I am Travis McCrea -

American

Geek

Pirate

I am one man among many

I don’t want change,

I don’t want hope,

I don’t want the government to hold my hand.

I want progress

Progress I can see

Progress that affects my daily life.

My voice is quiet

Our voice is loud

Your not apathetic. You care. You understand that the path that the United States is on is detrimental to the development of our country. We slowly give up our rights day by day, little by little and they seem so small that we don’t think much about them, but today is the day that we need to fight to regain those rights and to put America back on a course where not only will we be the world leader in innovation again, we will be more free than we ever have been, our freedoms, our liberty, and the justice that has been robbed from us, will all be handed back to us on a silver platter if we demand it, and I say we should.

This is not election season, but that does not change the process of democracy, it does not change the fact that this is a country FOR the people BY the people, and when people stand up for what they believe in, and they state their demands they will be answered.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 made it illegal to make backups of media YOU ALREADY OWN. Tens of thousands of people in the Untied States have since been labeled thieves, taken to court, legally pressured, and in some cases lost their job because they were doing the most American thing you can possibly do: Share Ideas.

Thats not right is it?

The First Amendment is crumbling at our feet, politicians see our bill of rights as a punch line, not a foundation. There are reporters who are being arrested for simply being in areas that the news is. However, current Government stands by and watches as Big Media gains control of 80% of the market, allowing them to effectively decide what they feel the news will be .

Thats not right is it?

People draw up a plan for an invention, then decide to never actually create the device… so they get the patent and then shelve it, never again revisiting it… until another person comes up with that idea, builds a device, and tries to market it… then the original inventor sues for infringing his patent. This is the type of practices that kills the innovation in America, granting patents to people is great, it protects peoples work, but don’t you think that patents should be protecting inventions that are actually being produced?

Peaceful assembly is another right given to us by our great First Amendment, however, any peaceful demonstration in most areas needs a PERMIT? Police and Burrocrats should not have the ability to interfere with non-violent non-disruptive protesting. Don’t you feel that you should have the right to speak out against what you feel is wrong prohibited?

Copyright abuse runs rampate throughout the world, has unreasonable term lengths, and is used to prevent, rather than promote innovation. The right to use should never be in question. Currently a person owns a copyright on their work for their entire life after applying for it, then an additional 70 years AFTER THEY DIE. How does that promote innovation?

Finally we should have the right to privacy, and not be seen as doing something wrong because we want it. Digital privacy should be given the same amount of attention as physical, and I know you don’t want someone reading your mail, let alone your email.

This is why the time is now, the time is today.

We need to start calling our friends, posting to message boards, and becoming active… because we don’t have time to wait until the next election… Your voice is that of millions, stand up and represent them.

The Keep Your Change, I Want Progress… by , unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.