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SOPA vote is now December 21
- Mithrandir 15y ago> A controversial measure aimed at stopping online privacy... Heh, I've made this mistake too when speaking, although privacy certainly could be affected by the SOPA.
- r00fus 15y agoSo the delay is just to put it under the radar while everyone is off on Holiday break? Devious.
- exDM69 15y agoThis is a classic dirty trick in politics. Organize an unpopular vote when a lot of the voters have left for xmas holidays. Just make sure there's a majority left when the vote is on. As an example: the federal reserve act was established in the same way on the days before xmas when a lot of the opposition had already left for holidays. Since it's holiday season, the news will be a lot quieter than usual and the public can be left in the dark.
- GuiA 15y agoIn France, they do the same thing but in August, when pretty much everyone is away on their summer holidays. Democracy has become a funny thing.
- thebigshane 15y agoIt seems to me like the opponents (there are only a few anyway) in the House are just as eager to attend this vote as the proponents. So perhaps I am missing the deviousness? Plus, since more people are at home during the holidays, wouldn't more people actually be watching the news? (I'm not saying there isn't a well funded conspiracy to get this bill passed at any means possible, but it seems that we may be seeking out things to get angry about)
- einhverfr 15y agoNow, this is the committee vote, though, right? It means it ends up front and center in front of the full body after the holidays, right?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- orangecat 15y agoUgh. One thing I oddly haven't seen mentioned at all: if it passes, will Obama sign it? I disagree with him on many things, but he's not stupid, and given his support base there have to be some geeks close to him that can explain how awful it is. Of course, his support base also includes Hollywood...
- alexqgb 15y agoObama doesn't give a flying fig about his support base. Sorry to be so blunt, but that bastard just threatened to veto the NDAA unless the provisions allowing indefinite dentition of Americans without charge or trial were put pack in. His base is screaming bloody murder, and the White House remains utterly unmoved. Added irony: the Senate passed this abomination on Bill of Rights Day, precisely 220 years after the (now gutted) Bill of Rights was ratified. Separately, this same base has been howling about ACTA, which has been spearheaded by none other than Joe Biden. So no, he isn't going to veto the censorship bill either. But you better be careful about how you choose to protest. Obama has also out-Cheneyd Cheney in claiming that the President has the power to hunt and kill Americans without charge or trial if the Executive (not the Courts) determines that the 'target' is an 'enemy combatant'. And what's the standard for making this determination? Top Secret, naturally. According to Obama, it's all about "remaining flexible". And that brings us to Christopher Hitchens, who observed that "The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." The really scare thing about all this is the prospect of Democrats going into open revolt, ejecting Obama from the White House, and inadvertently handing this basket of unspeakable nasty to Newt Gingrich.
- redthrowaway 15y agoHe's counting on the Republicans selecting someone crazy enough to bring out his disenfranchised base, and it might just happen. Still, Newt will quickly calm down after the primaries. He is many things, few of them good, but an idiot is not one of them. He won't say anything too crazy and risk scaring up support for Obama. This election could go either way, and quite frankly I don't give a damn. I tried the Hope thing with Obama, and I got burned. They can all die in a fire. The very best I can hope for government at this point is that they ignore the things I care about (fat bloody chance).
- ck2 15y agoThere must be serious money to be made - or rather already made for the representatives plowing this through - there is simply no other explanation. Money is definitely deep in pockets. Looking at the "donation" list it's to both sides of the aisle and HUGE amounts, these aren't little $10k donations but $100k and even $1M I am starting to understand the fall of Rome a little better.
- OstiaAntica 15y agoThis is known as "concentrated benefits, dispersed costs", and it explains much of modern politics. A focused, motivated special-interest can reaps millions from some policy change (usually a tax loophole), but the costs spread across the general public are quite small, so there's no similar force in opposition.
- tomjen3 15y agoWe won't have a situation like the Fall of Rome before we have accepted violence as a means of political change. What killed Rome wasn't just the corruption but the fall of the Gracie brothers. You can't have Marius and Sulla without that. No Sulla, no Cesar, no fall of Rome. And while we are at it, there are no barbarian hordes that can ever invade the US -- unless you count those in the backwater areas of the flyover states -- simply because the US is so monstrously huge.
