Indiana for Internet Freedom: Conference call with Sen. Lugar's office tomorrow, 3pm!

StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
in Individual State Discussions
Top Priority for IN: Set up Meetings

There aren't any public events yet, so the most important thing is to get meetings with Senators. Here's what you need to do:


Be polite and professional, and request a meeting on behalf of Indiana for Internet Freedom (the folks in this forum) to discuss the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA.  Make it clear that you want to meet with the Senator during the January recess, and that you'll be bringing others from your group.  Have your calendar open when you call, so you can pick a time that works for you.  When finished, post a report-back. 

For example: "Hi, my name is ________, I'm with Indiana for Internet freedom, and I'm calling to request a meeting with Senator _______ during the January recess.  The PROTECT IP vote is happening on January 24th, and I wanted the Senator to understand my concerns before the vote happens."


IMPORTANT: If you do get a meeting, post another message. That way others can join you in your meeting.  If there's any other specific information we should include in this post, message us and we can add it. 

Comments

  • WillPhill76WillPhill76

  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    Make sure to keep an eye on this forum for people near you who might want to attend!
  • TymaxBetaTymaxBeta
    I'm attempting to team up with Will on his meeting, who's with us?
  • WillPhill76WillPhill76
    I am sorry Tymax I am from Illinois and posted this hastily under Indiana. Sorry
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    @TymaxBeta - try scheduling a meeting yourself! You'll almost certainly have more than a week to find other anti-PIPA Indianans to go with you.
  • tinatinatinatinatinatina
    Response to my email:

    Thanks
    for your email to Senator Lugar. Following this email, I will loop you
    into a discussion I am having with others interested in the same issue
    as we attempt to arrange a meeting with all parties. As you will read in
    that email, unfortunately Senator Lugar has two vigorous weeks of
    travel in Indiana with a packed schedule, so I am attempting to arrange a
    conference call with our legislative staffer in the Washington office.
  • tinatinatinatinatinatina
    8 hard-copy letters going out today, too.
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    @tinatinatina that's great! Please keep us informed of the when / where / how of the conference call. It's not quite as good as face time, but could still be helpful in convincing Lugar to vote against PIPA! Once the details are hashed out, we can help you work on some talking points! 
  • nmessernmesser
    I too was given the response regarding a conference call.
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    @nmesser excellent. Continue to press them for a date on that. Again, it's not quite as good as face time, but it will give you a chance to tell some of Sen. Lugar's higher staff a multitude of reasons why this bill is bad. Make sure to keep us informed so that we can help you organize the details! 
  • tinatinatinatinatinatina
    Just an update: Now, the conference call is to be set with the legislative assistant: Joe O'Donnell. No time arranged.
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    @tinatinatina thanks! that's awesome, will you keep us updated?
  • bre358bre358
    Is there any information regarding Coats? Has anyone had any luck with his staff?

    Also, count me in on that conference call if and when it gets finalized.
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    Also, to supplement the conference call: one of the major take-aways from the briefing call with Public Knowledge was that you don't have to set up a formal meeting to come in and talk to someone in a Senator's local office - you can just show up! So if the meeting requests don't seem to be going anywhere: just find the location of your closest office, recruit a friend or two, and get in there!
  • faith_hope_love1313faith_hope_love1313

    Please post the information on the date! It's 1/12/12. Only 12 more days from right now, but that's because I'm posting 32 minutes before midnight, so really 11 days. I just joined this group! Please post the information so that others can place it on facebook and twitter to pass along!

    Thanks.

  • bre358bre358
    Today I got a call from Coats' staff inviting me to a conference call this coming Tuesday. Here's a snippet from the email:
    Thank you for contacting our office
    regarding the Protect IP Act. .  The Senator is interested in hearing
    what you think about this bill and how it would affect you.  As a
    result, we have set up a conference call between a select group of
    people who would like to express their opinions on this legislation,
    along with Senator Coats’ Legislative Director, Viraj Mirani, and his
    State Director, Mike McMains.  They will take your concerns about this
    legislation directly to Senator Coats.  This conference call is taking
    place on Tuesday, January 17, 2012, at 3:00 pm.  Space on the conference
    call is limited.
    I will be doing research over the weekend so I'll have what I need to point out to the Senator's staff, is there anything anyone would like to point out as well as anything to have me look into for my own research?

