User:Btrower
From Pirate Party of Canada
Bob Trower
Just a guy (TM)
Why am I here?
Like others here, I am on board with the necessity to fix the copyright and patent regimes. Personally, I would abolish the second and all but abolish the first. However, I am old enough to know that common ground is not likely to be that extreme and am willing to go along with that.
Also like the others, I am concerned about government (and general organizational) transparency and the protection of personal privacy.
Perhaps unlike others, although I feel the above are necessary for the party, I do not think they are sufficient for a realistic party that will form a government. I am hopeful that I can convince others to go along with the notion that the above goals can and should flow from deeper principles and that the deeper principles should be embraced. Amongst other things, I think these principles should start with the default right to 'small l' liberty as originally framed in the U.S. Constitution. Rather than re-invent that wheel, I think that we should use that (The Constitution of the United States of America, the Canadian Bill of Rights, The Canadian Constitution Act, The U.S. declaration of Independence, The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, etc.
Most of the above documents are excellent to begin with. However, some are old, slightly off, overly complex, etc. Worse than that, though, they suffer, for whatever reason, from being ineffective. Although arguably imperfect both the Canadian and U.S. fundaments of law would be pretty good, if only they were actually followed. It is particularly striking in the United States where they have a constitution of enumerated powers that is relatively small and bare and explicitly leaves anything unsaid in the Constitution beyond the power of the federal government. Despite that relatively unambiguous codification and fact that (it seems) just about everybody in government swears an oath to uphold it, the provisions are not actually followed. The same appears true for all the rest. I think it is important to recognize and build upon these principles, to explicitly say so and to propose a mechanism whereby in the future the letter and the spirit of the law will be followed. Currently, it is not.
Despite their high quality, these documents and surrounding legislation do not properly address things that have arisen (and continue to arise) in the digital age.
More than anything, I am deeply concerned by recent historical violations of civil liberties, especially the very basic "right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus". Without habeas corpus, all of the other party's points are moot. People held incommunicado and subjected to torture likely don't have internet access or an iPod and even if they do they are likely to be more concerned with gaining their physical freedom than the freedom to surf the net in unfettered privacy. [For computer geeks like me, it's a close call, but for most people it is not.]
In Jake's profile, he says:
- I fight for a free Canada.
It is troubling that fighting for a free Canada has to be on our agenda because it means that at least in Jake's opinion (moi, aussi) we have somehow either lost or never had our freedom. That should bother anyone. It sure bothers me.
I am also of the opinion that we should work hard to form a set of core values and resulting manifesto and platform that are complete. Although I agree with the existing substance of the statements of goals, manifesto, etc, I do not think they currently present a 'whole cloth' from which we can form all the basic principles of a government.
Regardless of my feelings about the relative primacy of the party's goals as such, I don't think they make for a viable party by themselves.
Lest I seem too critical, I would just like to go on the record as saying I am very pleased with the work to date on materials here. I applaud Jake and the other original founders here for taking the initiative and bringing this along as far as they have. Things appear to be proceeding well and win or lose I think everyone who participates can pat themselves on the back for at least fighting the good fight.
About me
I have been a proud T-Shirt wearing member of the EFF for years. By coincidence, they have an article titled Stop the Pirate-Finder General! as I write this.
I am a 'computer guy'. You can see my resume here:
I own a small business. You can read about it here:
You can see an example of some open source code I wrote during the course of my work here:
Base64 code used in many different places all over the world
You can see what I think of Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks, property and their bogus conflation as 'IP' here:
The sovereign revokes all copyright and patent grants
You can see me write about the basis of public key encryption here:
You can see me write about some general encryption ideas here:
Original DataHush Encryption Strategies
You can see me get all huffy about someone abusing copyright here:
You can see something pretty geeky that I did here:
Oh my. That's my time. There are tons of other things out here too!
