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

They don't want to

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance is bliss. And when shit hits the fan, they can claim plausible deniability.

Re:They don't want to

[forkfail]

To be more specific, their supposed ignorance allows them to allow the (paying) lobbyists to write the bills in the manner that most benefits our purported representatives true constituency - the corporations and their owners who aren't satisfied with the majority of the pie, but who want the whole damn thing.

Re:They don't want to

[alexborges]

Change:
"...it's not clear whether they even want to" [understand how the internet works]

To:
"....its clear they dont even want to"

I saw ALL the discussion yesterday. This is ridiculous, the people advocating this act are entirely ignorant of any and all issues regarding WTF they are doing and they dont even realize it will ALL backfire. I ended yesterday thinking this could even be good for "us" (freedom loving people all over the world): its clear that if SOPA passes, bitcoins, tor proxies and ways to monetize darknet access will be a good way to make money.

They want their broken internet: let them have it.

Re:They don't want to

[GrumpySteen]

While members of congress may not know the technical details of how a combustion engine works, they have a general idea of how it works.

This is the equivalent of adding in a provision to the fuel economy laws that allows any company that produces gasoline to arbitrarily shut down any gas station they say is selling their company's gas without permission without any proof and no consequences for being wrong. Give that power to any gas company and you'll quickly see every competing station in town shut down and the costs at the one brand that's left skyrocket.

It doesn't take an expert to understand that giving someone arbitrary judicial powers with no consequences for the abuse of those powers is a horrible idea. Even the dumbest congressman understands it, but they don't give a fuck because the consumers don't donate as much money as the corporations that stand to benefit from the bill.

Re:They don't want to

[Anonymous Coward]

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 think the problem here isn't that they are not experts, its the fact that experts are not involved.

Re:They don't want to

[Anonymous Coward]

Most members of Congress also don't know all of the technical details of engines either, but that doesn't mean they can't create laws specifying average fuel economy. It is up to the experts in those fields to make the laws reality.

"If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong?" the king demanded. "The general, or myself?"

Re:They don't want to

[CapnStank]

You're right. But if in the event that a professional is lacking knowledge in a certain area it is their ethical duty to consult someone who does. In their case they're plugging their ears and whistling tunes while the experts cite facts that go against the opinion of the corporations backing the bill. Its not even fair in this case where the experts are coming forward in droves to lend knowledge to the matter and they're being silenced in favor of half-baked opinions loosely tied to anecdotal events that may or may not be actually true.

Re:They don't want to

[betterunixthanunix]

If YOU were elected to Congress, how many areas are YOU an expert in?

If I had to make a decision on matters that I have no expertise in, I would get the opinion of a panel of experts. Our politicians are not even going that far -- they are dismissing the need for a panel of experts while admitting that they have no clue about the technical matters they are voting on. It is funny when they try to paraphrase expert testimony and get it wrong; it is not funny when they do not bother to listen to expert testimony because their real goal is to give a hand-out to some industry.

Re:They don't want to

[Old97]

Because "corporations are people too". (Mitt Romney)

Re:They don't want to

[datavirtue]

I recall an interview with Sandra Day O'Connor on PBS when she was asked out of the blue, by Margret I believe, if she browsed the internet. I thought it was kind of dumb question at the time and was totally floored when she answered: "No, no I don't." Completely shocked my head was almost spinning as I came to the realization that we have serious problems in government. These people do not take in new information, in fact they avoid it. I suspect most of Washington's elite make no effort to educate themselves on things they know nothing about. It dawned on me that these people are not using the internet and that they most likely view it in a contemptuous light. In my naivety I assumed everyone was immediately running Google searches whenever their mind tripped over an unknown factor pertinent to an important decision. Boy was I wrong. These people in Washington do not need to be curious; they are already taken care of and they have no incentive to rock the boat or even look over the side.

Re:They don't want to

[Bowling Moses]

There used to be the Office of Technology Assessment, a highly respected (so much so that it has been imitated by other governments) body whose function was to advise Congress on science and technology matters. Newt Gingrich lead the Republicans in killing it off as a part of their Contract with America back in 1995. The OTA would have denied Congress the cover of ignorance when it came time to vote on this SOPA monstrosity.

