The SSSCA is back

Irrepressible US Senator Fritz Hollings has been at it again. After drafting the much debated SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and Certification Act) bill back in August last year and subsequently having it quietly withdrawn due to unforseen events

Irrepressible US Senator Fritz Hollings has been at it again. After drafting the much debated SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and Certification Act) bill back in August last year and subsequently having it quietly withdrawn due to unforseen events in the US, Hollings' hideous pipedream is back with a vengeance – but this time, it's called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act.

We're not exactly sure why politicians – US ones in particular – think they can sidestep public opinion on unpopular proposals by renaming them to, essentially, the exact opposite of what said proposals entail. Perhaps it's something to do with 98% of mass media dropping a subject once it's given an innocuous (mis)nomer. Something 'pretty sounding' and 'cute' – anything that makes the subject sound benign. Or perhaps its got something to do with the fact that the non-geek majority are ignorant of the issues involved and/or just doesn't give a fsck. Until of course they can no longer kick back, stubbie in hand, to watch the home video of their kid's latest birthday party because Hollywood-owned politicians legislated to cripple every electronic device they own. Then they'll certainly care – but by that time it'll be too late.

If you're wondering why I'm ranting so vehemently over a proposed United States law (after all, it won't affect us says John Q Citizen), it's because this law actually will affect us. Think about it. When Taiwanese hardware manufacturers have to retool entire production lines at a cost of hundreds of millions in order to sell crippled hardware into the US market (one of the largest consumer markets for electronic devices in the world), do you really think they'll bother spending even more money to market non-SSSCA/CBDTPA compliant hardware to other countries?

Add to that the fact that all US made products, whether destined for internal sale or eventual export, must also comply with CBDTPA and you have a major chunk of electronic devices affected. Yes, 'electronic devices'. The law itself will apply to any device capable of storing or copying digital works, or displaying said works in audio or video form. That covers desktop computers (and computer components such as hard-drives), digital televisions, MP3 players, CD players, stereos, digital radios, PDAs, laptops and a whole bunch of products we use every day and whose functionality we mostly take for granted.

If the CBDTPA passes into US law and hardware manufacturers take the cheap route by simply marketing crippled hardware to the entire world, it will affect us all. It's no use simply dismissing it as yet another stupid US law because the sad fact is that US laws such as this one have global scope, if not technically then realistically.

Take the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as an example. US citizens (mostly techies and computer geeks like ourselves) protested, sent letters to their representatives and generally made a very big fuss when the law was first proposed some four years ago. It went through anyway. Australians, along with the rest of the world, pretty much ignored the law after reasoning that it wouldn't affect us. Now jump forward to present day and take a look at the recent Google vs Church of Scientology (CoS) fiasco. Tactics used by the CoS against its detractors are well documented and I won't go into them here, however the Church's latest efforts almost defy belief.

Seeking to keep the public uninformed about what its organisation actually is, CoS threatened our beloved Google with legal action under the DMCA if it did not remove references to several URLs (all referencing sites that criticised the Church) from its search engine. Google complied. Yet, according to all information available, the URLs removed had nothing to do with copyrighted CoS material! A perfect example of American law affecting the entire world.

You may scream and rant that it could never happen here. You may say that we'll have sufficient prior warning to stop any similar laws being passed in Australia. You may say that US laws don't affect us and to stop worrying so much about it, but I have news for you. Take a look a Google.

It can, we won't and it will.


Text of proposed CBDTPA bill.

Text of SSSCA bill (now renamed CBDTPA).

--Brad Webb