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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.'"
They can say they oppose it, but do they oppose it enough to actually Veto it when/if it gets passed? Or will it be "We'll sign it, but we'll say we disagree adamantly on this post-it not attached to it!"
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Seriously, this is news that deserves to be on slashdot. But a link to an article behind a paywall, which just gets a popup pushing subscriptions, is NOT the proper way to submit this story!
http://informationliberation.com/?id=37993
This is merely propaganda doublespeak. Nothing has changed:
from the link above:
The Huffington Post is wrongly reporting the White House will not support SOPA or PIPA. If you read the White House's actual statement, it's full of strongly worded language, but absolutely nowhere does it say they will not support the bills. On the other hand, it does state, "we will continue to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting."
How anyone could believe the same White House which passed the NDAA into law after claiming they would veto it should be taken by their rhetoric and not even by their word is beyond belief. With the NDAA, Obama was on record saying he would veto the legislation, this statement from the White House says they're in full support of passing copyright crackdown bills, but they must "defend an open Internet based on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation."
That's pure rhetoric (and it's contradictory on its face).
The author of the White House's statement, Obama's 'IP czar' Victoria Espinel, has already overseen the seizures of hundreds of websites without any due process, including websites which were deemed legal by their own respective countries. This White House is actively engaged in violating our internet freedoms, to completely ignore this attack on internet freedom and turn around and take a vaguely worded statement promising nothing as an explicit denouncement of these censorship bills is foolish and naive to the extreme.
The only concrete information to come out from the White House's statement is they will move forward "on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting."
That means the current censorship supporting DMCA laws are not enough, the current unconstitutional seizures of hundreds of websites without due process is not enough, they want even more power and they're expecting congress and the internet community to get in line and give it to them.
Update: There is one policy statement in her writing where she says the White House will not support DNS blocking, that provision was already removed from the SOPA bill yesterday, so it changes nothing.
> Is this an example of our 3-part government actually working as intended?
No, not really. "As intended" would mean that:
Instead we have:
I dunno - maybe Ethanol is racist, maybe he isn't. But, Obama DID "reluctantly" sign that fucking NDAA, did he not? Ethanol's point stands, racist cockbag or not.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It was passed by a veto proof majority. Refusing to sign it would have been an empty gesture, and would have allowed Republicans to run ads against him stating that he vetoed health care for wounded veterans.
So no, his point does not stand. And FYI, when someone uses the phrase "Supreme Leader Baraq Hussein Sotero", there is no "maybe" about their racism.
You may not have noticed, by the Obama administration is full of people who have ties to Hollywood. What reason is there to think that he will not sign the bill into law?
Wake up -- the Democrats are just as quick to ignore individual rights as the Republicans are, they just have a different (but not even close to disjoint) set of corporations that they prefer to give hand-outs to.
Palm trees and 8
Empty gesture? No, it would have been saying "I do not give a fuck about stupid politics, and would prefer to stick to my guns about something that really matters for a change."
When you act out of concern for your re-election rather than what is best for the nation, you are acting as a traitor to your country.
Billions of people worldwide do work they don't particularly like for money. For small sums of money, too. The hundreds of millions of campaign contributions I can very easily see as public record given to these people followed by their $700,000+ /yr jobs in the private sector after they retire can't possibly indicate that the same applies. Given enough money, most people do what they're told. This is completely valid and actually correct thinking. The tinfoil hat is when you talk about the corporations planning some kind of NWO, but really it's about control to kill competition and remain absurdly profitable with govt. assistance. It's called tyranny. You might want to read up in some history books.
It was passed by a veto proof majority. Refusing to sign it would have been an empty gesture
Not all gestures are empty. Sometimes it is important to have it be known what you stand for.
What you're saying, basically, is that Obama has said "fuck you" to everyone who disagrees with NDAA, to appease a bunch of Republican nutjobs who hate him anyway. I don't even see how this could possibly be smart in any sense.
The insidiousness of the law in question is that it puts into question if there even *will be a court case*. If civilian courts can be avoided, civilians do not have all their rights. Yes, military courts are bound by some rules, but they are not bound by all the rules civilian courts are, and the different rules make it easier to ignore the rights of the accused.
And a law's constitutionality unfortunately is academic if you are unable to challenge it in court.
When will the media companies and government realize that the proliferation of piracy is not the internet it is the outrageous prices they try to extract. The fact is that if they didn't keep trying to sell every stinking CD at $17 when we all know most aren't worth $5. Sell the product at what the market wants to pay for it, if you don't then the incentive to steal goes way up.
There have been several recent examples of artists releasing their work at reasonable prices with no DRM. Rather than being ripped off by the public at large, their fans have put down the money.
Louis CK has made over $1,000,000 off his most recent video. You can download it without DRM for $5. And yes he is Hilarious.
"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." ~Ozzy Osborne