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SOPA Protests 'Poisoned the Well,' Says Congressional Staffer
Techdirt has a story about statements from Congressional staffer Stephanie Moore, who had some interesting — and somewhat insulting — things to say about the 'net-wide protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). "Netizens poisoned the well, and as a result the reliability of the internet is at risk," she said. Moore went on, "Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did." The article also points out comments from Steve Metalitz, a lawyer who represents members of the entertainment industry: "Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken."
The protests ruined the staffer's lobbying gig that is on the other side of the revolving door.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
When you go into politics, what kind of device do they ram up where to rip your ability to feel embarrassment out?
Moore and Metalitz still don't get it. Its not about the Internet or site blocking, its about that fundamental characteristics of our nation. Its about due process and freedom of speech.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
Soooooo, we (Congress) didn't understand a law we wrote (or at least the lobbyist wrote) and all of you protesting didn't understand it either - making you just as dumb as us!
In your face!
When we do it, it is "poisoning the well", but when they do it, it is a well executed strategic victory and they should all get bonuses.
Sorry, that didn't work in the third grade and it doesn't now that I'm 44.
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
So you were passing legislation that you did not understand. That is not why you were elected. You were not elected to be a rubber stamp. If we wanted one of those we could probably have bought on at Staples and it would have been been way cheaper than your salary.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Her lips are moving.
In those countries where they do filter and block websites, the internet is broken. No one has any free speech. Political opposition is just blocked along with anything "offensive" like pornography. Anything the government does not agree with is shut down. That is very broken and for a country that considers itself the home of the free, then those systems would be considered completely corrupt and unethical.
But who cares. It's all for the greater good.
The greater good.
The greater good.
I think the entertainment industry's tactic to silence the opposition is to leave them speechless from such over the top claims. "Internet at risk"?
"Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken."
Countries like China and Iran. Do we want the Internet controlled like those countries?
Well, yes, for residents of countries that have that power, the Internet is, in fact already broken.
Yes, and as long as people keep voting for more republicans and democrats, we'll just get more of these moronic comments and worse, attempts at legislation.
There are more than enough people and resources behind each and every bill brought up before the Senate and/or Congress. There is more than enough study and research behind the scenes. Playing out "ignorance" in any respect is merely a show, merely another part of the "smoke and mirrors" game. The unfortunate advantage of the intelligent "netizens" is that we DO know, we DO have facts, we DO have experience and in general, it's those of us that helped to build what is called "The Internet" - old school BBS Sysops and hackers and the likes - that are speaking out - and we're the one's that actually understand the entire paradigm. This, to me, is mere BS marketing.
YankDownUnder Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire
EC member Anders Jessen, Trade, suggested that the negotiations surrounding ACTA were unfair; not because of all the shrouded-in-secrecy/hidden-agenda stuff, but because of 'threats' against governments (hacks on government websites, threats to release data if governments voted in favor of ACTA) and the focus on the 'digital' section.
He suggested that if that section had not been there, ACTA would have been accepted, and that would have been a good thing with regard to fake physical articles such as clothes and parts (specifically pointing out aircraft parts).
Yet it doesn't dawn on him that maybe they should remove the 'digital' section and re-submit. Or, more likely, it does - but he knows as well as anybody else that the 'digital' part is actually the meat and the 'physical' is just to get major manufacturers and their lobbying prowess on board.
Some of that shines through in his statement that Google's revenue is now bigger than that of all newspaper publishers together, noting that in this era you can make copies much, much faster and that 'online users have cannibalized offline users'.
He does admit to some mistakes and that this is a time for self-reflection for the EC as the EP critized him and suggested that next time something is put forth to which a yes-or-no vote is to be cast, they should better coordinate and cooperate with the EP.
Source:
http://www.nu.nl/tech/2841489/europese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html
Translated (horribly):
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nu.nl%2Ftech%2F2841489%2Feuropese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html
Wow. Did she really just justify US policy-making by making a "majority of nations" argument???
There are 87 UN member states that are full-fledged democracies or "fully free" according to Freedom House. There are a total of 193 UN member states.
Which means that even in the United Nations (which doesn't contain all autonomous national entities) ONLY 45% ARE EVEN DEMOCRACIES.