    Thanks,
  • mr_coffeemr_coffee
    As there's "limited space" on the conference call and the very idea of said bill infuriates me too much to have a a rational discussion about it, I'll say instead that I'm just with you all.  I design websites and am asking my clients to join me in the blackout on 1/18.  On that day, for the sites in the Indiana area I'll post the phone numbers and e-mail addresses listed above (along with links to fightforthefuture.org/pipa and this site which both have links to e-mail congress directly)... though I can't say for certain if these sites will be online either for that 12 hour period.

    If you do get an in-person meeting I'll be glad to show up there as well.  Although with or without a conference call, one of my clients pointed out that the best way to make some noise is to tie up the phones for the day.  So I'll be calling both of these phone numbers on the 18th.  If they truly have no opinion, at the least they should be made aware that we do.  Physical letters may also have a greater impact than e-mails... just a suggestion.
  • KShultsKShults
    I would also like to be included in this conference call. I would like to see more discussion here though. We need to consider what our talking points will be, and refine whatever arguments we'll be making. Right now, I'm working on finding the arguments that are being used for and against sopa, and I plan to refine a plan of attack based around that. We can't go into this with only our default opinions. We need to be more than activists, we need to be debaters. 
  • tracyrevaleetracyrevalee
    I agree with KShultz. I'll be reading up; just wanted to throw my two cents in here.
  • clubenowclubenow
    I am in as well, have written 3 separate emails to each representative listed above and would be very interested in joining the conference call if possible.
  • bre358bre358
    Ok, sorry I haven't come back to this site since Friday, here's the number and conference code:
    If you would like to participate, you can call 1-866-909-2663 at the specified time.  The meeting ID is 3744605.
    Tomorrow, Tuesday the 17th at 3:00PM
  • T3400T3400
    bre358, thanks for posting the conference call info.  Unfortunately, I will not be able to join you.  Any chance you can follow up with the outcome of your call? 
  • bre358bre358
    I had just gotten home and off the call with Coats' staff. As of now, the Senator has not taken an official stance on the bill yet, though he does have concerns. I feel that everyone involved was able to voice their opinion on how the bill has worried them. I have been invited to a conference call with Lugar's staff as well. I be sure to put the call information here as I get it.
  • MattnessMattness
    Hi, My name is Austin WIlls, and I am a 17 year old Junior at Broad Ripple Magnet High School for the arts and Humanities. I am relatively new to this topic, but I am GREATLY concerned, and was wondering what I could to to strengthen Indiana to vote NO on PIPA/SOPA. Please if you have any suggestions, post here in this discussion, or email me at: Austin.wills14@gmail.com

    Thank you,

    Austin Wills
  • Chrysalis101Chrysalis101
    Mattness,

    Since you're unable to vote, I'm not sure how much you can sway a congressman/woman. However, your friends who are voting age and your parents/relatives can have a voice. The biggest way for minors to help stop the PIPA/SOPA is to educate. Minors can have a big voice and probably have a good social network to educate with. My sugestion is 1. learn as much as you can about the acts proposed. 2. tell everyone you know! Even if they are minors too, they can do what you're doing. Make adults aware and concerned. Adults need to remember that what we do (or let the government do) shapes the future for our children, be they 17 months or 17 years old.
  • gaara1416gaara1416

    Woo! Way to go bre358!


    I want to help out, i'm getting registered to vote today :D

  • DKerbsDKerbs
    I think Tim Buckley makes a great argument on his site (www.cad-comic.com):

    "I absolutely support the right of companies and individuals to attempt to combat and prevent the theft and piracy of their copyrighted materials. You could argue that SOPA and PIPA won't even stop all piracy, and you'd be right. But that doesn't mean that companies aren't entitled to continue trying to find the solution(s) that work. So in that sense, I have no complaint with the goal of the SOPA/PIPA bills.

    However I'm wholeheartedly against the way that goal is being executed with these two piece of legislation making their way through the senate and the house respectively. The wording in sections of these the two bills are at times so vague that it's impossible to not immediately imagine the ways corporations could abuse the power they'd be awarded.

    Without laying out specific boundaries to contain the legislature to its intended purpose, and to ensure that that purpose can't intentionally or accidentally bleed into affecting aspects of the internet that we don't want it to, the bills are just to volatile to let pass."

    If you can get into this argument and site specific examples from the bill, I think that would be enough of a reason for a person staunchly against piracy to change an opinion. With this bill, sites like Reddit, Youtube, and various small businesses that allow user-submitted content that is not easily patrolled would have never got off the ground, and would kill the jobs of those entrepreneurs. 


