InCongress Links

Comedian George Carlin said that when the government tries to protect you its time to hold on to your wallet. You might as well hold on to your money because your rights are gone. The recent voter suppression laws running rampant in Republican controlled States this year is an excellent example of over responding to a problem that does not exist. An even better example however is the Stop Online Piracy Act, which recently passed the Senate with a clear bi Partisan majority. While the Bill would seem to be a good response to an actual problem but the facts are not as simple as proponents of the Bill would have people think.

The problem with Internet piracy is a serious one but not one that will bring the industry to its knees. The fact is that despite piracy the entertainment industry has seen steadily increasing profits ( See bar graph) and is in no way in financial trouble. Just like there has been no voter fraud in the United States that would indicate a need for voter ID laws, if privacy is not causing the entertainment industry to possibly fail, then why do we need these new laws? One way to find out is to follow the money. Last year the Internet industry contributed about $350,000 to Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Cal. The Television and Movie industry gave the good Senator nearly $600,000 and of course the Senator, a long time liberal, comes down on the side of censorship.

Another aspect to this fight is the Federal Governments insistence on controlling the Internet. Last year Congress considered a Bill that would give the government complete control over who received domains and which ones they would be able to register in. Because of the broad open ended way that the current Bill is worded however it does not taking training in information technology to understand the effect this piece of Legislation will have on the Internet. When someone sets up any website and uses affiliate advertising, they quickly become an integral part of a vast network of other, related websites. The wording of the Bill allows the government to instantly shut down the site if it has any connection with any site that attempts to avoid infringement laws. Not only this but the government can fine search engines for listing these sites and hosting companies for hosting them and put the site owners in prison for up to five years. This means that if someone comes to your blog and puts a link to a website that has a link to a free movie directory you can go to prison for five years.

The worst part of the Bill is that it takes the 14^th Amendment and the Federal Court system completely out of the loop, instead turning enforcement over to US International Trade Commission. The fact that the Justice Department has already been enforcing online piracy while going legally through the Courts and have been very effective, prosecuting literally hundreds of cases each year. With the Justice Department currently enforcing the law quite well, the industry is making record profits, there should be no reason for such an expansive law. There is nothing to protect that is not being protected under the current system. But this law also allows the government, through political appointees, to pick and choose about what websites it wants to have Internet access and this means that the potential for abuse is extremely high; would YouTube exist if the Bush Administration been able to shut it down for suspect links? We can only hope that the protests by some of the Internets largest entities, Google, Yahoo, Reddit, will have some effect.