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The key point here, as another commenter pointed out, is they are not going to give up. You can win a battle here, perhaps rally around your congressman and ge

The key point here, as another commenter pointed out, is they are not going to give up. You can win a battle here, perhaps rally around your congressman and get it killed, or petition the president to veto it, but it doesn't matter. They'll just be back again next year, and the next year, and the next. This is the importance of constitutional amendments: they settle things on a broad scale exactly to prevent this kind of nipping (although it still happens, it just takes much longer time) We need an amendment or two around internet and computer freedom, specifically that computers are extensions of our minds, not machines to play content on, and that the internet is our primary form of political organization and persuasion, not a fancy telephone line. I hate to be all doom-and-gloom, but I think that boat has sailed. The tech community might get its act together, give up all social causes and form some kind of committee or group to push for such amendments, but I seriously doubt it. Half the community is in bed with big media and the other half are just as concerned with other issues as this one. We are not organized, coherent, or focused. Just saw a great series on PBS, Ken Burns' "Prohibition". It was all about how focused groups can make big changes -- but it takes a long time. I don't see the kind of anger and outrage against this as we had against alcohol. Very sad, because this is a lot worse.

JoshTriplett 15y ago
I agree with you about the persistence problem; the government acts like a rotten two-year-old that keeps trying until it gets its way. Like a two-year-old, it learns what it can get away with and tries harder each time. Unlike a two-year-old, it doesn't grow up and learn what not to do. We shouldn't need a constitutional amendment here; the constitution is a whitelist of things the federal government may do, not a blacklist of things it may not do. While the constitution does sadly include the notion of copyright, it does not include anything allowing regulatory authority over the Internet.
- zacharycohn 15y ago
  To be fair, the repetition is how the system SHOULD work. Do you think the first attempt at passing a women's suffrage bill passed?
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  I agree with you about the persistence problem; the government acts like a rotten two-year-old that keeps trying until it gets its way. That's because the House elections run on a two-year cycle, and this is the part of the cycle at which people are paying the least attention. While the constitution does sadly include the notion of copyright, it does not include anything allowing regulatory authority over the Internet. /facepalm It doesn't say anything about aeroplanes either, but you'd be mad if they started falling out of the sky onto your house so you put with the FAA. Dark hints about constitutional permissions are a signal of irrelevance, because if it was as obvious as all that the issue would get in front of the Supreme Court much faster. You have to take the history of constitutional jurisprudence into account, because courts do. This is the sort of problem best fought at the ballot box, which means holding your nose and opening your wallet.
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    I wouldn't necessarily argue that the federal government should not have any new powers, but rather than they should not simply assume them in contravention of the constitution. If the federal government wishes to expand its purview, it should have to get a constitutional amendment passed. Yes, that requires quite a lot of work and requires more consensus than political decisions normally require; good, that's a feature. (Personally, I think we'd almost certainly be a lot better off if all bills required margins much greater than 50%; then, only universally accepted policies would gain acceptance.) Hence my argument that we should not need a constitutional amendment to say that the federal government may not do something, unless the constitution currently says it may.
    - anigbrowl 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland is 'the' case which explains the existence of the Federal government's implied powers as well as the enumerated ones. For good or ill, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the constitution is the law whenever there's a disagreement, and the decisions of the Marshall court in particular are very important (not least because Marshall was in office for so long so early in the USA's history). It's pointless to have arguments about the constitution without reference to past controversies - I've highlighted the relevant section here, but this whole page is effectively the 'rest' of the Constitution that lawyers are paid to think about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_court_decisions_in_the_United_States#Landmark_decisions_in_U.S._federalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_court_decision... There's a short and very readable book by Prof. Laurence Tribe called 'The Invisible Constitution' that examines the competing approaches to constitutional interpretation and implementation. Now in California, we do have a very comprehensive state constitution of the kind you're talking about - any significant expansion of state power or rules has to trace its way back to some specific constitutional provision. It's not my idea of an improvement: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/const-toc.html http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/const-toc.html
- jbooth 15y ago
