NewsForge: SSSCA gets a hearing Oct. 25 — can it be stopped?

“Senator Fritz Hollings will testify about his proposed
SSSCA legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee on October
25. While the Open Source community is acquainted with the
potential effects of this bill on freedom from government intrusion
on our private activities, many businesses that use Open Source
software, government agencies who sponsor Open Source projects, and
lawyers who specialize in technology issues either have not heard
of the bill, or do not understand its implications.

Eben Moglen, chief counsel for the Free Software Foundation, is
succinct: “SSSCA is a deliberate attempt to destroy free
software.”

Moglen believes that the industries behind the drafting of the
SSSCA want to control information from the beginning to the end of
every event chain. ‘The content industries want to make a leakproof
pipe that leads from their production facility directly to the
eyeball and eardrum of the consumer.'”

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