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The cell phone unlocking petition is a mere 100 signatures away from reaching the 100,000 level needed to have the petition considered by the White House. The “We The People” petition program lets US citizens create petitions that will be reviewed by the Executive office.
According to TheNextWeb, the petition was started by Sina Khanifar, who is the co-founder of crowdsourced cellular coverage map service OpenSignal. It asks the government to rescind the October 2012 Library of Congress decision that removed cell phone unlocking as an exemption to the DMCA. It is now illegal to unlock a phone even if you are no longer under contract with a carrier. If reversing the Library of Congress decision is not possible, then the petition asks the government to approve a bill that makes unlocking permanently legal.
You can sign the petition on the We The People website.
Update: Shortly after this post went live, the petition exceeded the 100,000 signature mark.
[Via TheNextWeb]
About The Author
Kelly Hodgkins
Kelly spent the last four years covering mobile technology at places like BGR, Gizmodo and The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Before writing, she spent a few years working with and teaching others how to use Adobe Flash and Macromedia Director. Even earlier than that, she spent several years as a Ph.D student in Microbiology. When she's not writing, she can be found fishing the lakes and hiking the mountains of Western Maine with her husband and tribe of children. You can follow her on Twitter @kellyhodgkins.