  Hang on one second, who in the hell is "the government" in this situation? The politicians supporting this bill, mostly republicans, work the phrase "I'm anti-government" into every single public speech they give. Those are the only supporters on the public payroll, the rest are all corporate entities and lobbyists, as well as the Chamber of Commerce, natch. Those are your pro-government marxist ideologues in this story. I really think the phrase "the government" or even worse, capital-G "Government", should be banned from any discussion of policy, it turns everyone involved into an idiot. Government and industry both have lots of moving parts. Lastly, I agree that our existing constitution should prevent this sort of law. I'm not optimistic about the current "small-government" supreme court agreeing with me.
  - jwhitlark 15y ago
    The sponsors of this bill break down as 16 Democrats to 11 Republicans. How does that work out to "mostly republicans"? It appears that this has support from both parties, and I think casting it as a party issue will weaken opposition.
    - jbooth 15y ago
      Ok, it's bipartisan, but the only meaningful opposition has come from democrats, and the entire political spectrum of "anti government" has lined up behind it. I'm just saying breaking everything down to "government" is a ridiculous tagline that obfuscates more than it helps. I mean, even if this is approved, it's basically the government doing extremely cheap contract work for the companies who'd benefit. I have a problem with it being done, period, if the ISPs formed a cartel with the MPAA to do this without the government it'd be just as bad.
      - CWuestefeld 15y ago
        the only meaningful opposition has come from democrats, and the entire political spectrum of "anti government" has lined up behind it Which Libertarian think-tank was it that was supporting the bill? Really, jbooth, your partisanship isn't helping anything.
- lukifer 15y ago
  > the government acts like a rotten two-year-old that keeps trying until it gets its way Point of clarification: the government itself has no inherent interest here, and is acting mostly on behalf of influential Big Content lobbyists. Like so many other first-world systemic problems, this is yet another government-industrial complex. > the constitution is a whitelist of things the federal government may do Yes, this is how it should work, but it hasn't worked this way for a long time; scope creep has taken on a life of its own. Without implying a simple, "magic bullet" solution, We The People should acknowledge just how broken our electoral system is, and that it is the central impediment towards regaining anything resembling a constitutionally constrained democratic republic.
  - repsilat 15y ago
    > Yes, this is how it should work, but it hasn't worked this way for a long time; More concretely, this bill would be allowed up by the prevailing (contorted) interpretations of the copyright clause and the interstate commerce clause.
    - JoshTriplett 15y ago
      The copyright clause does not provide authority to regulate the operation of the Internet. And yes, the commerce clause gets contorted into an all-encompassing regulatory justification, but that doesn't make it right.
narrator 15y ago
The reason they can continue to relentlessly push for it is because the paid lobbyists who are pushing for it are just doing their day job. They can spend the rest of their lives at it. The public only has so much spare time.
- thematt 15y ago
  Aren't there are paid lobbyists pushing on the other side of it too? Perhaps there are not as many or they're not as well funded, but I believe they still exist.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    Companies like Viacom are also rounding up their employees to support such things: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/makers-against-takers-viacom-drums-up-net-censorship-support-with-tasty-half-muffins.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/makers-again...
  - yuhong 15y ago
    Yea, as Google etc are pushing against it, I predict deadlock for years just like net neutrality and the telcos ended up being.
- earbitscom 15y ago
  The other reason is because people continue to infringe upon their rights. If people stopped taking what's not theirs, you'd have a hard time getting anyone to spend time on this legislation.
  - VladRussian 15y ago
    the key here is a supposed right for secure piracy-free distribution. Providing for such a right seems to place a heavy burden on society in exchange for which the society is supposed to get some benefits. About benefits - does it mean that the human race would be less creative and inventive (or even stop to create and invent) without the copyright protection?
  - 15y ago
kiba 15y ago
There is a way to kill big media: create companies that don't act like big media, or more specifically, big media's unethical acts. After all, they are trying to stop the spread of their own media. What about them stopping the spread of their competitors' media?
Natsu 15y ago
That's why we have to have our own people working tirelessly to oppose this crap. The EFF, for example: https://www.eff.org/helpout https://www.eff.org/helpout
jrockway 15y ago
The good news is that strong cryptography will keep our private thoughts private forever. You may go to jail for refusing to tell the government what your private thoughts are, but they'll never be able to find them out without your help. Now if only I had thoughts worth keeping private...
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  FWIW, I wish you'd keep most of your thoughts private :-)
  - jrockway 15y ago
    I get that a lot :)
ajb 15y ago
The above is practically the worst thing you could write on this topic. As engineers, we are accustomed to think of writing as a mere exchange of data. But in the political arena, writing is an act. The act embedded in the above comment is to convey the defeatist attitude of its author. "Don't bother to campaign against this bill, only a constitutional amendment will do". Never say the other side is going to win. Never say the other side is too strong. WE are going to win, we are going to keep going no matter how long it takes.