Dear Stephanie, if policy makers used the "most countries in the world" argument to justify policy decisions, the WORLD would be broken.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
"If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken"
Most countries aren't at the center of the Internet and most countries don't play such a pivotal role in core Internet technologies like America does.
I think the content industry has an entitlement problem. We live in a democracy, not a utopia. Churchill said something to the effect of "a democracy is a terrible form of government, but its the best one anyone has come up with so far"; I am butchering the quote.
The only way for a democracy to ever be a utopia is if everyone agreed with everyone else on everything. That is not likely to happen. We all have rights, and sometimes in exercising those rights we are going to infringe in some mild way on the rights of others. Its unavoidable. One of the stated goals of our organizing document is to promote the general welfare; a big part of that is maximizing each individuals ability to exercise their rights, and putting some minimal controls in place to limit the amount of infringement on the rights of others that occurs. That infringement can't be eliminated so where permitted it should happen in a fair way, in that harm is spread around equally.
The content industry does not seem to recognize that society has already given them all sorts of concessions; which limit the rights of others in order to protect them. They have copyright extensions that go well beyond what the Constitution stated the aim of copyright to be; they have tools like DMCA, the have FBI acting like the own team of private investigators, the have the FCC requiring completely unnecessary content control features in electronics, the list goes on.
None of those things are sufficient to eliminate copyright violations. I think may of them already go to far but in any case the amount of copyright infringement going on out there is at a perfectly acceptable level. Why, well because the content industry is wildly profitable, and while I think private property is the cornerstone of freedom, these guys are not hurting they don't need more protection for the state to hold on to what is theirs. Any good it would do them is in no way proportional the harm it does to others.
Lots of folks are limited by what the content industry already has. Indie artists can't use all sorts of material because is locked up under copyright in perpetuity, small manufactures are locked out of the market because they can't implement mandatory DRM, tinkers are locked out of their hobbies by draconian FCC rules, citizens have the privacy violated by the FBI and others all the time. Giving the content industry the right to completely curb stomp our ability to express ourselves on the Internet, with no process and no appeals; is simply unjustified.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Those are two separate areas of understanding. Understanding technology and understanding a particular bill don't necessarily translate, particularly when said bill is 78 pages of legalese in it's final form, and was subject to a number of amendments and changes.
She seems to be confused as to the reason why mob rule is not always right. It's not right when it allows the majority to oppress a minority. Not allowing the majority to be oppressed by a minority is not mob rule.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I love the argument that "everybody else is doing it!" Yes: China, Pakistan, India, and Iran block free speech. So why can't we? If it works for them, it has to work for us, right?
but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did
This is probably true. It is a frustrating part of fighting any legislation. Most people are emotionally motivated, not logically motivated. They don't understand what the heck they are talking about. Yet you need sheer numbers so you can't say "don't call your legislator unless you have a CS degree and can explain all this." So unfortunately, no matter what the issue, most of the people standing with you don't know what they are talking about. Same goes for most of the people standing against you too.
From the title on her LinkedIn page, she most likely represents the establishment position.
"In government, many people have the power to stop things happening but almost nobody has the power to make things happen. The system has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce."
Its a matter of you deciding what sites to censor with 0 input from people in the country. Only input you get on if site should be blocked is copyright industry input which they only have their profits in mind when they block a site. This Country was built on freedom not the copyright industries profit margin. They have no right to say what sites i can and can't go to. If they don't want to provide a means for me to get the content I want i have every right to go to sites that provide it. On top of the blocking there were other vague things in SOPA that would allow them to do a lot of other things that the bill wasn't intended to allow which they will say its not ment for that but when they got the power they will sure use it, case in point would be the DMCA. They got the power to take videos off youtube they don't like under copyright grounds even if they don't have the rights to the video to start with.
The well was poisoned by the public ... when electing the Congress
we don't want your stupid shit
The problem here is that due process means courts -- long, expensive procedures are used to decide if copyright infringement took place. Nobody can make the argument that such a system is appropriate in this century. As the RIAA discovered, you simply cannot sue everyone who infringes copyrights online, there are too many people doing it.
