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We need to stop calling these "Petition to <thing>". These are not petitions for things to happen. This is not a petition to make phone unlocking legal again,
by diminoten 14y ago
We need to stop calling these "Petition to <thing>". These are not petitions for things to happen. This is not a petition to make phone unlocking legal again, it's a petition for the Whitehouse to write a response.
Furthermore, these petitions aren't going to be seen by lawmakers, as someone in the below comment says. Strictly speaking, the President is part of the executive branch, not the legislative branch, so in any event, no "lawmaker" will be seeing these petitions at all.
- Shivetya 14y agooh I am pretty many of the lawmakers have interns or the likes whose job it is to watch certain sites for trends and such.
- diminoten 14y agoI sure hope so, but I just wanted to be clear that it's not part of the workflow for one of these things to pass in front of any elected member of congress. I have this fear that people will think signing these petitions is "enough" (or "anything" really) and won't do more to push their particular issue. This literally does nothing but solicit a response from the White House, and 99% of the time (likely 100% but I don't know that for sure), the response could have been written by anyone familiar with the White House's already-public stance on the issue.
- cschneid 14y agoWell, for this specific issue, it was an executive branch decision that allowed, and now doesn't allow unlocking. Laws are often just "hey, executive, do this", and the executive figures it out (see also: EPA, FTC and lots more).