JoshTriplett 15y ago

I agree with you about the persistence problem; the government acts like a rotten two-year-old that keeps trying until it gets its way. Like a two-year-old, it learns what it can get away with and tries harder each time. Unlike a two-year-old, it doesn't grow up and learn what not to do. We shouldn't need a constitutional amendment here; the constitution is a whitelist of things the federal government may do, not a blacklist of things it may not do. While the constitution does sadly include the notion of copyright, it does not include anything allowing regulatory authority over the Internet.

zacharycohn 15y ago
To be fair, the repetition is how the system SHOULD work. Do you think the first attempt at passing a women's suffrage bill passed?
anigbrowl 15y ago
I agree with you about the persistence problem; the government acts like a rotten two-year-old that keeps trying until it gets its way. That's because the House elections run on a two-year cycle, and this is the part of the cycle at which people are paying the least attention. While the constitution does sadly include the notion of copyright, it does not include anything allowing regulatory authority over the Internet. /facepalm It doesn't say anything about aeroplanes either, but you'd be mad if they started falling out of the sky onto your house so you put with the FAA. Dark hints about constitutional permissions are a signal of irrelevance, because if it was as obvious as all that the issue would get in front of the Supreme Court much faster. You have to take the history of constitutional jurisprudence into account, because courts do. This is the sort of problem best fought at the ballot box, which means holding your nose and opening your wallet.
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily argue that the federal government should not have any new powers, but rather than they should not simply assume them in contravention of the constitution. If the federal government wishes to expand its purview, it should have to get a constitutional amendment passed. Yes, that requires quite a lot of work and requires more consensus than political decisions normally require; good, that's a feature. (Personally, I think we'd almost certainly be a lot better off if all bills required margins much greater than 50%; then, only universally accepted policies would gain acceptance.) Hence my argument that we should not need a constitutional amendment to say that the federal government may not do something, unless the constitution currently says it may.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland is 'the' case which explains the existence of the Federal government's implied powers as well as the enumerated ones. For good or ill, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the constitution is the law whenever there's a disagreement, and the decisions of the Marshall court in particular are very important (not least because Marshall was in office for so long so early in the USA's history). It's pointless to have arguments about the constitution without reference to past controversies - I've highlighted the relevant section here, but this whole page is effectively the 'rest' of the Constitution that lawyers are paid to think about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_court_decisions_in_the_United_States#Landmark_decisions_in_U.S._federalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_court_decision... There's a short and very readable book by Prof. Laurence Tribe called 'The Invisible Constitution' that examines the competing approaches to constitutional interpretation and implementation. Now in California, we do have a very comprehensive state constitution of the kind you're talking about - any significant expansion of state power or rules has to trace its way back to some specific constitutional provision. It's not my idea of an improvement: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/const-toc.html http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/const-toc.html
jbooth 15y ago
Hang on one second, who in the hell is "the government" in this situation? The politicians supporting this bill, mostly republicans, work the phrase "I'm anti-government" into every single public speech they give. Those are the only supporters on the public payroll, the rest are all corporate entities and lobbyists, as well as the Chamber of Commerce, natch. Those are your pro-government marxist ideologues in this story. I really think the phrase "the government" or even worse, capital-G "Government", should be banned from any discussion of policy, it turns everyone involved into an idiot. Government and industry both have lots of moving parts. Lastly, I agree that our existing constitution should prevent this sort of law. I'm not optimistic about the current "small-government" supreme court agreeing with me.
- jwhitlark 15y ago
  The sponsors of this bill break down as 16 Democrats to 11 Republicans. How does that work out to "mostly republicans"? It appears that this has support from both parties, and I think casting it as a party issue will weaken opposition.
  - jbooth 15y ago
    Ok, it's bipartisan, but the only meaningful opposition has come from democrats, and the entire political spectrum of "anti government" has lined up behind it. I'm just saying breaking everything down to "government" is a ridiculous tagline that obfuscates more than it helps. I mean, even if this is approved, it's basically the government doing extremely cheap contract work for the companies who'd benefit. I have a problem with it being done, period, if the ISPs formed a cartel with the MPAA to do this without the government it'd be just as bad.
    - CWuestefeld 15y ago
      the only meaningful opposition has come from democrats, and the entire political spectrum of "anti government" has lined up behind it Which Libertarian think-tank was it that was supporting the bill? Really, jbooth, your partisanship isn't helping anything.
lukifer 15y ago
> the government acts like a rotten two-year-old that keeps trying until it gets its way Point of clarification: the government itself has no inherent interest here, and is acting mostly on behalf of influential Big Content lobbyists. Like so many other first-world systemic problems, this is yet another government-industrial complex. > the constitution is a whitelist of things the federal government may do Yes, this is how it should work, but it hasn't worked this way for a long time; scope creep has taken on a life of its own. Without implying a simple, "magic bullet" solution, We The People should acknowledge just how broken our electoral system is, and that it is the central impediment towards regaining anything resembling a constitutionally constrained democratic republic.
- repsilat 15y ago
  > Yes, this is how it should work, but it hasn't worked this way for a long time; More concretely, this bill would be allowed up by the prevailing (contorted) interpretations of the copyright clause and the interstate commerce clause.
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    The copyright clause does not provide authority to regulate the operation of the Internet. And yes, the commerce clause gets contorted into an all-encompassing regulatory justification, but that doesn't make it right.

