10 ms·

Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

121 points by llambda 15y ago

UncleBeard 15y ago
I'll never forget what John Carpenter taught me in They Live. "The golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules."
- thematt 15y ago
  The frustrating part is that the internet and tech companies opposed to SOPA have plenty of gold. They're just not using it.
  - abjr 15y ago
    I agree. They are frustratingly quiet. Any ideas why?
    - jerf 15y ago
      Increased regulatory compliance costs plays to the advantage of existing big players. The government won't really let Google or Facebook be destroyed. DuckDuckGo or Diaspora? No tears shed. Losing some profit today to know that you just raised the bar of entry for your industry impossibly high for everybody else? A hard offer to resist.
      - chc 15y ago
        What? Google is one of the few companies that's actually come out swinging against SOPA. I would wager they've done more to defeat it than any other company or individual with a presence on HN.
        jerf 15y ago
        And I count that to their credit, as I do for the other companies who have fought this. I count it to their credit because it is no credit to resist a temptation not offered to you; my opposition to SOPA is easy, because I do not stand to gain from it. They are actually resisting something. But the answer to the question asked is, even if it appears to harm certain other companies, it's still to their benefit if it harms others even more, and that's why we're not hearing from them very much.
    - forensic 15y ago
      because SOPA doesn't hurt them. It hurts SMALL businesses.
- alexqgb 15y ago
  Alt. He who has the peso has the say so.
ams6110 15y ago
Throughout his administration, the President has left almost all intellectual property issues up to Vice President Joe Biden Classic. Leave IP issues to the plagiarist.
- jonursenbach 15y ago
  Plagarist?
  - usaar333 15y ago
    Via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden#Early_life_and_education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden#Early_life_and_educat... "He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University's College of Law in 1968,[19] where by his own description he found it to be "the biggest bore in the world" and pulled many all-nighters to get by.[15][20] During his first year there, he was accused of having plagiarized 5 of 15 pages of a law review article. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F, which was subsequently dropped from his record.[20] He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.[19]"
  - TomOfTTB 15y ago
    Biden was knocked out of contention for the Democratic Nomination in 1988 because he copied a speech delivered by British Politician a year earlier (and even went so far as to fudge his own familly history a bit to make the copied lines work) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign,_1988#Kinnock_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign...
    - fossuser 15y ago
      That hardly seems like plagiarism, more paraphrasing and even then it isn't like he took the entire speech - just a basic idea and two sentences (which he apparently cited everywhere except once).
  - kmfrk 15y ago
zackzackzack 15y ago
Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of political candidates, especially those running for higher offices. Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a strong case will win this fight. Many different people from many walks of life need to be angry about SOPA before Obama could walk away from the bill easily with "The people don't want this." Nerds on the internet probably won't convince him alone.
- caseysoftware 15y ago
  A better phrasing would be: "A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of challengers of sitting political candidates, especially those running for higher offices." This gives incumbents yet another way to defend their seat. If an incumbent has any authority over any agency that decides, submits, enforces, or challenges these requests, would it be misused? We like to think not.. but I think we've seen otherwise.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as simple as that.
  - zackzackzack 15y ago
    Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up a bunch of their voters?
    - pasbesoin 15y ago
      Start asking around, and find out how many people (outside your circle of informed technical friends) even know that SOPA/PIPA are happening (just their existence/names, not to mention what they are about). (Hint: Not many, in my experience.)
pasbesoin 15y ago
As I've said before, just look at what Joe Biden's been up to. This post is on the mark. "The Internet's" problem is that it doesn't have anything to hold over Obama's head. Yet.
jballanc 15y ago
There are some interesting points here, but the article misses one very, very important constituency (from the President's point of view, at least): the intelligence community. If the law remains as is and outlaws Tor, Obama will have the head of every intelligence agency in his office telling him to veto the bill or put the nation at risk. If the law is amended to allow Tor (as was attempted) and then passes, then how long before Tor becomes a household name?
- kabdib 15y ago
  Is Tor really that important?
  - jballanc 15y ago
    The project was originally started by the Office of Naval Research. Really, it's the perfect vehicle for electronic espionage: hide your tracks as an intelligence agent on an anonymity network primarily occupied by ordinary citizens. More details here: https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military
  - flueedo 15y ago
    I think not only Tor, but many other encryption/anonymizing tools will face risk of being outlawed. I can imagine many situations in which the work of intelligence agencies will become more difficult. Along with that a conundrum will be created, since such tools are used by Chinese citizens to bypass their governmental firewalls, by people in the middle east to bypass similar types of blockages among others, etc.
- nl 15y ago
  Tor just isn't that important. It was a comparatively minor project from a minor agency where it is no longer developed. Not only that, but Tor is too closely associated with the seedier sides of the internet for any elected politician to stand up for it specifically. Thinking that the President will override a bill because of a minor thing like Tor is grasping at straws.
vectorpush 15y ago
leading into what may be a difficult election year, and dependent on money from Hollywood and unions (the big Democratic funders), this is an easy call. There is no way that Obama hasn't taken the temperature on SOPA by now. Obama's most vocal liberal base will transform into an internet hate machine to rival the likes of the tea party if SOPA is signed. There is also the Ron Paul crew capturing more and more Democratic voters by the day, a signature on SOPA would be an incredible windfall for them in terms of people who would refuse to vote for Obama out of pure anger. I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day.
- jberryman 15y ago
  > I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day. I think it's really unpopular on HN and on websites with "tech" in the name, but is the general electorate even aware of the issue? I don't see much about SOPA in the MSM (admittedly the last several months have had a lot of news-worthy events).
  - Natsu 15y ago
    The news still seems largely contained to the tech circles, though the GoDaddy story managed to get a lot of press.
  - vectorpush 15y ago
    but is the general electorate even aware of the issue? I would argue that the tech media is pretty hip these days and not as far removed from the general electorate as you might think, but only time will tell.
  - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
    Purely anecdotal, but I have had a number of totally non-technical friends and acquaintances come up to me lately to express concerns about SOPA/PIPA and what it might mean for the internet, the critical importance of which even non-technical people clearly understand.
DillonF 15y ago
What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the issues that are so very important to them are probably just not that important to the president (if he even knows about them at all.) He has a whole world full of things to worry about and only 365 days a year. When something so important to you such as SOPA arrives on his desk, he probably is forced to paint with very broad strokes. Should I be strong on IP, weak on IP? Does my party support it? The specific long term effects that so many of us fear probably don't even cross his mind.
ramblerman 15y ago
Give him a "Freedom Of Speech Defender" award. I'm sure it will be as effective as the premature peace prize. I still believe wholeheartedly that he is a good man, with good intentions. But he lacked the conviction and courage to be a "leader". Instead he focused on reelections from the start. You're the president of the United stated of America ffs! You can get away with a lot more than you think, look at your predecessors.

