Not long after James Boyle penned his excellent Financial Times column bemoaning the "evidence-free" way legislators craft intellectual property law and policy, Senator Rick Santorum gave us a prime example. Specifically, the Senator introduced a bill to stop the publicly funded National Weather Service (NWS) from publishing user-friendly weather data on the Internet. Why? Because he believes that private companies like AccuWeather would make even more money if they didn't have to compete with "free."

As Boyle pointed out in an earlier FT column, AccuWeather likely wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the US practice of making taxpayer-funded raw weather data freely available at the cost of reproduction. In other words, the private weather industry is already benefiting -- richly -- from our tax dollars. Senator Santorum is proposing that we pay twice for our weather information in order to further line the pockets of private companies.

In my previous post on the subject, I suggested that very few people would challenge the Senator on his assumption that the weather industry can't compete with free -- even though it already is. Here's your opportunity. EFF has just posted an action alert on the Santorum bill with a model letter so you can tell your representative you oppose it. Check it out, add your own thoughts, and send a letter today. And don't forget to pass the word along -- we need each and every voice of reason out there to chime in on this one.