I noticed this over on Boing Boing:
URGENT: Call your Senator RIGHT NOW or live with the goddamned Broadcast Flag forever!
Danny sez,We’ve heard rumors that the Broadcast Flag that Cory, the EFF, and a coalition of pressure groups have fought so hard against (and beat in the courts) will be sneaked back via an amendment to the giant Senate Appropriations Bill in a sub-committee at 2PM EST on Tuesday 21st. This week is Hollywood’s last chance to ram the flag past Congress, and they’re working hard to get it under the radar.
There’s no time to write letters or start a media campaign…
Be sure to let your senator know you oppose this fair-use killer! If you’re not sure the best way to contact your senator; then check out this EFF Action Alert for more details.
Update 2005-06-22: For those of you who are unfamiliar with what the Broadcast Flag is…
A broadcast flag is a set of status bits (or “flags”) sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not it can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include inability to save a digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducing high-definition video to the resolution of standard TVs), and inability to skip over commercials.
Taken from Wikipedia.