121 points by llambda 15y ago

UncleBeard 15y ago

I'll never forget what John Carpenter taught me in They Live. "The golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules."

thematt 15y ago
The frustrating part is that the internet and tech companies opposed to SOPA have plenty of gold. They're just not using it.
- abjr 15y ago
  I agree. They are frustratingly quiet. Any ideas why?
  - jerf 15y ago
    Increased regulatory compliance costs plays to the advantage of existing big players. The government won't really let Google or Facebook be destroyed. DuckDuckGo or Diaspora? No tears shed. Losing some profit today to know that you just raised the bar of entry for your industry impossibly high for everybody else? A hard offer to resist.
    - chc 15y ago
      What? Google is one of the few companies that's actually come out swinging against SOPA. I would wager they've done more to defeat it than any other company or individual with a presence on HN.
      - jerf 15y ago
        And I count that to their credit, as I do for the other companies who have fought this. I count it to their credit because it is no credit to resist a temptation not offered to you; my opposition to SOPA is easy, because I do not stand to gain from it. They are actually resisting something. But the answer to the question asked is, even if it appears to harm certain other companies, it's still to their benefit if it harms others even more, and that's why we're not hearing from them very much.
  - forensic 15y ago
    because SOPA doesn't hurt them. It hurts SMALL businesses.
alexqgb 15y ago
Alt. He who has the peso has the say so.

ams6110 15y ago

Throughout his administration, the President has left almost all intellectual property issues up to Vice President Joe Biden Classic. Leave IP issues to the plagiarist.

jonursenbach 15y ago
Plagarist?
- usaar333 15y ago
  Via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden#Early_life_and_education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden#Early_life_and_educat... "He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University's College of Law in 1968,[19] where by his own description he found it to be "the biggest bore in the world" and pulled many all-nighters to get by.[15][20] During his first year there, he was accused of having plagiarized 5 of 15 pages of a law review article. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F, which was subsequently dropped from his record.[20] He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.[19]"
- TomOfTTB 15y ago
  Biden was knocked out of contention for the Democratic Nomination in 1988 because he copied a speech delivered by British Politician a year earlier (and even went so far as to fudge his own familly history a bit to make the copied lines work) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign,_1988#Kinnock_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign...
  - fossuser 15y ago
    That hardly seems like plagiarism, more paraphrasing and even then it isn't like he took the entire speech - just a basic idea and two sentences (which he apparently cited everywhere except once).
- kmfrk 15y ago

zackzackzack 15y ago

Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of political candidates, especially those running for higher offices. Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a strong case will win this fight. Many different people from many walks of life need to be angry about SOPA before Obama could walk away from the bill easily with "The people don't want this." Nerds on the internet probably won't convince him alone.