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

[PopeAlien]

Get together with a million other geeks to throw money at this problem

This is the problem with allowing money to act as a form of 'free speech'. It's an arms race with more and more money trying to buy the 'right' laws and the people (corporations) that financially benefit from those laws will always have more money to buy more laws.

Re:They don't want to

[Red Flayer]

Corporations are made of people.

No, corporations are made of *money*.

Corporations are bodies created to remove people from the equation. When an entity is incorporated, the shareholders are absolved of personal responsibility for the actions of the corporation (aside from their financial interest).

A corporation is a tool, nothing more than a way for many not-so-rich people to fund an effort and own the result (...) Like any tool, it can be used for good or evil.

No. Corporations also shelter the investors from personal responsibility. If a corporation is made of people, why is that those people are not personally liable for the actions of the corporation?

Corporations are likely to be used for evil because the perpetrators (the investors) are not personally responsible for the evil outcomes of the corporation's activities.

Re:They don't want to

[Jawnn]

Bullshit.
Corporations are business entities. There mission is not to represent n% of the populace "banding together and funding an effort" as you so romantically put it. A corporation's mission, it's sole reason to be, is to make money for it's shareholders. As a matter of principle and law, all other priorities are secondary. If doing "the right thing" reduces profit, the corporation is obliged to avoid doing the right thing if it can legally do so. This is not a case of the corporation being "evil". As you say, it is only a tool.
Alas, more often than not, this places corporations at odds with the interests of the citizens, you know, the actual living, breathing, and voting people. Corporations have their place, but it is not anywhere near the role of citizens. Since we have allowed corporations to essentially co-opt the men and women WE elected to represent US, we no longer live in a representative republic. We could debate the name, but it is nothing like what we were taught in school. Wake the hell up.

Re:They don't want to

[aaronb1138]

Actually, regulatory ignorance is exactly why many automobiles available in Europe and Asia with vastly better MPG than current hybrids and compacts are not available domestically.

You see, in order to actually maintain higher levels of fuel consumption, the EPA NOx emission requirements have been tweaked so low, that ultra high efficiency automobile motors can't be sold in the US. NOx requirements are the number one reason we have more high displacement V6 and V8 motors in vehicles that would have higher fuel economy, drivability and more horsepower using small 4 and 6 cylinder turbo charged motors. Example, anything VW sells in Europe with a Blue Motion drivetrain (Scirocco).

Similar reason for the 1UZ 4.0L V8 powered SC400 back in the 90's from Toyota/Lexus, when the 1JZ-GTE 2.5L Turbo was a vastly more advanced and better output engine.

So yes, ignorance of technology on the part of legislators and regulators is a very serious problem and NOT acceptable.

Re:They don't want to

[dgatwood]

No, no, you have it wrong. Lobbying is a good thing. It's the way that the public can express their opinions to their elected representatives. The reason lobbying appears to be a bad thing is that only big corporations can afford to lobby in any useful way because our Congress stays in Washington D.C. all year around, and they barely set foot in their actual legislative districts.

If you really want to improve the situation, change the law so that Congress must do their job over the Internet from their districts. This means that your representatives will be accessible to you. This also means that corporations that want to lobby Congress will have to send someone all around the country to lobby instead of just all around a building. This will effectively end the corporate dominance of lobbying and bring the voice of the people back into our government.

Re:They don't want to

[EdIII]

You can't just pass a law saying that all cars must get 100 MPG, and then leave it to the engineers to make your law so. It would obviously lead to disaster.

This is business as usual, and not just in the US.

Dilbert, while funny, is depressingly accurate.

The vast majority of marketers, executives, etc. really do think they can just order the engineers and IT department to "make it so". When the IT department comes back and says, "You are asking us to violate the laws of physics and alter reality to create a floating Unicorn that is as "smart" as Suri, and shits out candy corn", they get branded as "Not Team Players".

Part of the reason why IT is hated so much, is that we are telling them what they can't do more often then what they can do. It's not pessimism either, which really gets under my skin, but just reality.

When IT has no clout either, they end up having to break systems to get to them to do what they were never intended to do, or do things that clearly make the system itself unstable.

