Boy howdy, that was quite a statement out of the White House Monday in response to a petition to legalize cell phone unlocking. Not only did it say the Obama Administration “agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties,” it went further, adding that they same logic should apply to tablets as well, “which are increasingly similar to smart phones.”

The petition was posted on the White House website’s We The People page on January 24, in response to the Library of Congress’ decision not to renew the DMCA exemption it granted three years ago  for circumventing cell phone locks  Under the process spelled out in the law, exemptions to the ban on circumventing access protection measures on copyrighted works must be reapplied for every three years. In coming down on the opposite side of the issue from the Librarian, the White House statement is about as close as you’ll see to a straight-up rebuke of another government agency:

The White House’s position detailed in this response builds on some critical thinking done by the President’s chief advisory Agency on these matters: the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)…[which voiced] strong support for maintaining the previous exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for cell phone carrier unlocking.

Contrary to the NTIA’s recommendation, the Librarian of Congress ruled that phones purchased after January of this year would no longer be exempted from the DMCA. The law gives the Librarian the authority to establish or eliminate exceptions — and we respect that process. But…the White House and Library of Congress agree that the DMCA exception process is a rigid and imperfect fit for this telecommunications issue, and we want to ensure this particular challenge for mobile competition is solved.

You can tell that left a mark by the tensely defensive statement issued by the Library’s in response the White House statement:

The rulemaking is a technical, legal proceeding and involves a lengthy public process. It requires the Librarian of Congress and the Register of Copyrights to consider exemptions to the prohibitions on circumvention, based on a factual record developed by the proponents and other interested parties. The officials must consider whether the evidence establishes a need for the exemption based on several statutory factors. It does not permit the U.S. Copyright Office to create permanent exemptions to the law.

As designed by Congress, the rulemaking serves a very important function, but it was not intended to be a substitute for deliberations of broader public policy.

Translation: We applied the law as written so get off our back.

Perhaps the most notable response to the White House statement, however, came from FCC chairman Julius Genachowski:

From a communications policy perspective, [the removal of the exemption] raises serious competition and innovation concerns, and for wireless consumers, it doesn’t pass the common sense test. The FCC is examining this issue, looking into whether the agency, wireless providers, or others should take action to preserve consumers’ ability to unlock their mobile phones. I also encourage Congress to take a close look and consider a legislative solution.

What both the White House and the FCC are saying, in effect, is that in this case at least the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA inappropriately extends the reach of copyright law into areas that have nothing to do with copyright, such as competition law and telecommunications policy.

That’s an argument critics of the DMCA have been making about Section 1201 of the law for a long time. But it’s the first time a government agency, let alone the White House, has acknowledged as much so plainly.

The White House statement said the Obama Administration “would support a range of approaches to addressing this issue, including narrow legislative fixes in the telecommunications space.” But those “narrow legislative fixes” could open a very big can of DMCA worms.