Not to be a wet blanket but if you think for one minute the WH gives a tinker's damn about those petitions, you should start by looking at what's already there with 100k+ sigs. Like every state in the union wanting to secede. On top of that, this was bought and paid for in a negotiation between the carriers and what is, in my view, the finest government money can buy. Look at it this way: if you want to get your phone paid for by someone else, be prepared to accept their conditions. Or spend the $ to get an unlocked version. Or ask the carrier to unlock it. Word is they will if you're current. At the end of the day this really only hurts (US based) unlock code vendors and people trying to buy a ATT phone on ebay to use on TMo's 2G (or similar).