Happens all the time. Rarely, do you see a system that is a harmony of perfection. The ones that come close..... have upper management made up of IT people. I kid you not, some of the most advanced platforms I have seen recently in some industries have been developed by engineers and IT people leaving companies to make new ones.

The Internet is far worse. Let's not kid ourselves here either. While I have a superficial understanding of BGP routing, and the complexities involved in DNS, secure DNS, etc. I am not an expert either. So when most of IT out there does not really understand the core workings of the Internet, you can't expect the PHB's in Congress to have any clue, and it becomes perfectly understandable that they would expect it "to just work". Corporations and engineers waive their hands and do their Matrix thing in the backrooms, and it get's done.

What is missing are the middle men. The people that can explain to the Congress Critters in terms they can understand, "It's bad. Can't be done like that, Mkay".

Where are they experts here? What really surprises me is that the telecoms are not screaming their heads off through their purchased channels at their paid for politicians that it's a bad idea.

Must be because Big Content is paying more right now for influence than the telecoms......

Re:They don't want to

[Dishevel]

Well. Either you allow no one to make signs, commercials, hold rallys, or do anything that will cost some amount of money or you do.
If you choose to allow no one to spend a dime of their own money to support or oppose a cause or candidate then you are definitely running into a free speech area.
If you allow any amount to be spent you get some problems.
If you allow certain amounts to get spent in certain ways you get loopholes.

I say fuck it.
Allow any US citizen or corporation spend as much as they want.
Then all contributions of any type must be put into a publicly accessible database within 48 hours.
All contributions must be stopped within one week of the vote.
All failures result in prison.

Easy and cheap to implement. Easy to follow. People can make informed choices.

If people want to vote in a politician that takes $450,000 from Wal-Mart and the people know that this is the case then they get what they deserve.

Re:They don't want to

[ATMAvatar]

A big step in fixing the problem would be to filter out a lot of the noise that goes through Congress.

Just taking a look at some of what was introduced yesterday:

• HRes 499 - Congratulating the students, staff, faculty, and alumni of the City Colleges of Chicago on the 100th anniversary of the institution.
• HRes 498 - Recognizing and commending Baylor University quarterback Robert Griffin III for winning the 2011 Heisman Trophy and for his academic and athletic accomplishments.
• HRes 497 - To provide for the placement of a statue or bust of Sir Winston Churchill in the United States Capitol.

Why does any of that require time in Congress? That's time that could be spent better investigating and analyzing *real* issues.

Fuck them

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

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:Fuck them

[Zaphod The 42nd]

End the two-party system. That is the only way we're going to get ANY kind of accountability or responsibility from the American government. We need the alternative vote NOW, and we need to end the electoral college.

The United States aren't a democracy, and we're not even a republic anymore. We don't have the right to vote on matters of policy, nor do we have the right to vote for the president and his cabinet. We participate in a shell game they set up through gerrymandering and the threat that your vote will be meaningless if you don't vote for one of the two approved party candidates.

There is NO legitimate excuse why we shouldn't have the alternative vote in America, except that the Democrats and Republicans don't want it. There is NO legitimate excuse as to why we need the electoral college in America, we don't even have ballots anymore, it is all done electronically.

a hypothetical

[fightinfilipino]

if one is receiving insane amounts of money and political clout to deliberately ignore severe problems in a proposed bill, is it still ignorance?

Re:a hypothetical

[mwvdlee]

Criminal negligence

Re:a hypothetical

[MLRScaevola]

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair. I think this describes our situation, and your hypothetical, quite nicely.

A matter of who pays for the campaign

[walterbyrd]

Congress just rubber-stamps bills that are written up by lobbyists. That has been fairly well proven.

That's because

[Bogue]

all of Congress is made up of lawyers. Where are the engineers and scientists? There are none.

Re:That's because

[MiniMike]

Well, there was President Carter- sorry, my bad. Nevermind. Please forget I said anything. I'm really sorry.

Re:That's because

[rrohbeck]

Engineers and scientists don't promise pink unicorns to everybody and are generally not very interested in money and power.

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:Confusing positions

[fightinfilipino]

those aren't mutually exclusive at all.

the whole point of net neutrality is to say, "hey! you conglomerate of ultra powerful ISPs and media outlets can't just unilaterally control the internet!"

the whole point of SOPA opposition is to say, "hey! you conglomerate of ultra powerful media and content producers can't just unilaterally control 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.