The copyright industry thinks that the problem is with due process, as opposed to attempting to apply a concept that originated in an age of printing presses to a society where everyone has the equipment needed to make perfect copies in their homes.
Palm trees and 8
Well if the internet is already broken does America, the land of the 'free and brave' and all that crap, etc. etc., need to jump on the bandwagon? We are supposed to be world leaders, doing what is best for our citizens, but yet we entertain such idiocy. I don't care how the rest of the world does it, honestly. Listening to our internet engineers might be a wise idea. Oh, and if we only understood the bill as well as they do then they are still a joke as far as I'm concerned. It is their job to know the policies they enact and for us to decide if we think they should lose their jobs/lives over their decisions. That's why it's best to ask first, then create laws.
like China and Iran? Great role models you have there, indeed.
Wait... wasn't there something about the Iran not being a role model but ... what do we call people we don't like today... No, Communist was a few years ago, what again was the boogeyman du jour?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
IMO, because we don't consume content from their networks. Most of the Internet traffic ends up in the United States. We don't need more copyright technologies, we need NEW copyright laws. And they need a new business model.
WARNING: DO NOT LET DR. MARIO TOUCH YOUR GENITALS. HE IS NOT A REAL DOCTOR!
Guess what, you just learned a hard lesson about legislation - if you take the piss too much, the people will outrightly reject it to the point that you won't even get a chance to implement something half as draconian. All someone has to do is say "it's the new SOPA!" and people will instantly hate it.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Let modify her statement slightly:
"Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If banning guns broke the world, then the world would already be broken."
Do you think she still agrees?
Whenever lobbyists write a bill for Congress (and that's most bills), it is always - ALWAYS - to the detriment of the public. Therefore, an individual being against a bill is always the right thing to do.
Usually, when people write their congressional delegation about any issue, they know almost nothing about it. They write because they received an inflammatory letter from some interest group, and much of the time what they send is a form letter. I doubt very much whether the SOPA letters were any less well informed than letters on any other issue.
SOPA isn't the problem, it's just a symptom of a larger issue, copyright law, the DMCA to be specific.This whole thing came to a head when the DMCA was passed, and now it's just getting worse, like a festering wound. but if it weren't for the DMCA, SOPA wouldn't have stood a chance on it's own or it's own merits.
Yes, copyrights have been around for a long time, and yes, they've been used in the past as a way to control and in some cases, monopolize, but with the coming of the DMCA, it's taken a whole new turn, and who wrote and pushed for the DMCA, the RIAA and the MPAA and all of their cronies. They lobby congress to handle an issue that's not congress' to handle, this is an issue that should have been left to the copyright owners to deal with through proper legal channels in the first place, or to change their business models so it wouldn't be an issue to begin with. The recording industry has to learn to change with the times, instead of living in the past, but they are incapable, unwilling, and/or too greedy to change.
Along with the overturning of Citizens United, and the passing of DMCA, the playing field has changed in favor of large corporations, like the recording companies and motion picture industry, and the publishers, who can now use the courts as their personal hitmen to go after alleged copyright infringes, with no proof. They can send take down notices on material they don't even own, and have it removed from sites like YouTube, which ends up making the real owner have to work that much harder to have their own material out there, because they didn't go through the recording or motion picture industries to do so. People like photographers who self publish their works on their own websites now have to deal with people stealing their work, and then get blindsided by those very thieves, and accused of stealing their own works, all because the DMCA made it possible.
If people really want to fix the situation, some changes need to be made:
1: Overturn the DMCA, it's bad law and only works in the favor of deep pocket corporations.
2: Overturn the ruling in Citizens United, and put corporations back where they belong, and have them stop meddling in politics.
3: Find a way to get our Congressmen and women to start working for us, the people, again, like it's supposed to be. Let corporations work their things out themselves, and stop using congress and the courts as their personal tools and WMD's.
4: And for the sake of everyone's sanity, the people need to start taking an interest in government, learn how it works, learn the issues, read the proposed bills, and take a stand on issues they don't agree with. Write their congressmen when they want their voices to be heard on issues, make public statements in a clear and concise manner, so others who wish to, can add their voices to that cause.
