Congress's Techno-Ignorance No Longer Funny

pigrabbitbear writes "Since its introduction, the Stop Online Piracy Act (and its Senate twin PROTECT-IP) has been staunchly condemned by countless engineers, technologists and lawyers intimately familiar with the inner functioning of the internet. Completely beside the fact that these bills, as they currently stand, would stifle free speech and potentially cripple legitimate businesses by giving corporations extrajudicial censorial powers, there's an even more insidious threat: the method of DNS filtering proposed to block supposed infringing sites opens up enormous security holes that threaten the stability of the internet itself. The problem: key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works, and worse yet, it's not clear whether they even want to."

Comments

Re:Fuck them

[GodInHell]

Usually I look form more onsight in commentary. But this time AC has really said all that needs to be said.

Re:Confusing positions

[Zironic]

They're perfectly consistent positions. The position is:
"Don't allow people to fuck with the internet"

Re:Confusing positions

[Anonymous Coward]

Net Neutrality isn't the government regulating internet traffic. Net Neutrality is the government forbidding corporations from doing so.

Re:Confusing positions

[slimjim8094]

Can't tell if you're trolling or just dim.

It's very simple. Net neutrality isn't regulating the Internet, it's regulating providers. Furthermore, it doesn't change what's on the internet, just how it gets to you. Fiddling with the DNS servers is 100% different. The analogy (not even an analogy...) is requiring the telephone company to let you call their competitors without an additional charge, vs blocking you from saying particular things.

The only thing the two have in common is the word 'internet'. Even a cursory glance shows that "don't throttle for profit" and "turn off this site" are completely different.

Re:They don't want to

[grep_rocks]

There used to be a non-partisan congressionally funded organization, the OTA, mean specifically to advise congress on congressional issues - similiar to the CBO on budget issues - it was disbanded under Newt Gingrich's contract for america - can't let fact and expert opinion get in the way of profits and campaign donations! PS Newt wants to disband the CBO too

Re:That's because

[Kethinov]

I voted for Zoe Lofgren, and she vigorously opposes this travesty.

Here's a statement she made today, on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comments/nfhhy/member_of_house_judiciary_committee_ama_on_sopa/

(Yes, she has a Reddit account.)

thanks to all for your kind words. My best assessment is that most members of the House who do not serve on the Judiciary Committee have not yet focused on SOPA. People should realize that incredible power they have to impact the thinking of their own Representative on the subject. For example, a very intelligent colleague who is not on the Committee approached me today asking about the bill. Why? He had received an urgent and forthright telephone call from a small business person in his district who is tremendously opposed. He wanted to know more about our Open Act Alternative. This is the power that each of you have with your own Representative.
I have noticed lot of commentary on line, many thoughtful comments, tweets, etc. But most Representatives are not as plugged into the net world as many of you are. To be heard, you must speak, directly and either by phone or in person. Tweets, emails, petitions are nice, but they don't get the same level of attention.
If I had to bet right now (no, not a $10,000 bet!) I would guess that SOPA proponents currently have the upper hand in Congress. But that is because you have not yet been heard from fully yet. That is very much subject to change.
I learned long ago not to try to explain the thinking of other Members of Congress on any given subject. Instead, you should ask them. If they represent you in the House, they most likely will be happy to take your call. Please remember if you do call to be not only forthright but also polite. It's likely that the person answering the phone is some young person who is working long hours for low pay who does not deserve rude treatment. The House is out of session now but I will be happy to participate in AMA on SOPA again in the days ahead. Best wishes, Zoe

Re:They don't want to

[Samalie]

Do you have any idea how many different subjects Congress has to deal with? Do you really expect the members of Congress, elected from the general public, to be experts in all of those areas? If YOU were elected to Congress, how many areas are YOU an expert in?

I can't speak for Congress, but I was an elected member of a city council in my lifetime.

I can honestly say that my real area of expertise is computers...everywhere else, I was decidedly weak in knowledge, at least compared to experts.

So when a bylaw crossed our desk that I didn't fully understand...I did my FUCKING JOB and worked my fucking balls off doing research to make goddamn sure I understood what the bylaw was proposing, and why I should vote for it (or, conversely, vote against it).

Seriously, it is their fucking JOB to figure out enough to know whether or not a law should be voted for or against, not what some asshole with a suitcase of money tells them to do. You don't have to be an expert to learn enough about a topic to make a sound decision.

Re:They don't want to

[forkfail]

Thing is, though, it is the 0.1% who get to play. Just the way the system works.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/11/20/the-top-0-1-of-the-nation-earn-half-of-all-capital-gains/

It's a nice idea that everyone gets to play, but like it or not, this tool has been pretty much completely conscripted by not the top 1%, but by the top 0.1%.

Re:They don't want to

[dgatwood]

A corporation is a tool, nothing more than a way for many not-so-rich people to fund an effort and own the result, rather that the prior model where only the 0.01% could play. Like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.

A corporation is also a means of dodging responsibility for one's actions. Because the leaders of a corporation can't be held responsible for what the company does except in certain extreme situations, corporate speech does not have the same liability/risk that individual speech does. This is why it must be regulated in ways that individual speech is not. No freedom without responsibility and all that.

And the reality is that even if you get together with a million other geeks, you will not be able to do much in terms of lobbying. Congresspeople don't give a rat's ass about any group of people, including corporations, unless that group is creating lots of jobs in their district. What this means is that no political organization has any real bearing on anything in politics beyond perhaps a little lip service from the politicians as they try to make it appear that they still represent the people as a whole. Maybe, maybe you might be able to sway an election to the other candidate. The problem is that the other candidate doesn't give a rat's ass about your opinion, either, which means the best you can really do is nudge the ball a few feet to either side of the fifty yard line.

In short, corporations are so much unlike the general public that any attempt at comparison is meaningless.

Re:They don't want to

[Karl Cocknozzle]

If rights can be blindly transferred from individuals to a collective, then the reverse should also true. The corporate veil should vanish and all members of the collective should be jointly and severally liable for any harm the collective causes.

The rights of a limited liability entity should be limited too.

They used to be much more limited. As late as the 1870s and 1880s, various states had laws on the books that amounted to a "corporate death penalty"--that is, companies that repeatedly broke the law or existed only for the purpose of breaking the law, could have their corporate charters' revoked and their assets seized to pay off any existing debts.

This is had the effect making corporate managers think long and hard about straddling the line between "lawful" and "unlawful." These laws were mostly gutted during the Gilded Age (or, perhaps, I need to start referring to the First Gilded Age since we seem to be in the early stages of a second one,) by robber-barons who wanted as few barriers as possible between their wealth and unlimited power. ...Sound familiar?