You Americans need more parties.

[Kristian T.]

It's just to cheap for coorporate america to hedge it's bets when they only have to bribe.... errh I mean make campaign contributions, to 2 parties. Try to elect some representatives from the pirate party, like sweden has.

Re:Confusing positions

[betterunixthanunix]

I would phrase it more like this:

"Don't let the Internet turn into a fancy cable TV system"

When I was a kid, people spoke of "illegal cable" -- modified set-top boxes that allowed them to receive cable TV without paying, or to receive premium channels without paying. Some of the earliest DRM systems were designed to prevent people from accessing cable TV channels and satellite broadcasts without paying. The entire cable TV system is the antithesis of the PC and Internet revolutions: centralized control over users and their actions, permission required to do anything, and extra fees left and right.

Now the mainstream media wants to turn the Internet into the same sort of system: centralized control, DRM, fees, and users being pigeonholed as passive consumers of everything. At issue with net neutrality is whether or not websites should be treated like "channels," and forced to negotiate with ISPs for the right to transmit over the ISPs' networks. At issue with SOPA is whether or not there should be a central authority that is allowed to disconnect systems from the network when those systems do not follow the rules imposed by the central authority.

What's the Technical Solution?

[Phoenix666]

OK, folks, let's concede that the government has ceased to be anything but an extension of the kleptocracy. Let's drop the left-vs-right, Republican-vs.-Democrat BS that is a dangerous distraction. Let's drop all the BS memes that have been focus-group tested by the 1% to take everyone's minds off what's really going on. OK? Let's stop pretending that Congress or any part of the government will listen to any level or form of input or bitching and change its ways. Let's just drop that stuff because it's unproductive.

Instead, let's approach this problem like the scientists, engineers, geeks, nerds, and can-do people we are and see it as a technical challenge we can solve. Society is broken, the economy is broken, government is broken. How do we fix it?

If SOPA is threatening the traditional internet, how do we route around the damage? Can we dramatically grow the number of nodes and routing capabilities? Can we design an open source ad-hoc mesh network that makes any attempt to shut it down an impossible project of confiscating every router, cellphone, car, and thing in the world that can communicate with each other?

Can we design crowd-sourcing tools that allow the 99% to track and neutralize the 1% far more effectively than they could ever do to us? Can we make it possible to in every way tell them that their BS is no longer welcome on Planet Earth?

Can we re-wire technical systems to promote and support the Steve Jobs & Woz's of the world to create a brighter future for us all?

That's really the conversation we ought to be having on /. every day, not endless hand-wringing about the supposed government and big companies who JUST WON'T LISTEN TO US.

Let's work the problem, folks.

Re:Get another party into congress

[MalleusEBHC]

Despite all that is politically fucked in California, or maybe because of it, we're taking baby steps towards weakening the grip of the two party system.

Citizen Redistricting Commission - The legislature no longer gets to gerrymander districts in their favor. Instead, redistricting is done by a citizen's commission drawn from multiple parties and independents. Both the Republicans and Democrats are mad about the recently released maps, which is probably a good indicator that the commission is doing good work.

Nonpartisan Primary - All candidates from all parties compete in the same primary, and the top two candidates advance to the main election. The initial effect should be to eliminate hyperpartisan extremists, but getting more moderates into office will only bode well for passing future changes to the election system.

Instant Runoff Voting - Some cities, most notably San Francisco and Oakland, have switched to IRV. IRV is basically the next step after nonpartisan primaries, so hopefully it will move statewide if it's seen as successful in city elections. Unfortunately, Jean Quan, Oakland's mayor, only won because of IRV and is now coming under fire for mishandling Occupy. The fear is that people may equate IRV with producing bad politicians, even though the traditional voting system has created more than its fair share of horrible politicians.

If things continue progressing in California, this bodes well for the nation as a whole. We were ahead of the game on having completely dysfunctional hyperpartisan politics. Term limits and other measures didn't make things better, and perhaps even made it worse. If these new steps lead to a more civil and productive legislature, hopefully the trends will get picked up nationwide.