Maria Cantwell
Maria Cantwell is back in Congress -- this time in the Senate.
She was very popular with civil liberties folks earlier this decade when she was in the House of Representatives; she sponsored an unsuccessful bill to allow exports of cryptographic software. After that, she went to work for RealNetworks; now she's been elected to the Senate.
I wonder if Senator Cantwell is still interested in cryptography. I'm afraid her time at Real might not make her particulary sympathetic to DMCA opponents: Real used the DMCA to suppress a program called StreamBox VCR, which allowed people to save RealMedia streams to disk and to convert them to other formats. (StreamBox subsequently settled with Real and agreed to modify its software to comply with Real's demands.) This case was the earliest use of the DMCA to prevent publication of a computer program; unfortunately, StreamBox didn't attempt a first amendment defense and didn't get in touch with people who were interested in first amendment protection for software. Also unfortunately, a number of people on the dvd-discuss list weren't sympathetic to StreamBox's position and some didn't even think that StreamBox VCR should have first amendment protection!
I can't quite understand that; I think StreamBox VCR should be every bit as legal as DeCSS. (You can find some of my arguments in the dvd-discuss archive.)
Anyway, I don't think Cantwell was still at the company when that lawsuit was going on, but I wonder whether she got the idea from people at Real that the DMCA is good.
Even outside of the DMCA, regulation of cryptography is still definitely a big deal; maybe she can take up the issue once again.
Her biography on her web site says:
Maria's district contained many of the world's most influential software and technology firms, and she applied herself to learning the issues and standing up for this vital new sector of our economy. She is well-regarded in Internet circles for fighting against archaic export restrictions on software encryption products and for helping to defeat the infamous Clipper chip proposal.Having immersed herself in high tech issues while in Congress, Maria joined a software start-up [that would be Real, which was called Progressive Networks at the time] in 1995 and helped the business grow to create 1,000 jobs in Washington state.
In November 2000, Maria was elected to the U.S. Senate, promising to fight for reform and help expand opportunity for all of Washington state. She knows that Washingtonians have come to expect a lot from their Senators, and she is committed to giving them her very best every day.
