Before I start, this post is about the Obama administrations’ new online voting system: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions
The Obama administration has set “We the people” as a new service that allows for citizens to get involved in government. All one needs to do to participate is click create an account at the lower right hand corner of the page. Once one has created an account one can show support of a petition simply by clicking vote on this petition.
Here are a few petitions that I believe are worth note and votes:
Abolish software patents
Today there are thousands of bogus patents in the system for different software ideas. One time I was looking through Google patents to see how bad software patents really were, and I found a patent for a watch dog timer that was from 2009. I then went to look up a watch dog timer and found (as I suspected) that watch dog timers have been around since before the 90s. Continuing this search, I found two patents in the same generic Google patent search that were infringing on each other.
Freedom of the Internet
This petition is against the E-parasite act that congress is currently attempting to get passed. What this act is basically set up to do is allow for BIG companies to take over the internet. For example, if a large corporation determines that you are doing something “illegal” then they can get you thrown off the internet. This bill will also allow for websites to be thrown off the Internet in much the same manner. A number of security experts have said that this bill will enable a major vulnerability in the Internet as it will enable a “group” to decided what should not be allowed and modify the DNS records (if abused you would not be able to ensure that you are on the site you think you are on, for example you bank website could be replace when this technology is abused).
Funding NASA
Science and technology is constantly getting its funding cut when times are bad. NASA is a prime example of a successful origination getting its funding cut. This should not be allowed and NASA should be funded.
