Pelosi appoints fox as liaison to entertainment industry henhouse

[dsewell]

More or less. I missed the press release earlier this week, but Nancy Pelosi appointed Congressman Howard Berman as the Democratic Caucus liaison to the entertainment industry.

This is the sort of appointment that drives libertarians and libertarian-leaning independents crazy and loses them as potential anti-Bush allies. And they react with what I'd call justifiable outrage:

This is beyond absurd. Howard Berman is the Congresscritter who, a few years ago, wanted to enact laws that would let the entertainment industry "hack" private computers in their quest for copyright investigations.....his proposed law would also indemnify the entertainment cartels if those actions resulted in problems for the folks being "hacked" -- even if the "hack" resulted in not finding any "infringing" materials.

(from a Politech posting: http://www.politechbot.com/2005/03/09/hollywood-hacking-bill/ )

Berman has, over the past few years, alienated huge segments of the online community. I'm not talking about DVD pirates, but open-source coders, Electronic Frontier Foundation supporters, admirers of Lawrence Lessig, etc.

There are other Democratic congressmen, notably Rick Boucher, who are more (to my mind) on the side of the angels on intellectual property and digital-technology issues. I think Nancy Pelosi would be sending a better message by rewarding some of them rather than a congressman so firmly in the camp of the big-money entertainment companies.

[Ruffhowse]

1. But you said it in your last statement. Pelosi WANTS to suck up to the

big-money entertainment companies because.....they have BIG MONEY!!!
Like most corporatist Democrats, she follows the big money bait and ignores the grass roots. This is the kind of Democratic thinking we MUST get rid of. Our future lies in the grass roots, not in the deep pockets of corporate America, regardless of how liberal certain special interests may seem.