[Lnc-business] Fwd: One phone call can help stop the California Bitcoin License

[Daniel Wiener]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is employing an interesting technology
from Callpower.org for influencing elective representatives.

A short digression:  When it comes to actually influencing a representative
at any level of government, there's a general hierarchy: An in-person visit
carries the most weight, followed by a personal phone call, followed by a
hand-written snail-mail letter, followed by an individually-written email,
followed by a boilerplate email, followed by a name listed on a petition.
 (I may be forgetting something.)  In other words, elected representatives
use these communications as proxies to try to estimate the level of (and
intensity of) public support or opposition to a measure.  So if a
constituent (and it's important that it be a constituent from that
representative's district) takes significant time and action to contact a
representative, that may mean that there are X number of other constituents
who are similarly concerned, where "X" depends on the method of contact.

I just received the email shown below regarding a bill in California to
license Bitcoins.  In this case I was directed to a web site where I filled
in my name, address (to automatically determine who my State Senator was),
and phone number.  When I pressed the "Call Now" button I received a call
to my phone, with a message telling me that I was about to be connected to
my State Senator and should express my opposition to AB 1326, and to press
the Star key when I was ready.  I did so, the call was made, and I talked
to the staff person who was fielding telephone calls and explained what a
terrible idea AB 1326 was.  I gave her my name, email address, and made
clear that I lived within the State Senator's district.

This can be very powerful, at least until it becomes so commonplace that
representatives begin discounting telephone calls.  So it's something to
keep in mind; we may have occasion to use it in the future.

Dan Wiener


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rainey Reitman | EFF Activism Team <action at eff.org>
Date: Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 8:03 AM
Subject: One phone call can help stop the California Bitcoin License
To: Daniel Wiener <wiener at alum.mit.edu>


This is a friendly message from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. View it
in a web browser
<https://supporters.eff.org/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=1141>.
[image: Electronic Frontier Foundation]
Dear Daniel,

Big news: our activism campaign against the California virtual currency
license—A.B. 1326—is making big waves in Sacramento. With your help, we’ve
demonstrated widespread opposition to the bill and the short-sighted
restrictions it threatens to impose.

But today is a crucial day in the fight against California’s virtual
currency license. It's the last day that A.B. 1326 could be voted on in
2015. After today, the California Senate will go on break until January of
next year.

Can you call your senator and tell them to oppose any attempt to rush this
bill through on the last day of the session? A powerful new campaign site
will make it easy for you to call to stop the bill:

No Bitcoin License <https://nobitcoinlicense.org/>

The site is hosted by Taskforce.is <https://taskforce.is/> and uses
CallPower <http://callpower.org/> technology to connect you to your state
senator. If you are in California, just visit the website, enter your phone
number, and you’ll be connected to your lawmaker’s office. There’s a
super-short script on the site that you can follow.

*Let's make this a victory*

In the last few weeks, EFF supporters have bombarded the California
legislature with emails and phone calls against A.B. 1326, helping slow the
bill. EFF also organized Bitcoin companies and nonprofits in a coalition
letter
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/digital-rights-groups-team-tech-companies-fight-ab-1326-virtual-currency-license>
showcasing the opposition to the proposal, and we brought virtual currency
experts to Sacramento for a lobby day
<https://twitter.com/EFF/status/639199701384884224> against the bill.

All of this is having a huge impact, and the bill is tottering on the verge
of being converted into a 2-year bill, which would give us more time to
fight the worst of the bill’s components. But the bill's author continues
to resist this commonsense measure and has thus far refused to officially
change the status of A.B. 1326.

*That means the bill could be voted on today. Let's finish this session
with a unified voice from the digital rights community: No Bitcoin license.*

Help us make sure that the California legislature doesn’t pass this
misguided bill. Please pick up the phone and make a call today:

https://nobitcoinlicense.org

Thanks for helping us fight for user rights,

Rainey Reitman
EFF Activism Team
Read more about the bill.
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/license-kill-innovation-why-ab-1326-californias-bitcoin-license-bad-business>
​
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/license-kill-innovation-why-ab-1326-californias-bitcoin-license-bad-business>Support
our work.
<https://supporters.eff.org/donate/support-eff-virtual-currency-innovation>
[image: Footer]

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EFF appreciates your support and respects your privacy
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-- 
*"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we
guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we
compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if
this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare
the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or
experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it
disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key
to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it
doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is.
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”*
-- Richard Feynman (https://tinyurl.com/lozjjps)
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