aborchers's Journal: Letters re: Senator Hatch wanting to "destroy" computers

The following text was sent to my Senators and, reworded in the second person, to Senator Hatch himself...

I am writing to express my dismay and outrage at comments made by Senator Orin Hatch during the Tuesday, June 17 2003 Judiciary Committee hearing on copyright issues. That a member of the Senate could advocate destruction of personal computers by copyright owners shows a shameful lack of respect for the law. The notion that due process can be circumvented in the interest of protecting intellectual property is absurd in the extreme. Are behaviors that would be considered terrorism under our statutes suddenly acceptable in the cause of defending the latest pop song or Hollywood movie?

I urge you to reprimand Senator Hatch for his words and urge him to start working now toward reasonable solutions to the current copyright/technology conflicts. Inflammatory rhetoric has no place in a reasoned debate, and if he intended these comments to be more than rhetoric, then he has no place in Government. Perhaps he would do better as a copyright paramilitary for the Recording Industry Association of America. I hear they're hiring.