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House Panel Moving Forward With SOPA
itwbennett writes "The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a debate and vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act for later this week. Representative Lamar Smith, the committee chairman and main sponsor of the bill, will offer an amendment that is meant to address some concerns with the bill. Smith's proposed amendment would clarify that the bill applies only to foreign websites, not U.S. sites, accused of aiding copyright infringement."
I don't know what worries me most, that politicians in America really believe this is good for the country, or that politicians in America are so deep in the pockets of the corporations to push this through.
I don't want to give the government anymore power than they have now.
Let me ask you: why do they need this power? If they show a website to be dedicated to offering copyrighted material for download, then can't they already ask a judge to take it down/seize the domain (right now they're just taking them away without any oversight)? What more power do they need? Seriously.
What it's going to allow them to do is take down access to sites like The Pirate Bay that are "dedicated" (this word appears a lot in the wikipedia article) to copyright infringement.
They're humans, not saints. Mistakes happen. Sometimes they're corrupt.
Well, part of the modern argument is that only US citizens have rights and that the constitution does not apply to people outside the country.. which kinda goes against the whole 'inalienable rights' concept.
Interesting article written by a Harvard Law professor detailing specific cases show how SOPA violates the constitution. http://www.scribd.com/doc/75153093/Tribe-Legis-Memo-on-SOPA-12-6-11-1