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House Kills SOPA
An anonymous reader writes "In a surprise move, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to the huge online protest and the White House threatening to veto the bill if it had passed. But don't celebrate yet. PIPA (the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration."
Good work!
As a non-US citizen that's been watching the developments of this closely, I am extremely glad that this has happened. Hell, I'm sure everyone is. Now just need to do something about PIPA, and we can breathe a nice sigh of relief (for a while)
I doubt our will has anything to do with it. They can always just tack on the junk that didn't go through this time on some spending bill for homeless shelters and kittens.
[sarcasm]You wouldn't vote against kittens would you?[/sarcasm]
examiner.com is essentially a blog, was this the best source for this information? There's no links to a reliable news source, no links to a .gov site or the congressman's announcement, just "hey he blocked it hurray!"
Is anyone else reporting that SOPA is dead?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
If you keep in defense, this will keep coming with pipa, popa, schupa, schmugga, and eventually they will succeed. The only way to fix this issue, is to go on the offensive, and passing legislation that will prevent such crap, and neutralizing the content industry and its assaults.
google, amazon, ebay et al - its their task. they need to start buying congressmen/senators, and start buying laws, now. Because thats how the capitalist democracies work.
Read radical news here
They just got caught. They'll try again when people are distracted by something else.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No, they're just listening to a different group of corporations for a while. If Google, Amazon, and Facebook were in favor of this, the people wouldn't stand a chance.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I may disagree with you 95% of the time (or more; who knows!), but if what you say is remotely true (and I have no reason to doubt that), then today I think we are all thankful for what has happened.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
You are right. Nothing is "dead" about SOPA. The *content* of SOPA is very unpopular, so its proponents will temporarily withdraw the bill until it can be repackaged and relabeled to sneak it through. The desire of voters is simply not a consideration. Key members of congress have been paid to push this through anyway possible, and they won't stop until the job is done.
In saner years you'd be right that it would be stopped. But there's something wrong this time - the push for the bill vs the content was so strong, the strongest I've seen in years. It's beyond "they got caught" - of course they knew they'd be hated for it. But they'd already stated "we want to pass this anyway despite your opposition". So if you'll allow me to go all Monty Python, "it's not dead, it's resting!" Let's assume the senate version rests too.
This situation reeks of a Meta-Campaign. So they'll either rename it, or worse, split the components among other bills so that there's nothing to rally against.
Try this - they're introducing it this time before this election round. Then once the people are re-elected "now they have nothing to lose" so they'll resurrect it next year. Or some such variations on a theme. The point is, just because it's sleeping, it's definitely going to wake up. Except for some surprise fallout, thousands of companies were drooling at how much fun power they stood to gain from this.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
SOPA is not about government control of the media or the economy; it is about the government helping corporations maintain their control over such things. SOPA is about ensuring that the big brands get to remain in control over our lives, and it is a step toward a long-term goal of converting the Internet into a fancy cable TV system, where consumers can only consume. That is a right-wing goal, at least under the standard definition of "right wing."
Yes I know that it is fashionable to describe everything that falls short of libertarianism "socialist," but there is nothing socialist about SOPA, and socialism is not the be-all and end-all of left wing politics.
Palm trees and 8
I know this will blow your mind, but maybe left vs. right isn't the appropriate fight here. Most of us Americans are hung up on it, but maybe it doesn't always apply as much as you would think it would.
The second axis of the political world is corpratism, and corporatism is heavily represnted in both parties. Look at the names of the people pushing this bill. It has nothing to do with party. It had to do with the hugest corporate consitutencies pushing dollars into politician's pockets.
The corporation patches on their suits may be slightly different, but BOTH parties are corporatist. Stop thinking everything is left vs. right or pretty soon there won't be any debate because there will be ONE group in charge and you'll be against the wall if you say you don't like it.
All these posts on Slashdot about how bad the bill is really made a difference!
True. This really is one of the major think-tanks of information science policy. You may have meant it as a joke, and gotten modded so, but when it comes to sober and deliberative analysis of the effects of information science law, I don't think it gets a whole lot better than this. We are clearly stronger on information science policy than Congress, the BSA, or most of the major think-tanks in D.C. When we forge opinions here, they are based not on the highest bidder but on the strongest position (with a bit of an anti-authoritarian bent, admittedly). If I post something that is emotional and not well-founded, I get kicked in the jewels pretty soundly (more often than I'd like to admit). When we take the resulting theories out to the world, they are treated with respect because they have been tempered in the heated debates that happen right here. This is not far off from the new-media Federalist Papers.
The fact that we joke and rant and argue does not mean we are not getting the job done. It is possible that American Democracy has no future -- corruption may be unstoppable -- but if it has a future, this is what it looks like.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
it was introduced by House Judiciary leader Lamar Smith, a Republican, but co-sponsors include Democrats Howard Berman, John Conyers, and Ted Deutch, amongst others
You are apparently operating under the assumption that the Democrats are not on the same side of the political spectrum as the Republicans. The Democrats have shifted so far to the right that by now the best you can get is a centrist. The few democrats that linger on the left side of the spectrum are on the fringe.
Palm trees and 8
While I agree with you I feel I should point out that interpreting every +5 post on Slashdot as consensus in the community would be a mistake. There have been a growing number of clearly slanted first posts by a handful of users that are mysteriously modded up almost instantly. Slashdot's system of moderating is quite good but it is not tamper-proof.
The bigger the list, the more meaningless it becomes.
The way to make sure this kind of law does not rise from the dead like a zombie in a bad horror movie is to punish the lawmakers who co-sponsored it. If you live in a state or district where your congressman/senator put his name on the respective bills (SOPA or PIPA), write them and tell them you will support/campaign for/contribute to their opponent, even if the bills are dead, just because they were stupid enough to ever think it was a good idea and put their name to it.
If there is one thing they fear more than their desire for campaign funds, it's getting voted out of office. So make this a "vote you out of office" issue, so the next time the entertainment industry comes knocking (and they will), the legislator will tell them to go away.
On the other hand, if you happen to live where your representative was opposed to the bill, thank them for doing it, and tell them you will to everything you can to support them in the next election.
To some degree, it does not matter if you actually do work for their opponent or them or the other stuff, cause likely some staffer will just tally your opinion in a spreadsheet, but you want to show up in the column of "very strongly against" the next time this shows up. They do pay attention to the aggregate opinions.