district) 1 bill $177,885
    COPA
43. Rep. J. C. Jr. Watts (R-OK 4th district) 1 bill $135,705
    COPA
44. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT 6th district) 1 bill $279,554
    COPA
45. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO ) 1 bill $477,360
    CIPA
46. Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-FL 9th district) 1 bill $92,011
    COPA
47. Rep. Jr. Nethercutt, George R. (R-WA 5th district) 1 bill $142,127
    COPA
48. Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA 9th district) 1 bill $106,339
    COPA
49. Rep. Linda Smith (R-WA 3rd district) 1 bill $52,494
    COPA
50. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN 6th district) 1 bill $248,500
    COPA
51. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY 1st district) 1 bill $169,715
    COPA
52. Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL 15th district) 1 bill $383,959
    CDA
53. Rep. Jay Kim (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $116,574
    COPA
54. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX ) 1 bill $422,932
    CIPA
55. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN 6th district) 1 bill $145,282
    COPA
56. Rep. Michael Pappas (R-NJ 12th district) 1 bill $80,749
    COPA
57. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL 16th district) 1 bill $106,699
    COPA
58. Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-IL 4th district) 1 bill $75,534
    COPA
59. Sen. John B. Breaux (D-LA ) 1 bill $343,769
    CBDTPA
60. Rep. David L. Hobson (R-OH 7th district) 1 bill $104,922
    COPA
61. Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL 1st district) 1 bill $177,481
    CIPA
62. Rep. Thomas J. Manton (D-NY 7th district) 1 bill $118,494
    COPA
63. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA 43th district) 1 bill $127,625
    COPA
64. Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA 16th district) 1 bill $103,800
    COPA
65. Rep. John Jr. Conyers (D-MI 14th district) 1 bill $99,110
    DMCA
66. Rep. Elizabeth Furse (D-OR 1st district) 1 bill $248,322
    COPA
67. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI 6th district) 1 bill $121,673
    COPA
68. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL ) 1 bill $442,151
    CBDTPA
69. Rep. Jr. Istook, Ernest J. (R-OK 5th district) 1 bill $93,284
    COPA
70. Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-MI ) 1 bill $732,850
    CIPA
71. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX 6th district) 1 bill $162,944
    COPA
72. Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC 9th district) 1 bill $147,741
    COPA
73. Rep. Pat Danner (D-MO 6th district) 1 bill $112,950
    COPA
74. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX 5th district) 1 bill $207,111
    COPA
75. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL 8th district) 1 bill $326,487
    DMCA
76. Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-NY 20th district) 1 bill $149,306
    COPA
77. Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL 11th district) 1 bill $200,075
    COPA
78. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL 19th district) 1 bill $107,500
    P2P Piracy Prevention Bill
79. Rep. Sue W. Kelly (R-NY 19th district) 1 bill $168,550
    COPA
80. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC ) 1 bill $386,450
    CIPA
81. Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC 5th district) 1 bill $118,275
    COPA
82. Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA 10th district) 1 bill $185,621
    COPA
83. Rep. Phil English (R-PA 21st district) 1 bill $163,562
    COPA
84. Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-NY 22nd district) 1 bill $164,098
    COPA
85. Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-OH 3rd district) 1 bill $94,000
    COPA
86. Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA 41st district) 1 bill $148,450
    CIPA
87. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA ) 1 bill $376,525
    CDA
88. Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY 2nd district) 1 bill $214,076
    COPA
89. Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-AL 1th district) 1 bill $109,835
    COPA
90. Rep. John E. Peterson (R-PA 5th district) 1 bill $60,556
    COPA
91. Rep. Sonny Bono (R-CA 44th district) 1 bill $0
    DMCA
92. Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC 11th district) 1 bill $90,864
    COPA
93. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI ) 1 bill $247,429
    CBDTPA

-- Statistics on campaign contributions courtesty of opensecrets.org. Thanks to volunteer Benjamin Owens for compiling the data here. Posted by doc at November 03, 2002 02:14 PM