A new bill to allow cell phone unlocking is getting low marks from reform groups and online activists. The legislation, introduced by Reps. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would tell the FCC to force cell phone companies to "permit the subscribers of such services, or the agent of such subscribers, to unlock any type of wireless device used to access such services."

Significantly, it would not make any changes to the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which critics say is the root cause of the cell phone unlocking fiasco. Public interest in the topic was sparked when the Librarian of Congress ended an exemption to the DMCA for cell phone unlocking that had been in place for the preceding six years. Activists gathered 100,000 signatures on the White House's petition site, leading to the Obama administration endorsing the reversal of the ban on cell phone unlocking.

"The root of this problem lies in parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and how easily they are abused at consumers' expense," said Christopher Lewis of Public Knowledge in an emailed statement. "Amending the DMCA itself will ensure stronger competition, and also that consumers can use the devices they've bought in whatever lawful way they choose."

"As far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything at all," said Sina Khanifar, who started the White House petition, in an e-mail to Ars. He pointed out that FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has already pledged to look into the issue, and might compel wireless providers to allow unlocking anyway.

A broad coalition of public interest groups and activists recently launched the site FixTheDMCA to promote broader DMCA reform. They point out that many other innocuous uses of technology, including backing up DVDs and jailbreaking iPads, remain illegal under the DMCA. And others, such as the right of blind consumers to use screen-reading software for e-books, are exempted only at the discretion of the Librarian of Congress. But the Librarian could cancel that exemption, as it did last October for cell phone unlocking.

In the reformers' view, consumers shouldn't be subject to the whims of the Librarian of Congress in their use of devices they own. The Klobuchar bill falls far short of that standard.