Did our story regarding the Library of Congress’s revision to the DMCA law to make the unlocking of phones illegal put a bad taste in your mouth last night? Well, here’s a bit of toothpaste to try: why not petition the White House to see what their stance on the matter is and if they’d be willing to do anything about it? A petition was set up on the new White House Petition site, a tool that the current administration has given the American people to make their voices heard.

The difference between this petition and the thousands you see on, say, Change.org is that the White House administration has promised an answer to any legit petition that has a certain number of digital signatures. This particular petition was made while the threshold was 100,000 signatures, and it has about 5,200 as of the time of this writing. This promise was tested a short while ago with the request that a death star be built — and, sure enough, the White House did respond in quite the geeky nature.

I should note that even if the petition does make it to 100,000 signatures it doesn’t mean anything is guaranteed to change. All this guarantees is a response, but sometimes even that is more valuable than nothing at all. We’d love to see this law be abolished in the very near future. The Library of Congress might not have totally ill intent, but in a time where cellular carriers already have a bit too much control on their side it’s easy to understand why users would be upset.

Anyone from the likes of Canada, Europe and Australia would come to America and gag at the wireless practices in this country. Between high contract prices, overpriced rate plans and an absolute mess of a spectrum and technology situation you might liken the scenario to a bad Steven Seagal flick — sure, the characters and plot (phones and LTE) look nice, but at the end of the day the star of the show is a flabby old man past his prime (carriers) with below average acting skills still trying to pretend that he knows martial arts.

Enough of my blabbering, though — go ahead and sign that petition, and let’s see if we can’t get someone from the White House to explain to us why carriers are afforded yet another thumb to pin us down with. Head here to get started.

I'm not even sure if jailbreaking is legal in Europe...but the rest of your statement seems to contain the bigger problem IMO anyways...

All this means is that if you buy a phone that can be unlocked and used on another carrier then your breaking the law. That is all they are saying. Like the Iphone is not on Tmobile, but you can jailbreak it to be. Well you would be breaking the law. If I buy the phone and want to use a certain carrier I should be allowed to. That is all this petition is about. More stupid laws that have been made that do not need to be made.

Eh. I don't care bout this too much.

The White House is powerless to act on this. The Library of Congress is the only body that can decide this and it can only do so every three years.

The only way to stop this is to amend the DMCA, which is politically impossible right now.

I believe here in Europe (not sure how it all works though precisely), after your first contract is over, you can do with your phone whatever you want; unlocking, switching providers, jailbreaking (which wouldn't be needed anymore after unlocking anyway), throw it in a ditch...

And most phones are on most providers anyway, so you can choose beforehand here without being bound to some company if you want a certain phone.

You mean locking as in being able to get out of a contract you have with a carrier who provided you a phone at a reduced price, because you signed a contract for service?

Isn't it possible to buy unlocked phones and then find a carrier who will take them and provide service?