  • jddavoustjddavoust

    ""Thank you for your interest in Senator Leahy’s PROTECT IP Act. As Senator Lugar’s aide on intellectual property issues, he asked that I set up a conference call with concerned Hoosiers to discuss this legislation. Please join me for a conference call tomorrow at 3pm. The information to participate in the call is below. If you are unable to join the call we can make alternative arrangements.""

    thats the email i just got

    Does anyone have suggestions about what points i should bring up or exactly what i should say. it would also help if you had any insight on what the senator might say to defend himself. thank you

  • bre358bre358
    I've got the exact same email: Here's the call-in information. I'll try to join if at all possible.
    Date/Time:                  January 19, 2012 at 03:00 PM
    Length:                           60 (minutes)
    Meeting ID:                3366129
    Call:                             202-228-2663 OR
    Call Toll Free:             1-866-909-2663
  • mr_coffeemr_coffee
    I don't know if they'd try to "defend themselves" since they haven't stated an opinion... but after watching many videos and hearing a lot of talk, the so-called consensus seems to be that "they don't understand it" but that "preventing piracy seems like a good thing".  I don't believe they understand what power is being provided by these bills or what it will result in.  It would just be a matter of time before that power was abused and any site that allowed a user to post something into it would cease to exist, and the site owners brought up on Federal charges even?

    Besides that it's a little bit like book burning - if the Internet was made of books - and that no one should have the power to silence the masses from their freedom to speak... but that any approach of this nature cannot be regulated.  The majority of congress has pretty well stated "they don't get it" - and so have no business poking their fingers around in the Internet to begin with.  Even if they did understand, they aren't in a position to police those policing... and those companies are well known for ripping off the original artists/authors/actors on the premise of "preventing piracy" already.  The major media corporations don't need additional legislation - of any kind - to help them in their goals of world domination, they need to catch up with how media has evolved just like everyone else.

    That none of the news corporations - given their ties with the industry - have even covered that there was even a strike today or that they barely even mentioned the bills at all  - is evidence enough of their insidious intentions.  Leave it to them to try  to pass something like this and hope no one notices it until they start exercising the power it gives them.

    And if addressing all sensibility doesn't work, I'd simply point out how China's firewall works and ask how it's better or worse that a communist country is being firewalled by their own government... but that you'd let our  government firewall our internet by the MPAA?  If I was forced to chose who was doing the monitoring and prosecution, I'd be more likely to trust our government or even China's over the MPAA.  

    If they let this happen, there will be no end to it, but it will end the Internet as we know it and will have a world-wide reach beyond which anyone dares to imagine yet.  "Any site a user can post to": is a lot of sites, and they'll all be affected by this.  As a web designer... as it's my job to present the content provided by my clients... a single slip by any of them and all of my sites would go down.  I fortunately don't install a lot of CMS-type sites (and by the way, if they don't know what a CMS is, then they shouldn't be for these bills), but I'd still find it difficult to "police" all of my clients and make certain that they got permission from the publisher for each use of background music in the videos they want on their sites.  And it would no longer be enough to get permission from the author of the music, either... one would need to get permission from the guys pressing the cds since they're the ones who would shut the site down.  How does that protect the artist?  They're going to have to pay extra for publishing to cover the extra guys hired to find their "pirated" stuff on the web.

    Sorry, long-winded.  But I think a conversation should likely cover at least some of these points.
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    @jddavoust @bre358 Great job! We've created a facebook event for your conference call, with instructions for those who are interested in joining to contact you to coordinate strategy. In terms of strategy: try to stick mostly to solid, factual arguments that most experts agree on. For a good summary of why the bill is still terrible, even after significant revision, take a look at this Ars piece: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/even-without-dns-provisions-sopa-and-pipa-remain-fatally-flawed.ars

    Also take a look at our own repository of resources and handouts: https://fightfortheftr.wordpress.com/flyers-info-sheets-badges-infographics-for-meeting-with-your-senator/

    Keep up the good work!
  • bre358bre358
    The call today I feel went well, I wasn't able to stay for longer than fifteen or so minutes, but I was more than able to bring my concerns to the staff member present the same applies to the other gentleman who was there at the start. Though Lugar, like Coats has not taken an official position, he seems to share our concerns and in my opinion seems likely to vote against the bill.

    Don't take that as gospel, just my gut feeling.
  • StopSOPA-HQStopSOPA-HQ
    @bre358 - Excellent news - thanks for the update!
    Everyone else: let's keep those calls, emails, and drop-ins coming to push Coats and Lugar further towards outright opposition !
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