1 step forward, 10 steps backwards. How is this happening?
> Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1929, Dr. Billington was. . .
Oh, the guy who just decided unlocking smartphones should be illegal was born in 1929? Cool. That's how rotary phones used to work, right?
Dr. Billington believes the government should have that kind of authority. It's no more complicated than that, and it tells you all you probably need to know about what the man believes - whether he's 20, or 90.
Haven't LOL'd at an online comment in a long time. In all seriousness, he grew up in the era where AT&T owned the phone line all the way into your house AND the phone itself! I guess he misses the old days...
Martin Cooper, inventor of the cellphone, was born in 1928.
Rotary [dial] phones weren't locked to a particular provider were they? You could buy anyone's phone and connect it to your line and indeed buy any line and connect it to your phone - post network standardisation at least.
You were prohibited from modifying it in any way. That included moving the phone from room to room or attaching any kind of accessory to the phone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Billington
Yep, we've got an 83 year-old historian making legal edicts regarding cell phones.
More to the point, why exactly does the Librarian of Congress' staff have authority over cell phones? Oh, because it involves the DMCA. Supposedly, the DMCA was made for copyright, like books and music recordings. Books and music fall under the interests of the library. So do cell phones? That's just too much of a stretch. Either the law is being applied far too broadly, or the DMCA is really outside of the purview of the Library of Congress.