- mynameishere 15y agoRome fell partly because the treasures stopped coming in from conquest. And the US is being invaded faster than any other country in history, to the best of my knowledge. It's odd that so many people are unaware of this. Had 1-2 millions entered Rome every year, as with the US currently, it wouldn't have taken centuries to fall. This is just math of course--people differ in their judgements.
- peteretep 15y agoI hear the world's tiniest violin playing for a country that consistently attracts the world's brightest and most entrepreneurial people from other countries. With a population density that starts off small before you even consider that almost all of the entire country is habitable... You're right. It's just math. You just don't understand that math.
- foxylad 15y agoWell, it's been nice having our US friends with us on the internet, and it's going to be quieter without them. So long and the best of luck with that government of yours.
- teresko 15y agoSomeone in CBS News site's comments pointed out an interesting thing: there were already two bill like that. "Communications Decency Act" and "Child Online Protection Act", which both were tossed out by Supreme Court.
- skymt 15y agoBoth of those bills attempted to create new restrictions on speech. SOPA simply creates new censorship measures against forms of speech that are already illegal.
- kijin 15y agoNew censorship measures which a lot of people believe violate due process. I can't quite decide which option would be better in the long run: (a) stop SOPA, only to have similar ideas come up every single year, or (b) let SOPA pass, then build a case and take it all the way to the Supreme Court hoping that measures such as SOPA would be ruled unconstitutional once and for all. If this succeeds, it would set a precedent to seriously discourage similar ideas from coming up again. The anti-SOPA camp definitely possesses the financial and legal resources to mount such a challenge, too. But it would take years, and there's no guarantee that the Supreme Court will be any more reasonable than Mr. Lamar Smith.
- hillbilly 15y agoThe SOPA bill states that even if one provision is deemed unconstitutional, the rest of the bill remains intact.
- presidentx 15y agoCan someone copy/paste this article? The mobile version is just a big ad that I can't seem to dismiss. P.S. Quick, before SOPA takes effect.
- stonemetal 15y agoRepublican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, decided against holding a committee vote that had been expected on Friday. The panel later scheduled a vote for Wednesday, December 21. The rest is a description of SOPA.
- jdthomas 15y agoGah! At lest the 10th major site I've run into recently that does this (including google groups). If you want to forward me to a mobile version of your site, at least drop me at the content I was trying to find.
- OstiaAntica 15y agoIt is ironic that the "creative" film and music industry has become a leading force in suppressing speech and innovation.
- mkr-hn 15y agoThe artists being represented by these lobbying groups are probably just as ignorant of the consequences as the legislators.
- throwaway8890 15y agoWhat is going on in this country?
- russell 15y agoMoney. Money buys legislators. Money buys institutionalized corruption. The Supreme court says that organizations can make unlimited campaign contributions, yet individuals are limited. Until we take money out of politics, it will only get worse.
- willyt 15y agoHere's an idea, might be ridiculous: Can you file court papers electronically in the US? What if say youtube, wikipedia, etc had a fully automated SOPA compliance system which automatically filed court papers to have the take down notice 'reviewed' however that works thereby overloading the system. There must be some way to reflect the work back at them and DoS a manual process somewhere in the legal machinery. 'OK we'll do it, but your not going to like it...' fight bureaucracy with more bureaucracy.
- neutronicus 15y agoI don't think lawyers have ever been particularly upset about having more billing clients. I imagine our current glut of law school students would thank them.
- delinka 15y agoCourt oversight? In SOPA? Not AFAIK and that's why everyone is so pissed about this.
- kijin 15y agoIsn't that more or less what RIAA lawyers have been doing, though perhaps not electronically?
- sek 15y agoGerman here, can somebody explain to me what it means when this passes? As far as i understand it, the US controlled tld's like .com .net are done. Every time someone posts something on these sites they could be shut down, what is impossible to prevent by sites like Tumblr and Facebook. Probably for every domain when the company is US based. So this will result in a more diverse domain landscape and a competitive advantage for non-US internet companies. Or did i miss something?