What was done to stop SOPA was a good example of people making their voices heard and sticking with the same issue, and in that case it worked. It won't always work, especially if 'The People' don't stand up for what's right, and get the government doing what it's supposed to do, work for the people.
Occupy Wall Street had a good idea, but it got out of hand, it wasn't well organized, and too many others, with their own agendas, tried to take it over. Their are ways to do things, and ways not to, this was an example of how not to do something. Once you get something started, keep it going in a positive direction, and don't get sidetracked, don't let others use your cause for their cause, unless they are the same, otherwise, all it'll do is water down your voice and cause, and people will not respect or wish to side with you.
And finally, contact your congressmen and women, and get them to make changes for the better, change the way the courts are used as hitmen for special interests. The government works for us, 'The People', not for the corporations. The corporations are supposed to be non-entities, they are not "people", so why are they allowed to act like "people"?
Stand together for change and for the future, be a part of the solution and not sheep or lemmings. Don't be a part of the problem.
>didn't understand the bill any better than we did
But yet they were going to pass the law lol,
Law makers need to be one term and after that term all the laws they passed need to be reviewed.
"Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken." -Steve Metalitz
If anti gun laws stopped gun related crime, then the gun crime would already be stopped?
That's what Moore's comments are. In front of the cameras all of the Washington crowd crows about democracy and rights and thinking of the children and the like, but they secretly despise all of those things and all of us who cherish them. They mock honesty because dissembling is the air they breathe. They hate action because the status quo fills their pockets. They hate freedom because it curbs their power. Think of the worst cartoonish super villain you can think of, then imagine an entire city filled with them, and you have the capitol of the United States. They're all psychopaths.
That's why we need to clear all of them out and do a serious reboot of the country. We know a lot of things now that we didn't know 200 years ago when the first iteration of the Constitution was written, and we've had 200 years to watch the outputs of the first system. We can engineer a system of government that does not select for the psychopaths we have now.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Sure, like the CDA protest "poisoned the well". More like some pols and the people pushing these things had to "go back to the well." It was only one battle, but it's clear the protest was effective. No, the war's not over, of course. Some thought in that direction needs to be given, I'll agree.
I must say that every one of my elected representatives (or certainly their office) took the time to respond to my concerns about the legislation, and I appreciate that.
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did." What kind of an argument is that??
She already makes 6 figures a year as a staffer... Here is a summary. She must be running short on cash or gunning for her boss's job.
Instead of trying to break the internet, refresh your business practices so I can actually legitimately pay for what I want. As it stands, I ignore it as I think infringement is wrong, but from a business perspective my boycott without piracy is no better than my boycott if I were leeching. If you want to actually get money from those infringing *and* those of us who abstain, fix your business processes. Don't force us to endure physical media, drm, and/or streaming.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Well, if your BOSS and his/her colleagues would stop making crappy legislation, then we wouldn't have to call your dumb ass and "poison the well" Not like these idiots in congress would even pay attention to the public anyway! We aren't lining their pockets like special interests are and therefore our opinion doesn't matter that much.
This is why the RIAA and MPAA are attacking the Australian legal process and trying to have a bypass added just for them.
http://delimiter.com.au/2012/06/23/piracy-iinet-refutes-content-industry-doom-and-gloom/
http://delimiter.com.au/2012/06/18/australias-internet-freedom-being-eroded-greens-warn/
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
Speak for yourself, lady.
"One more thing, capitalism is the only way a country 16T in debt is going to crawl out of the hole"
The only way to get a country into 16Tn debt is by capitalism.
But I guess it melds nicely into the fundamental depravity of religious thinking: give you a problem, then claim they are the only ones with a cure.
"Capitalism is the other way around."
Capitalism is the screed of greed. End of story.
"It's people who are free to vote with their dollars."
And then, to gather power, you get more money. Wich means more power, and the ability to get more money. Which means a continuing descending spiral of greed.
You can't vote with your dollars and not pay for food.
And if you have no money because some rich bastard has offshored your job, you have no say.
Capitalism is the only political system that takes away your rights and claims it to be your fault all along. You really are a horrible piece of slime, you are.
"If you want to succeed, you need to provide something with value."
So you're against inheritance and want it taxed at 100%, right? You want investment dividends removed, right? You want management removed, right? And charging for banking loans should be banned, yes?
