<story><title>White House Response to “Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal”</title><url>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7?update</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sneak</author><text>No it&apos;s not.&lt;p&gt;I emigrated from the US after it became clear they weren&apos;t going to reinstate the rule of law.  Your military-industrial complex is the reason that it&apos;s so hard to change things around... there.&lt;p&gt;This is why you have bullshit laws like the DMCA in the first place.</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>If he just got off the phone with the White House, I&apos;d imagine he has a pretty good idea of what their response was. Your cynicism is a big part of the reason it&apos;s so hard to change things around here.</text></item><item><author>sneak</author><text>I hate to break it to you, but their response was effectively: &quot;we agree with you but we respect the process that brought us to this fucked-up state and look forward to continuing to work with congress&quot;.&lt;p&gt;Petitions don&apos;t have any effect other than getting a response that&apos;s designed to get you to stop complaining from a false sense of achievement.  In that sense, they work perfectly.</text></item><item><author>sinak</author><text>Hey guys, petition starter here. Just wanted to thank anyone who signed for their support. I just got off the phone with the White House and they&apos;re really enthusiastic about getting this fixed. We also discussed fixing Section 1201 of the DMCA permanently, and they&apos;ve agreed to continue the conversation on that.&lt;p&gt;When I originally posted this to HN at &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112020&lt;/a&gt; there were a lot of very skeptical responses to the effect of &quot;petitions don&apos;t have any effect&quot;. The optimist in me is glad they were wrong. The White House seem to be genuinely committed to helping push through a piece of legislation to fix this. If there&apos;s something about government that bugs you, it&apos;s worth trying to do something about it.&lt;p&gt;Also, we&apos;re launching a campaign to ask Congress to change Section 1201 of the DMCA, with backing from the EFF, Reddit and others.&lt;p&gt;Sign up at &lt;a href=&quot;http://fixthedmca.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fixthedmca.org&lt;/a&gt; - should be launching the site tomorrow.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cushman</author><text>It&apos;s not? Normal people abdicating the political process is &lt;i&gt;exactly&lt;/i&gt; what hinders change in democracies.&lt;p&gt;We just completed our one-hundred-thirteenth peaceful transition of power at the will of the people. The entrenched powers-that-be are only entrenched because we, as an electorate, keep voting for them. If everybody showed up to the polls, they&apos;d be out in two years— but hey, why bother?</text></comment>
<story><title>White House Response to “Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal”</title><url>https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal/1g9KhZG7?update</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sneak</author><text>No it&apos;s not.&lt;p&gt;I emigrated from the US after it became clear they weren&apos;t going to reinstate the rule of law.  Your military-industrial complex is the reason that it&apos;s so hard to change things around... there.&lt;p&gt;This is why you have bullshit laws like the DMCA in the first place.</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>If he just got off the phone with the White House, I&apos;d imagine he has a pretty good idea of what their response was. Your cynicism is a big part of the reason it&apos;s so hard to change things around here.</text></item><item><author>sneak</author><text>I hate to break it to you, but their response was effectively: &quot;we agree with you but we respect the process that brought us to this fucked-up state and look forward to continuing to work with congress&quot;.&lt;p&gt;Petitions don&apos;t have any effect other than getting a response that&apos;s designed to get you to stop complaining from a false sense of achievement.  In that sense, they work perfectly.</text></item><item><author>sinak</author><text>Hey guys, petition starter here. Just wanted to thank anyone who signed for their support. I just got off the phone with the White House and they&apos;re really enthusiastic about getting this fixed. We also discussed fixing Section 1201 of the DMCA permanently, and they&apos;ve agreed to continue the conversation on that.&lt;p&gt;When I originally posted this to HN at &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112020&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112020&lt;/a&gt; there were a lot of very skeptical responses to the effect of &quot;petitions don&apos;t have any effect&quot;. The optimist in me is glad they were wrong. The White House seem to be genuinely committed to helping push through a piece of legislation to fix this. If there&apos;s something about government that bugs you, it&apos;s worth trying to do something about it.&lt;p&gt;Also, we&apos;re launching a campaign to ask Congress to change Section 1201 of the DMCA, with backing from the EFF, Reddit and others.&lt;p&gt;Sign up at &lt;a href=&quot;http://fixthedmca.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://fixthedmca.org&lt;/a&gt; - should be launching the site tomorrow.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SeanLuke</author><text>&amp;#62; Your military-industrial complex is the reason that it&apos;s so hard to change things around... there.&lt;p&gt;Wait..., what?  The military-industrial complex has something to do with locking cell phones?  Are you familiar with the origin of this phrase?</text></comment>