- _delirium 15y agoReally depends on how it plays out. My guess is that there will be some favoratism and de-facto lenience towards large companies, because no agency will want to be the one who seized google.com and ruined everyone's day. The downside is that just opens up a large new avenue for corruption and, even when not outright corruption, selective enforcement of laws.
- sek 15y agoSounds like a real threat to the valley, could this kill the internet startup culture? I tinker with the idea to get there, but i am really concerned now with all these developments.
- tatsuke95 15y agoWhat else can be expected from a bunch of old people who hardly understand the internet? When the internet to you is a search engine, Facebook and typing URLs into the IE6 address bar, I'm sure SOPA seems mostly harmless. Let them plow it through committee and play their games. These are tumultuous times. People, globally, are unimpressed with leadership. This is being watched carefully by the public. Hopefully it will be a watershed event.
- a-priori 15y agoWhen the internet to you is a search engine, Facebook and typing URLs into the IE6 address bar, I'm sure SOPA seems mostly harmless. The problem is that describes a large segment of the general population as well.
- keithpeter 15y agoMost of the people I see using the Web now type the title of the site they want to access into Google. Getting them to type an actual address into a Web browser address bar is hard work. Good luck over there. In the UK most things are allowed until they aren't (see the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and its updates).
- albertsun 15y agoThere is exactly one bit of news in this story. "The panel later scheduled a vote for Wednesday, December 21."
- thebigshane 15y agoCan someone elaborate on the addition to the title: ... with no one to stop it I understand it's close to Christmas but is it really that unusual to have hearings in late December? Are they really going to have a better showing of proponents vs opponents with this new date? Otherwise can we tone down the added sensationalism to an already emotional topic? (Unless, of course, this is indeed an important point to make, and then I request some one elaborate)
- abeppu 15y agoThursday and Friday morning, the sad, small opposition (Lofgren, Issa, Polis & Chaffetz) did a good job of slowing down the markup process. One frequently repeated suggestion was that since it was likely that the markup would continue past the holiday recess and need to be resumed in January anyways, that they may as well take the time to convene a hearing where actual tech experts could respond. Does anyone know, procedurally will it be possible for Lofgren et al to prevent or delay an actual vote in the committee, or is Smith with his large support able to force the matter? I suppose, if worst comes to worst, the four opposing committee members could each agree to impugne the integrity of each of the others, obstinately refuse to revise their words in the record, take a break to consult with a parliamentarian, and then relent.
- Stwerner 15y agoThe data is freely available of the amount of money raised by different members of congress, right? I've got an idea for a little mashup to try to raise money against the backers of this bill.
- tomkinstinch 15y agoMaplight.org has the data: http://maplight.org/us-congress/bill/112-hr-3261/1019110/download.csv http://maplight.org/us-congress/bill/112-hr-3261/1019110/dow...
- burke 15y agoI know it's just a coincidence that they chose the darkest day of the year for this, but I still find it a little poignant.
- ceslami 15y agoTo me, the most shocking about SOPA has been the way it is portrayed in the media. Imagine reading this passage if you weren't "in-the-know" (as many of us would like to think we are): "But most of the major players in the technology industry, including Google and Facebook, are strongly opposed to the legislation because they say they would be forced to police their websites for possibly illegal content. Google, which owns YouTube, says the language is so broad that videos of teenagers dancing would be banned because of the copyrighted music playing in the background. And that would stifle innovation, they say." The media is minimizing the issue to corporate laziness, and thats really not okay. I sense snarkiness, especially in the last line, and I think an outlet like CBS has an obligation to do better than that.
- antoko 15y ago>To me, the most shocking about SOPA has been the way it is portrayed in the media......The media is minimizing the issue to corporate laziness....I think an outlet like CBS has an obligation to do better than that. The media are the ones that are lobbying for this bill, did you really expect them to cover it with anything approaching impartiality? CBS is owned by Viacom. Getting the media to join the fight against SOPA is not very likely.
- ceslami 15y agoI absolutely agree with you. As crazy as it is, most people don't realize that news programs project the agenda of their corporate parents -- the media just "speaks the truth."
- hillbilly 15y agoI am concerned that a lot of the anti SOPA complaints I've read are fear mongering, and I want to be better informed. Is there a website to visit that debates specific line numbers of the bill?