Slashdot Mirror
Tech Industry Reps To Speak Before Congress About SOPA
Nemesisghost writes "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), a major opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act has announced he plans to call a hearing where Tech industry representatives will get to speak out about how legislation like SOPA will negatively affect the internet. From the article 'Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has called a hearing that will bring more voices from the technology industry to Washington, D.C. to discuss how legislation such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would affect the Internet. On Jan. 18, industry representatives that include Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures; Lanham Napier, the CEO of Rackspace Hosting; and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.com, will testify before Congress.'"
But I think it's clear that very few people on Capital Hill give much of a shit about the side effects of this crap. The voices howling in opposition mean nothing compared to the 6 figures they're being paid by proponents of this bill.
Not only do they not understand, but they don't want to. There is no defense against willful ignorance.
It's delightful to know they're getting input but... Well I hate to be cynical but a lot of these congress-critters have had the best interests of the nation in one hand and a bag of money in the other. Guess which one wins?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
The fact that they're revisiting the whole "this will break the internet" aspect means they're paying at least lip service to public opinion. Which means that it's causing enough bad publicity for Congress that they're increasingly likely not to pass it.
If they were really intent on passing it, they'd try to sneak it through with as little debate or even thought as possible. Delays like this means they just might actually listen to their constituency for once.
Not to troll or anything, but that's all they could come up with? Where's Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos - representatives of big companies that the congressmen can actually listen to?
I find it ridiculous that so many people think the answer to corruption is just more corruption.
The only way to stop this bullshit is to mandate that all campaigns be publicly funded and disallow direct financial contribution to any candidate by anyone, period. We need to get money out of politics, not start throwing more in on the other side. All that's going to accomplish is a fucking cold war type situation where both sides try to outspend the other, and the fact is, the people are going to lose that fight every time. People struggling to pay their bills don't have the means to donate to political candidates, so their voice is ignored. This must end.
This. This right here... will never happen in the United States. How would you get the law passed? Every lobbyist on the planet would shovel money at their playthings as fast as possible to ensure it didn't. Except perhaps the underdogs, who have less money anyway. You're going to have to found a new country or have a violent revolution, and then get this particular piece of sound advice directly in the founding document.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Issa has actually done a pretty good job. He has become well known for exposing important issues that others would ignore or actively hide. His hearings on SOPA are to the tech community as his hearings on Gunwalker/Fast and Furious are to the right to keep and bear arms community.
This nation faces a serious crisis which few are talking about but is very real. Sure no individual Congress person has approval numbers as bad as the bodies 11% but just because they don't worry about being re-elected does not mean they don't have to worry about being relevant.
When only 11% of the public thinks the legislature, our law makers, are doing good work, why would rest of them have a higher opinion of that bodies output? When bad laws are created that are not followed because they a counter to what the public considers just or laws that are usually not enforce but left in place as tool to be used by tyrants at will, the people's respect for all law is diminished.
If Congress continues to burn though the capital, that is the will of the public to be a nation, things will soon get bad. You can already see it with protest movements like Occupy, and to a lessor degree the early TEA Party gatherings before it. These have been mostly peaceful and lawful warnings from the people but they won't stay that way; witness Greece or Thailand. At some point congress has to start being seen as serving the people's interest and not pandering to a few special people's interests, or that nationalistic capital will run dry.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Your post implies that Issa is either good or evil. Tell me, do you imagine Issa is a character in a Disney film or do you realize he is actually guy who exists in the real world?
He's a real person, and a politician at that. Neither completely good nor completely bad. Don't oversimplify.
EFF: This bill will infringe on users' rights, burden ISP's and search engines, and create a climate where corporations and the media industry completely control the internet with no oversight.
I imagined the second line a bit differently:
Representative: Well, you've made an excellent point--well argued, reasonable, and strongly supported. And in fact that's what this bill is supposed to do, so I don't see any problems here. All in favor?
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
We do, because we can't have capitalism. In capitalism, money makes money faster than labor does. This effect compounds on itself to produce inequality. Since economic power and political power are equivalent, this produces political inequality as well. This allows those who got rich during the brief period of capitalism to lock down their positions through political means. That is corporatism.
Capitalism is an unsustainable utopian idea.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And please, pray tell, how do we force those in power and benefitting from a rigged system to vote for it to end, especially in light of our corrupt Supreme Court already having ruled that corporations are persons and unlimited campaign donations is merely free speech?
Issa is from Northern California, but not the Bay Area. His district is in the North Sacramento Valley, Semi Rural (farms, orchards etc). He is not "evil" anymore (or any less) than say Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid are "evil" ... Wouldn't you agree? These people are all power trolls.
The problem with people like you is that you see things in absolutes that don't help. Issa is right on this issue, and deserves our support, ON THIS ISSUE, the same way I don't generally like Al Franken, but support him on some issues. The worst thing in the world is being tied to false dichotomy choices, such as (R) bad, (D) good or visa versa.
So today, Issa is both Good and Evil ... depending on your point of view on which topic. ;)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
So these politicians can be bought, this is not news.
What I can't figure out is why haven't the tech giants got together and paid them more money. I know, they shouldn't have to, but as long as corrupt politicians exist, do the same.
Media industry is worth a fraction of what the internet industry is worth. If there is a MPAA and RIAA, there could be IIAA - Internet Industry Association of America, get lobbyist, get moving, buy politicians. Its going to be cheaper than complying with SOPA and keeping their businesses up and running on a broken Internet.