After all, the only ones producing the valueable stuff you're selling are the workers, not their dependants and not the leeches who are syphoning money off the working populace merely because they've managed to leech money off someone dead or already wealthy.
"You ALWAYS end up shrinking the economy."
Yes these capitalists investing their dividends OUTSIDE the economy, who don't spend the money in the economy and who are free to remove themselves entirely from the source of their unearned wealth ALWAYS ends up shrinking the economy.
Hell, the difference between Clinton (higher taxes, reduced debt, economic boom) with shrub who inhereted the windfall economy then by removing taxes caused a worldwide recession, and with Obama's spineless kowtowing to the rabid right-wing whereby stalling the economy even further because idiotic parasites like you whine and bitch about government, should show you your unthinking and poisonous mental garbage proposition is PROVEN FALSE.
"There is a huge difference between greed and self-interest."
There isn't.
But capitalism as practiced by people like you don't bother with the self-interest beyond "am I making more money?" and is in no sense different from rapatious greed.
Hmm. Larger debt. Larger body count.
Yes, thank you for illustrating the GP point.
The fundamentalist faithiests like you always manage to prove yourselves wrong in the very efforts to prove your presuposed superiority.
The "well" in this instance are the millions of websites and billions of people that make up the internet.
It's a strangely apt analogy - everybody gets to benefit from the community well, and very few people would gain from the well being put out of operation.
Maybe the owner of a private water source might get frustrated that they aren't making money from their business, and deliberately poison the community well. Now everyone is forced to use the private well.
Angry about the injustice, the community decides to commandeer the "private well", and punish the middleman who tried to profit from the suffering of others
That's how the "well story" ends up Stephanie - do you really want to see it through to its conclusion?
This is what happens when the meaning of "tech savvy" gets usurped and people that can use apps in a smartphone get labeled "tech savvy" and think they know enough to make legislation that involves truly technical details about something like how the internet works.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The term you are looking for is "rape".
In this case it is not a single human being who is being violated..
The problem the entertainment industry has at it tries to maintain its cash hungry approach to video on line is that convincing people that censorship should be a design feature of the internet is going to be a lot harder than hiring a lot of lawyers to sue people.
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
In other words she's admitting Congress is made up of idiots. The good news is we can vote those idiots out of office. She's scared which is why she's name calling.
Mrs. Moore seems to be well educated in the political science of this era and her political outlook seems to be leftward leaning, perhaps a meaningful conversation could be had. If Mrs. Moore needs better information on how the Internet and in particular the FREE internet functions, perhaps some of you /.ers can provide her with the proper instruction. Also for those of you who have the desire to educate Congress, she could be the conduit. (This in no way implies any malicious acts or negative attention for Mrs. Moore.)
Stephanie Y. Moore, Minority Counsel, House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet
(202) 225-3951
Stephanie.Moore@mail.house.gov
LinkedIn Salary includes gifts and such gained via lobbying.
Education: Oberlin 1982 BA; Harvard 1985 JD
Career: Counsel, Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives; Counsel, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
"If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken." It's not about breaking the internet... it's about breaking freedom on the internet.
"... the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did"
I can't believe she used this as an argument. If they don't understand the bill, and their constituents didn't understand the bill, there can only be two reasons for trying to pass it:
1) Passing legislation for legislation's sake (Stupid)
2) Passing legislation because you are compelled to by another party that only holds it's own interests (Evil)
So they are either stupid or evil (or both)
Tell that bitch I'm going to shit in every well she tries to go to from now on.
If you're going to give her name, why don't give just a little more info from the article which identifies her as the "Democrat's chief counsel on the House Judiciary Committee"?
Had she been of the other party, the headline would have read:
SOPA Protests 'Poisoned the Well,' Says Republican Congressional Staffer
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Speaking for my country (France) a whole class of people would need to be sweeped out , and some sort of protection be put in place to avoid in future collusion between governement and industry while at the same time avoiding the "anti-industrial" trap (industry and service economy is needed. Capitalism is not wrong, but something need to be put in palce to not have the black hole 1% people of money sucking the money toward them). In other word balance. I see no way whatsoever to attain that goal politically. (un)luckily I see that with whole slab of class of people getting dropped for a few % of the population getting immensely rich, sooner or later it will become very bloody.
