WINSTED — A series of movies spotlighting socially relevant causes and issues is being screened at Law Works, a retail space at 414 Main St. leased by the Nader family.
The series started on June 24 and is the brainchild of Cecilia Petricone and Selena West, interns for the Office of the Community Lawyer. Through the office, they are writing guest columns during the summer for The Winsted Journal.
“I think a lot of people are learning about a variety of topics they would not normally learn about through these movies,” Petricone said. “We are showing films about topical issues in America.
The movie screened July 15 was the documentary “Terms and Conditions May Apply.”
The documentary is about privacy in the Internet age, specifically what rights Internet users give up when they press the “accept” button in accepting terms and conditions on websites.
The movie examines the rights an Internet user gives away when accepting the terms and conditions of a website and how the privacy of a user can be compromised and given away to the federal government.
Ralph Nader attended the showing to speak about the effects of accepting a contract with a website all at the push of a button.
“The law schools are very much responsible for what you saw here in the movie,” Nader said. “When I was in law school, we had a contracts course for a whole year. During the course, we spent one day on the fine print in contracts. The rest of the time we studied labor unions and contract bargaining because that’s where the jobs are. Back in the rental agreements in the 1950’s, there was a provision called a ‘confession of judgement’. In any event that the landlord hurls accusations against you, you admitted in advance you are guilty of a confession.”
Nader compared the provision to the terms and conditions on websites of today.
“The corporations are very powerful while the consumer has very little power,” he said. “We sign massively greater number of these contracts when we click on these websites. We sign far more in our lives than ever before than even the credit card contracts in the 1950’s. They are supported by a demonic strategy of these lawyers who are retained by corporations. The executives at these corporations don’t like to be challenged by consumers. They like consumers who are uninformed and compliant. To them, it’s ‘shut up and keep shopping.’”
Nader said there needs to be more activism from people in order to protect the rights of the Internet user.
“You don’t have enough people in this country to fight what you just saw in this film,” he said. “If we had the equivalent of little groups in each congressional district that focuses on contracts and if we start to have meetings about this, it would become a big issue. We all sign these contracts with websites and we don’t feel good about it. When something goes wrong, we really don’t feel good about it. You know about 1984 and George Orwell? Ninety-five percent of everything he wrote about is already in place.”
Ironically, the movie was streamed via the website www.netflix.com, which means that in order to show “Terms and Conditions May Apply,” one of the interns had to accept the website’s terms and conditions.
All movies start at 6 p.m. and there is no admission fee.
The movie night events end on Wednesday, Aug. 5.
Cella’s paintings are tucked in almost every available space thoughout Little Store Antiques. L. Tomaino
