First-hand report of DMCA 1201 circumvention hearings

Penguinal Ebullience has a nice first-hand report of the Friday Copyright Office circumvention hearing, both sessions.

DMCA Sec.1201 Exemption Hearing #1
http://penguinal.net/archives/2003_04_index.html#000641

It matches very well with my own memory and perceptions of the hearing (though the quotes are admittedly a little paraphrased). An excellent job, well worth reading.

Seth and [Jonathan] Band operated largely as a single coherent unit during the proceedings. Seth did most of the talking, with Mr. Band occasionally translating Seth's insightful, sometimes gleefully blunt arguments into legalese. Seth did a good thing by trouncing early on the semantics game of 'filtering' versus 'censoring' : "Filtering is when you block something you don't want to see. Censorship is when someone blocks something they don't want you to see." This helped immensely, and the panel seemed very receptive of what he had to say : that the public has an inherent right to know what is being blocked from public schools and libraries, that censorware manufacturers are not receptive to complaints of malfunctioning software, and that a decryption of any given program's list of censored sites does not constitute a compromise of the ability of that program to function.

Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (Wikipedia, Google, censorware, and an inside view of net-politics) - Syndicate site (subscribe, RSS)