Heck any system I can think of , sooner or later a reboot is needed because some class of people abused the governement reign to enrich themselves.
"Congressional staffers Poisoned the well," says citizen of the United States.
It sounds like you've spent too much time in a college liberal arts setting.
Capitalism is a fair game run by a proper government.
Those who seek to abolish capitalism seek a monopoly--the very thing they used to stoke the fires of rage against what they call capitalism.
What they call capitalism is actually the success of fascism which bears a strage resemblance to the socialism they desire to set up on their way to communism. Let's not mince words. When people speak out against capitalism, they really are saying they want is hard left socialism.
Neoconservatism, the revolving door, etc. These are NOT capitalism. HP going out of business and NOT being bailed out. That's capitalism. Neocons pulling the strings on government to get us into wars for profit, that's NOT capitalism. That's fascism.
Fascism is NOT capitalism, and you need to recognize the difference. If you don't, you just play right into the hands of the monopoly I like to call Communism Incorporated. Today's scraggly kid at an ANSWER rally who wants to become Che, who wanted to be dictator of the next Latin domino to fall. Yeah. Support the fall of capitalism. Buy my Che Guevera T-shirts. Fuck that.
If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken.
Correct.
The Internet is already badly broken.
Blocking in China, which represents a significant portion of the Internet, has utterly broken the Internet for its residents.
Some remaining portions of the Internet are not completely broken yet. However, most so-called "free" governments (US, UK, etc.) are rushing as fast as they feasibly can to block and break the Internet. Sometimes they rush too fast (SOPA, ACTA) and get chastised -- but that does nothing to temper their frantic zeal for cleansing the Internet of its dangerous freedoms.
All powerful interests (both political and economic) desperately need the Internet to be just like television, so its content can be controlled from the top. They will not stop until they succeed. Those of us who are lucky in our geographic location have a small time window now for enjoying a "wild, wild, west" culture of Internet freedom until they succeed.
They should at least gives one GOOD thing the bill would bring? More tax, more censorship and more spying? How can this be any good?
Capitalism has gotten the USA into 16Tn debt.
Or do you hide your head in the sand and think that this money just got eaten by the Sock Demon?
Do you know what the government are spending their money on? What capitalists tell them they must be spent on. I.e. passing laws to help the entrenched capitalists. Keep roads that capitalists want to use but don't want to pay for. For subsidies and paybacks.
And then what do the capitalists do? Insist that the government reduce its income, preferentially to the capitalists.
The tax breaks to the rich were paid out by that debt.
Capitalists wanted it.
What about the removal of regulation that led to the economic meltdown? Captialism did that. Getting the banks heavily levereaged? Capitalism did that. Consequences of their incompetence paid for out of yet more debt? Capitalism did that.
And refused to pay for it.
Capitalism has gotten the US government in to 16Tn debt.
>it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did.
So this person just admitted that they had little understanding of the bill too.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
google b5 quotes Ver Cotto for details.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
" No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise."
Americans do it all the frigging time!!!!!
WHY the fuck did you invade Iraq?
"To bring Democracy to the Middle East"
REALLY.
WHAT.
THE.
FUUUUUUCK????
Poisoning the well is a name for a particular debate tactic that is a modified form of ad-hominem, but rather than simply resorting to direct personal attacks against detractors instead of refuting their points, poisoning the well occurs when a person preemptively makes an assertion about the quality of a potential detractor's character or viewpoint before the criticisms have even been actually heard. A typical characteristic of this tactic is that the assertion that would cast doubts on viewpoints raised by potential credits is invariably unsubstantiated by anything other than personal bias.... there would not exist any objective evidence to substantiate the assertion.
How, exactly, are they suggesting that SOPA protestors "poisoned the well" in their arguments? As far as I know, at the center of the protests were mostly highly reasoned arguments that addressed problems with the bill, and not problems with the bodies that were pushing for the bill to go through.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did." So this staffer admits that Congress DIDN'T understand the bill it was trying to make into law?! That fact ALONE is reason to defeat it.
