I just received confirmation of receipt of my Request To Testify, on Friday I will know whether or not I'll be taking a trip to DC.

Dear Mr. Gengler,

This message is a confirmation of timely receipt of your request to
testify. Your request will be considered and you will receive an agenda
of the hearing schedule when it is finalized.

Regards,

Rob Kasunic


_________________________
Rob Kasunic, Senior Attorney and Advisor
U.S. Copyright Office
PO Box 70400
Washington, DC 20024-0400
(202) 707-0229
rkas@loc.gov

In other news since my last update, PayPal is being charged under the USA PATRIOT Act, for allowing illegal gambling transactions, and for the fact that they don't operate under the same regulations as wire services.

Chicago mayor Richard Daley exemplified the ridiculous of some of the 'precautions' being taken to prevent terrorism, when he ordered the destruction of Meigs field, a small Chicago airstrip.

"The mayor acknowledged there were no specific security threats to Meigs, but insisted that closing the airport could someday help prevent a tragedy in which a terrorist aboard a small plane might slam into a high rise or big crowd downtown."

Reuters is running an article titled "No Sign Yet of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction", which details the lack of any WMD found by anyone in Iraq. A war to disarm is quickly looking more and more like the imperialistic attacks some other nations are claiming this 'war' to be.

MSNBC fired Peter Arnett for giving an interview to Iraqi TV, in which he said that "he American-led war effort initially failed because of Iraq's resistance." He apologized for the statement, but added "I said over the weekend what we all know about this war." Now we have reporters being fired for telling the truth, and the major news outlets expect us to believe they're being honest and unbiased.

In another example of a network censoring 'unfavorable' comments, CBS is refusing to air a Gateway ad in which Gateway features several products designed to facilitate copying digital music files. The website shown, ripburnrespect.com, is claimed to feature "information about legal and illegal forms of digital music recording. For instance, it tells consumers they have a right to make copies of their own CDs for personal use, but they aren't entitled to make copies to pass out to friends." This wouldn't be so bad, except is is perfectly legal to make copies solely for personal use, and Gateway is right in saying that distributing the copies is illegal. CBS, an avid proponent of a law to require anti-copying technologies, disagrees with the law, apparently.

Fred von Lohmann, attorney for the EFF, has this to say about CBS's decision: "I think it's ironic that when the industry tries to educate the consumer about copyright law, CBS can't be bothered to run the ad."