narrator 15y ago

The reason they can continue to relentlessly push for it is because the paid lobbyists who are pushing for it are just doing their day job. They can spend the rest of their lives at it. The public only has so much spare time.

thematt 15y ago
Aren't there are paid lobbyists pushing on the other side of it too? Perhaps there are not as many or they're not as well funded, but I believe they still exist.
- Natsu 15y ago
  Companies like Viacom are also rounding up their employees to support such things: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/makers-against-takers-viacom-drums-up-net-censorship-support-with-tasty-half-muffins.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/makers-again...
- yuhong 15y ago
  Yea, as Google etc are pushing against it, I predict deadlock for years just like net neutrality and the telcos ended up being.
earbitscom 15y ago
The other reason is because people continue to infringe upon their rights. If people stopped taking what's not theirs, you'd have a hard time getting anyone to spend time on this legislation.
- VladRussian 15y ago
  the key here is a supposed right for secure piracy-free distribution. Providing for such a right seems to place a heavy burden on society in exchange for which the society is supposed to get some benefits. About benefits - does it mean that the human race would be less creative and inventive (or even stop to create and invent) without the copyright protection?
- 15y ago

kiba 15y ago

There is a way to kill big media: create companies that don't act like big media, or more specifically, big media's unethical acts. After all, they are trying to stop the spread of their own media. What about them stopping the spread of their competitors' media?

Natsu 15y ago

That's why we have to have our own people working tirelessly to oppose this crap. The EFF, for example: https://www.eff.org/helpout https://www.eff.org/helpout

jrockway 15y ago

The good news is that strong cryptography will keep our private thoughts private forever. You may go to jail for refusing to tell the government what your private thoughts are, but they'll never be able to find them out without your help. Now if only I had thoughts worth keeping private...

bluedanieru 15y ago
FWIW, I wish you'd keep most of your thoughts private :-)
- jrockway 15y ago
  I get that a lot :)

ajb 15y ago

The above is practically the worst thing you could write on this topic. As engineers, we are accustomed to think of writing as a mere exchange of data. But in the political arena, writing is an act. The act embedded in the above comment is to convey the defeatist attitude of its author. "Don't bother to campaign against this bill, only a constitutional amendment will do". Never say the other side is going to win. Never say the other side is too strong. WE are going to win, we are going to keep going no matter how long it takes.