caseysoftware 15y ago
A better phrasing would be: "A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of challengers of sitting political candidates, especially those running for higher offices." This gives incumbents yet another way to defend their seat. If an incumbent has any authority over any agency that decides, submits, enforces, or challenges these requests, would it be misused? We like to think not.. but I think we've seen otherwise.
pasbesoin 15y ago
Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as simple as that.
- zackzackzack 15y ago
  Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up a bunch of their voters?
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    Start asking around, and find out how many people (outside your circle of informed technical friends) even know that SOPA/PIPA are happening (just their existence/names, not to mention what they are about). (Hint: Not many, in my experience.)

pasbesoin 15y ago

As I've said before, just look at what Joe Biden's been up to. This post is on the mark. "The Internet's" problem is that it doesn't have anything to hold over Obama's head. Yet.

jballanc 15y ago

There are some interesting points here, but the article misses one very, very important constituency (from the President's point of view, at least): the intelligence community. If the law remains as is and outlaws Tor, Obama will have the head of every intelligence agency in his office telling him to veto the bill or put the nation at risk. If the law is amended to allow Tor (as was attempted) and then passes, then how long before Tor becomes a household name?

kabdib 15y ago
Is Tor really that important?
- jballanc 15y ago
  The project was originally started by the Office of Naval Research. Really, it's the perfect vehicle for electronic espionage: hide your tracks as an intelligence agent on an anonymity network primarily occupied by ordinary citizens. More details here: https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military
- flueedo 15y ago
  I think not only Tor, but many other encryption/anonymizing tools will face risk of being outlawed. I can imagine many situations in which the work of intelligence agencies will become more difficult. Along with that a conundrum will be created, since such tools are used by Chinese citizens to bypass their governmental firewalls, by people in the middle east to bypass similar types of blockages among others, etc.
nl 15y ago
Tor just isn't that important. It was a comparatively minor project from a minor agency where it is no longer developed. Not only that, but Tor is too closely associated with the seedier sides of the internet for any elected politician to stand up for it specifically. Thinking that the President will override a bill because of a minor thing like Tor is grasping at straws.

vectorpush 15y ago

leading into what may be a difficult election year, and dependent on money from Hollywood and unions (the big Democratic funders), this is an easy call. There is no way that Obama hasn't taken the temperature on SOPA by now. Obama's most vocal liberal base will transform into an internet hate machine to rival the likes of the tea party if SOPA is signed. There is also the Ron Paul crew capturing more and more Democratic voters by the day, a signature on SOPA would be an incredible windfall for them in terms of people who would refuse to vote for Obama out of pure anger. I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day.

jberryman 15y ago
> I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day. I think it's really unpopular on HN and on websites with "tech" in the name, but is the general electorate even aware of the issue? I don't see much about SOPA in the MSM (admittedly the last several months have had a lot of news-worthy events).
- Natsu 15y ago
  The news still seems largely contained to the tech circles, though the GoDaddy story managed to get a lot of press.
- vectorpush 15y ago
  but is the general electorate even aware of the issue? I would argue that the tech media is pretty hip these days and not as far removed from the general electorate as you might think, but only time will tell.
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  Purely anecdotal, but I have had a number of totally non-technical friends and acquaintances come up to me lately to express concerns about SOPA/PIPA and what it might mean for the internet, the critical importance of which even non-technical people clearly understand.

DillonF 15y ago

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the issues that are so very important to them are probably just not that important to the president (if he even knows about them at all.) He has a whole world full of things to worry about and only 365 days a year. When something so important to you such as SOPA arrives on his desk, he probably is forced to paint with very broad strokes. Should I be strong on IP, weak on IP? Does my party support it? The specific long term effects that so many of us fear probably don't even cross his mind.

ramblerman 15y ago

Give him a "Freedom Of Speech Defender" award. I'm sure it will be as effective as the premature peace prize. I still believe wholeheartedly that he is a good man, with good intentions. But he lacked the conviction and courage to be a "leader". Instead he focused on reelections from the start. You're the president of the United stated of America ffs! You can get away with a lot more than you think, look at your predecessors.