Meet the Strange Bedfellows Who Could Stop SOPA

jfruhlinger writes "In a political environment that's become very strongly defined by partisan lines, the SOPA debate has offered an unexpected ray of hope: the two main Congressional opponents of the bill are Ron Wyden, an Oregon Senator deemed a 'hardcore liberal' and Darrell Issa, a California Representative who is one of the Obama Administration's fiercest critics. (There are both Ds and Rs in favor of the bill, too.)" (Read more below.) In the technical rather than political world, opposition seems easier to find: Trailrunner7 writes "A group of engineers, networking specialists, security experts and other specialists deeply involved with the Internet's development and growth have sent a letter to lawmakers criticizing the highly controversial SOPA and PIPA bills and imploring them not to pass the legislation, which they say would stifle innovation and 'threaten engineers who build Internet systems or offer services that are not readily and automatically compliant with censorship actions by the U.S. government.' The letter is signed by a long list of Internet pioneers and other respected figures, including Steve Bellovin, Paul Vixie, Vint Cerf, Jon Callas, Tony Li, Robert W. Taylor, Esther Dyson and Fred Baker, among many others. Both SOPA and PIPA have been criticized heavily by technologists, privacy advocates and security experts who say that not only would the proposed bills make it difficult for companies to create innovative new technologies, but they also would likely not even accomplish the goals their authors' had in mind, namely preventing copyright infringement and content piracy."

And (hat tip to Rob Malda), here's the letter itself (PDF).

Comments

They're NOT opposed to SOPA

[elrous0]

This summary makes it sound like they're heroes fighting for our freedom or something. In actuality, they're just advocated for their own alternative Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN). And the only difference between their bill and SOPA is that SOPA will put enforcement in the hands of the Justice Department and OPEN will put it in the hands of the United States International Trade Commission, which in practice will make ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE to most sites being busted.

The only reason Darrel Issa and Ron Wyden are supporting it is because it provides more protection for the Googles, Facebooks, etc. and they're both from states where those companies are big players.

Re:They're NOT opposed to SOPA

[Hatta]

This is the mindset that has caused the US to move steadily to the right for the past 30 years. The lesser evil is still evil.

Re:They're NOT opposed to SOPA

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, a hundred thousand times NO. That's known as "changing the window," and it's a well known problem with politics.

Example: For the kids, we're now going to conduct random warrantless household searches across the nation.

With your approach, we should approve of a less offensive alternative, like, say, "but this will only happen twice a year, instead of once a month." You feel like you "won" something when in reality, by any measure, you have objectively lost. This is basically how the Constitution and our "inalienable rights" have been eviscerated over the last century or so.

This approach is extremely common in politics, and less offensive alternatives are absolutely NOT the way to address it! Wholehearted refusal of THE ENTIRE PREMISE is required, potentially along with civil disobedience if either version does get enacted.

CAPTCHA: frauds. How appropriate.

Re:They're NOT opposed to SOPA

[Shatrat]

The mindset of drawing battle lines in terms of 'right' and 'left' is what has allowed politicians to move steadily into lobbyist pockets (like hermit crabs) for the past 30 years... I can't think of a better illustration than the SOPA, ACTA, DMCA et cetera garbage that has been getting pushed through lately with bipartisan support and almost zero outcry or media coverage. Everyone is too busy fighting about stem cells and carbon credits and which politician is banging their stenographer.

And this is good?

[Anonymous Coward]

So these two politicians can do what countless citizens petitioning,calling,and writing cannot... What a tragedy.

Re:All this and we still don't have a budget

[ackthpt]

The only thing Congress can agree on is that something must be done to "stop those thieves!"

Meanwhile people on every side lie to them. Ruthlessly so.

You mean the foxes guarding the henhouse could actually be entrusted to propose actually guarding the henhouse?

Trusting Congress to do the right thing is like expecting a snake to get up and walk in a straight line -- they may get about where you'd like them to be, but only with a lot of twisting, turning, amending and consulting with their friendly neighborhood lobbyists to leave in loopholes where more evil legislation could easily be inserted later, perhaps wadded up in a 662 billion dollar defense bill.

Re:And if you don't know offhand what SOPA is...

[VGPowerlord]

SOPA I would say isn't reasonable for everyone to know what it is or what it stands for. For one it is new. It is for a new bill, it hasn't been around for years. Secondly it is what the United States Congress calls it, Other countries are not always involved what the US is doing all the time... Also us Americans may not always be into seeing every bill that comes out of the US. Third Slashdotters don't always log in every day, or week or month. So when they come it these articles make no sense.

SOPA has been mentioned at least once a week on /. for at least a few weeks, if not months, and you still don't know what it is?

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act AKA the U.S. Government Lets RIAA/MPAA Hijack DNS With No Oversight Act.