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There's a lot to like about the White House's "We The People" petition process, in which Americans can submit questions and/or ideas, have the public vote for their favorites, and get an official response from the Obama administration. The White House recently raised the threshold for votes -- to get a response, a question or idea now needs 100,000 supporters -- but that was only to help weed out some of the more trivial issues.
It doesn't mean the "We The People" process will stop worthwhile matters from receiving official responses. In fact, just today, a petition created some actual news.
The White House today backed an Internet petition asking the Library of Congress to change its stance on the legality of smartphone unlocking.
In a post on the We The People blog, R. David Edelman, the White House senior adviser for Internet, innovation and privacy, said the administration agrees with those who signed the petition, and aims to support any legislation that would remedy the issue.
"The White House agrees with the 114,000 plus of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties," Edelman wrote. "In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smartphones."
Edelman's response added, "And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It's common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers' needs."
This strikes me as good news all around. The White House's newly announced policy strikes me as the right one, and the fact that the position was announced on a blog, following a popular petition process, makes the result that much more satisfying.
In terms of remedies, Edelman's piece said the administration is open to legislative fixes, encouraging private-sector providers to offer customers greater flexibility, and working through the Federal Communications Commission to promote more competition.
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at some point, we the people need common ground that is publicly owned where we can roam freely to develop as the human beings we are, not the bound robots we aren't
We ought to have a federal initiative process so that voters could enact their own laws. Imagine this: A question is submitted to your local voter registration office, which hires a lawyer on hand to help with the wording. That question then gets asked by every registered voter in the Congressional district, which can answer the question by phone or by the internet over a secure website. If the majority agrees, then the question is submitted nationally, where the voting process happens again. If it passes, Congress is bound by law to enact said legislation.
It is about time to repeal that new FCC rule that prohibits unlocking. Europe does not allow phones to be locked into a carrier. I don't know about the rest of the world though.
And while they are looking into this, the owners of the telephone networks should be held to a standard that prevents them from provisioning stolen phones to a new customer when there is an active report of theft for a specific device.
Yes technically this very possible and yes the cell phone companies have been running this SCAM for years. You lose a phone, you buy a new one, the stolen one also shows up on the network and now they have two customers where they used to only have one. They win, you lose.
Hmm. I think the Library of Congress has just told the White House to back off!
How does unlocking help when the biggest service providers deliberately design their networks and devices to be incompatible with each other?