What she fails to realize is that, in countries employing this technique, the Internet *IS* broken. Sites that people *KNOW* are up and running properly are unreachable and provide no data on why the site isn't responding (in many cases, since a government rarely comes out and tell you they're censoring you to your face), or in a few cases where the government makes a show of being "up front" about what they're doing you get a "This page has been blocked" message.
I'm sorry, government-mandated censorship of the Internet is NOT OKAY. PERIOD!
The only censorship that should be happening is what one imposes upon oneself and one's children.
Anything else it totally unacceptable.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
In those countries that block sites.
Nobody should understand a bill more than the people involving in passing it. If you don't know what you're passing in to law and its implications you shouldn't do it.
Implying that criticisms are invalid because those making them don't understand the bill better than you is implying you don't understand it either.
Moore went on, "Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
Now that is is a bizarre statement. Should they have understood the bill better than the people who made it?
the reliability of the internet is at risk
Are the studios threatening sort of extralegal action if they don't get their way in Congress? What exactly are they suggesting here? And why isn't the justice department investigating this like they would any other form or racketeering?
Dat's a nice little Internet ya' got there, buddy. It would be a shame if something bad happened to it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Bob Goodlatte Chariman of the United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet. http://goodlatte.house.gov/contacts/new Tell him to stop her staffer from making asinine comments that make him and his subcommittee sound more stupid than they really are.
I don't pay taxes to put up with this bullshit.
Did Benjamin Franklin fucking stutter when he famously defended liberty? And it's not even domestic safety we're discussing, it's the safety of some publisher's checkbooks and egos. Don't think for a damn second slinging logical fallacies (yes, that's right Stephanie, I know they're logical fallacies) our way is somehow going to impress us? Let me tell you what's going to happen in the future because of the internet.
Publishers are going to become obsolete.
Record labels are going to become obsolete.
Secondary education is going to become free, or damn near close.
This made possible through perhaps the most terrific and important invention in human history. And all you can talk about is protected an outdated and thoroughly abused copyright model in interest of profits in seemingly direct opposition to these of most noble achievements. We have achieved so much since the dark ages, and I promise you that we're not going to let some moron throw it all away.
Maybe you're brain dead, but it was people like us, tech savvy -- the designers -- that built this modern age and the internet. Don't think you can waltz in and take it. We designed it, we built it, and it's not your call to say it's for your client's profits. It's ours, and we say it's for the people.
a lobbyist complaining about voter ignorance, next we'll have cattle farmers complaining about cattle.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
One thing to keep in mind: RIAA, MPAA and related organizations are completely fine with the ITU-T (UN Telecommunications agency, and no, it is not little-known: it is about as powerful as UNESCO and indirectly influences a LOT more money, i.e. the entire global voice and data transport (one layer below the Internet) market).
The ITU-T has no problem whatsoever into enabling all sort of filtering and censorship. They will make sure it is well standardized, so that all equipment from multiple vendors will talk properly to implement the "features", etc. But they abide by absolutely NONE of the ISOC principles that govern a very large fraction of the IETF engineers.
Also, IETF is heaven compared to the ITU-T, which is even more heavily influenced by political/vendor-originated pressures than ISO.
The problem is people understood the bill all too well and weren't willing to put up with wiping the first ammendment off of the table and they were interested enough to protect it, they would have exercised the second ammendment to do so.
Why is it congress thinks it's going to control the internet... it is because they think it can be bought and sold like they can?? Give 'em time and they will take it all away.
Bill
What's his point? Most countries in the world have nothing remotely resembling the U.S. Bill of Rights. Even countries that make an attempt to craft a bill of rights sprinkle phrases such as "subject to reasonable limits prescribed by law," or "subject to the public interest," or something to that effect, throughout every "right" their constitution claims to "protect," rendering the document meaningless.
Liberty in your lifetime
> Neither of those is censorship - they're illegal
What a stupid thing to write. By your idiotic "logic," there's no censorship in China because the law says you can't criticize the Communist Party.
Malware sites have a technical effect that is unrelated to speech. Blocking them is as much censorship as is banning lead-based newspaper ink -- i.e. not at all.
if most countries already have the options, why would there be a need for another bill to be passed? double fail somewhat again
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?