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White House Opposes Key SOPA Provisions
twdorris writes "Is this an example of our 3-part government actually working as intended? It seems the executive branch doesn't agree with the legislative on a key piece of SOPA. From the article: '"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet," the White House said in a blog post.'"
Fear not, for it was already submitted yesterday with a direct link to the White House's statement. As stated then, the White House gave itself leeway to approve the legislation if the key objections were addressed, so don't think this means the legislation will go away.
nah his blog was vague enough to make both sides happy, he never says that he opposes SOPA
That will likely depend on whether or not its passed by a veto proof majority. Frankly, I'm starting to think it won't pass at all, given the momentum the opposition has been building lately. Of course, that means that we need to keep up the pressure. Calling your senators and representative once a week to see where they stand is a good start. They'll likely be wishy-washy at first, but that's why you make your desires clear, and then call the next week to follow up and see if they've cemented an opinion yet. Keep going until they commit to opposing it. And if they're dead set on supporting it, remember that primary season is just around the corner, and has lower turnout -- meaning that a smaller, well-motivated group of voters can make a change. (Unless they're a senator elected in 2010, in which case they can do whatever the hell they want, and you'll forget about it by 2016.)
where is the WH statement vague? They support legislation to stop foreign piracy on the internet. They do not support all the moronic crap in SOPA that would allow entrenched business interests to shut down any site they want by nodding at an ISP via breaking the way the internet is built to work.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/10082416208/monster-cable-claims-ebay-craigslist-costco-sears-are-rogue-sites.shtml
monster cable may even try to take down monoprice as well.
Didn't "the White House" also oppose the NDAA, which they then refused to veto?
It wasn't spun to make it sound like he supported it; it was pointed out that the White House supported anti-piracy measures and simply opposed certain provisions in this one, meaning he could still approve the legislation once those provisions were addressed.
Hell, it might even just be a token opposition designed to appeal to his supporters but ultimately won't stop the bill. Obama has done that before, declaring that he has "serious reservations" about something he's willingly signing into law. He's kind of an ass like that.
It's the sound of elections nearing...
The NDAA has to be signed into law. It funds the entire military. If he vetoed it, we'd spend the rest of the year watching non-stop ads about how he took away healthcare from wounded veterans and refused to give guns to troops on the front lines. He'd lose reelection in the biggest landslide in history, because frankly, the average voter is woefully uninformed. So to say he "willingly" signed it into law is a vast oversimplification.
SOPA isn't a big omnibus bill. If he opposes provisions in it, he can veto it without all the collateral damage. And it's not like there were specific things he opposed that could be taken out. It was a pretty broad statement: "we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet." You'd basically need a complete rewrite to avoid doing any of those things.
They could have ignored the issue entirely if they were planning to let it pass.
No, there is a new government transparency mechanism at the White House https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions where you can vote on stuff, or create petitions to vote on, and the ones that get a lot of votes get official policy responses. It is not a mechanism for changes, but it is a mechanism to discover official positions on a wide variety of issues, including ones that would not otherwise get responses.
Sign up, vote on some stuff, and then when the response is published you'll get an email.
The ones that disagree with stuff that already has an official positions are useless, of course.
The only reason there was a response to the community from the White House on this issue is because of their 'We The People' petitions section that the administration set up. Enough people signed the petition so they did what they promised, issued a response. The actual merit of it, however, has not been clearly defined in any policy I've seen so far.
Make your own White House Petition here: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions
Actually I misread that. Sentiment is running in favor of full blackout - no posting, editing or reading of articles for all of English Wikipedia for the full 12-hour period Wednesday, by a ratio of 5:1 over the soft blackout option. There is also support for a blackout of all of Wiki worldwide, but just a wee bit less. And it's approved by the legal team. It looks like Wednesday's going to be a no-Wikipedia day.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If he vetoed it, it would have passed anyway, because it was passed by a veto proof majority.
Please at least try to learn about these issues before coming to your conclusions. Congress would not have been forced to do anything.
The entire point of the President's veto capability was specifically for cases where the executive branch disagrees with the legislative. What the big corporate interests paid for when they paid to have Obama made president (and would've been the same of McCain, it's easy to make people think they have a choice when you control both of the choices) was a president who appeals to the people but really doesn't stand in the way of their majority ownership of the legislative branch.
Unfortunately, tyranny has never gone silently, as you suggest. When (not if) revolution happens in our country, there will be consequences for those involved, and there will be blood. It will not be a silent revolution done over the internets. The fact that now 4 different bills have been proposed and have "approval" from the executive and legislative branches that would permit wholesale censorship of the internet should convince you of that.
Or, if you pay a bit of attention: The indefinite detention paragraphs are most likely illegal under the US constitution. By noting his reservations the comming court cases (appeals all the way up to the supreme court) will be quite a bit simpler. After all, it is the executive branch (where the president is), which has to prosecute in favour of the law, and the president stating reservations is a boon to any defense attorney. This is obvious, and has been covered in the news, but hey, most people complaning doesn't seem to know what the NDAA act really is.
The court cases, in case you don't know, will be judged by the judiciary part of the US system. Of course, if you and the republicans get their way the next president will be a republican, and the one or two new supreme court justices which will be appointed in the next presidential period will be really, really conservative. Then, the indefinite detention will most likely become law.
I'm not an American, but this should be obvious even with the most cursory glance.
Good lord. The public is owned by the media, they vote the way they are told to vote. They are told red/blue, black/white, oh look Dancing with the Stars!
In the meantime the real power buy their influence in advance. By the time red/blue puppets get into power it's a done deal:
Obama (blue choice of 08):
University of California $1,648,685
Goldman Sachs $1,013,091
Harvard University $878,164
Microsoft Corp $852,167
Google Inc $814,540
JPMorgan Chase & Co $808,799
Citigroup Inc $736,771
Time Warner $624,618
Romney (red choice of 12):
Goldman Sachs $367,200
Credit Suisse Group $203,750
Morgan Stanley $199,800
HIG Capital $186,500
Barclays $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis $132,100
Bank of America $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250
EMC Corp $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250
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NDAA is not a good comparison to this legislation.
The NDAA is considered "must pass" legislation. While we can't know for sure what the President would have done had a bill landed on his desk separate from the NDAA, which included its controversial provisions, we do know that they cited the "must pass" nature of NDAA as the reason they reluctantly signed it into law.
This legislation, however is not attached to anything of the sort. It will pass or fail on its own merits. Congress can't use this as pressure, and the White House can't use it as an excuse.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
"ignores due process" ? ....
I'm sure the white house would never allow that.
Except in the NDAA when detaining American citizens indefinitely without
No, wait...
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
Nope, not one single one, and even then, several of those got answered not at all, but merely 'set aside.'
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.