DNS Provision Pulled From SOPA 232
New submitter crvtec sends this excerpt from CNet:
"Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the biggest backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act, today said he plans to remove the Domain Name System blocking provision. 'After consultation with industry groups across the country,' Smith said in a statement released by his office, 'I feel we should remove (DNS) blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the [U.S. House Judiciary] Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision.'"
No, he didn't (Score:5, Interesting)
He said he'd postpone it until further research had been done... In other words, pass the bill now and then shove it down our throats later.
Re:No, he didn't (Score:5)
My bad. That was the ProtectIP one, even though this still sounds like the same thing.
Re:No, he didn't (Score:5, Interesting)
The research is whether congressional hipocracy is exempt. It appears that under the law the congressman's website would have been permanently shut down for copyright infringment.
The background image on Chairman Lamar Smith [texansforlamarsmith.com] own website was being used without the consent of the photographer.
Re:No, he didn't (Score:4, Interesting)
Update
The background image is now gone.
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, who cares that it's gone! He used the offending image, right?
Pull his site!
Oh wait - so if a Govt site "just pulls the image" it's okay, but when Joe Small does it we pull his entire site?
How did you let him past that double standard?!
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, that's a perfect example of how it should be done. A copyright owner notifies the infringer of a violation. The infringer says, "Sorry, my bad, I didn't know. I'll address that immediately." The infringing material is removed. Both parties go on their merry way.
Because infringement is very easy to do unintentionally, as Representative Smith found out, I feel there needs to be a safe-harbor course of action. If infringement is removed within (picks a number from thin air) seven days, then the infringement should be presumed to be unintentional and not liable for any damages. Furthermore, there should be a process where an alleged infringer can say to an accuser, "No, you've got it all wrong. I have a right to use this because of [insert reason here]." The matter would be settled either inside or outside of courts, using well-established procedures from Civil Law, but the matter would eventually be settled.
Anyway, that's my fantasy world. It's happy there. I only wish it could actually happen.
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is this new "automatic" copyright for almost all works that has caused most of the mischief. The old way worked just fine for many generations. But less than one generation into this scheme, and it has caused all kinds of very serious problems for society.
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Informative)
Lamar Smith's website was infringing something with a declared copyright - a Creative Commons-licensed photo that specified attribution and noncommercial use (not even a license fee!)
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Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:4, Informative)
According to the old rules, which were in effect for a very long time (and pretty much everybody seemed to think worked just great), you had to CLAIM a copyright in order to enforce it. In other words, one of those notices that looked typically like "Copyright © MyCompany 2011". (I don't know if the circled "C" will come through properly on Slashdot.)
If you hadn't claimed the copyright up front, you could not enforce it. Which was fine with most people because they didn't want to bother with copyrighting everything in sight anyway.
Copyright registration is not a "copyright". You own the copyright anyway. That's why it's called a "right". Registration is nothing more than "official" evidence that you own the copyright on a work. It is neither proof per se (because it's possible you could have registered something from someone else), or any kind of stamp of Government approval or anything. In the same way that legally, a signed piece of paper is not a "contract". An agreement of any kind that is otherwise legal is a contract. The piece of paper is just evidence of that agreement. Copyright registration works pretty much the same way.
There were exceptions, for situations like photographers and artists who sold original works for profit. They did not have to carry a copyright notice in order for the copyright to be enforced.
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because infringement is very easy to do unintentionally, as Representative Smith found out, I feel there needs to be a safe-harbor course of action. If infringement is removed within (picks a number from thin air) seven days, then the infringement should be presumed to be unintentional and not liable for any damages. Furthermore, there should be a process where an alleged infringer can say to an accuser, "No, you've got it all wrong. I have a right to use this because of [insert reason here]." The matter would be settled either inside or outside of courts, using well-established procedures from Civil Law, but the matter would eventually be settled.
The bone-jarringly stupid thing about this whole mess is, what you describe is more or less the way a DMCA takedown request works NOW - a copyright holder claims their work is being infringed and the site hosting the material pulls it pending review. If it's infringing (ie, if the infringing user can't explain why it isn't) it stays down and if it isn't it's reinstated.
That's the biggest problem with this whack-a-doodle bill - the measures in place to deal with copyright currently work perfectly well for everybody except gigantic corporations with too much copyrighted material to effectively police.
Offshore sites (Score:4, Insightful)
the measures in place to deal with copyright currently work perfectly well for everybody except gigantic corporations with too much copyrighted material to effectively police.
Or U.S. authors whose copyright has been infringed on a foreign site serving U.S. residents, such as TPB. The loss of the OCILLA safe harbor doesn't affect them because the sites are operated offshore. That's what SOPA and PROTECTIP were originally targeted at: making it more difficult for U.S. residents to access sites that would violate U.S. copyright if only they weren't offshore.
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Notice and Takedown is stupid though - ideally the US should have gone with the more sane Notice and Notice system, whereby the ISP simply passes on the notice to the site owner, and they can choose to either act on it immediately (Takedown) or send a counter-notice - rather than being required to take down the content until the site owner can make that decision.
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1. He is funny. If you make copyright that absolute, you deprive people of his works entirely - in which case copyright isn't fulfilling its intended purpose of promoting the creation of new works.
2. When you specialise in reviews, it is rather difficult not to use someone elses work.
3. Because almost every original piece ever created is actually based in some part upon what went before. Even Disney, the great copyright empire and symbol of creativity to many, built its business around animated a
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I understand that perspective. The trouble is the rights of a few people to run a business selling licenses for creative works simply does not trump the rights of them and EVERYONE else to basic things due process, and freedom of speech.
If the only way to police the Internet leaves online publishers (which includes anyone operating a site) with no recourse to defend themselves against improper claims prior to action being taken against them, there is a chilling effect. Its not an acceptable trade off. F
Re:Update The background image is now gone. (Score:5, Insightful)
How did you let him past that double standard?!
Not to excuse it, but that's not the biggest double standard in the thing, I think the fact that GoDaddy helped write the bill and was conveniently exempted from the penalties their competitors would face under the bill. To me that sounds like a literal double standard with much bigger consequences.
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Re:No, he didn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll slip this back into some other bill later on when you sheeple are not paying attention.
Bad laws never go away forever in america. They just keep comming back until they stick.
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We'll slip this back into some other bill later on when you sheeple are not paying attention.
Bad laws never go away forever in america. They just keep comming back until they stick.
Ignore the sheeple. They've been around since humans first evolved, and aren't going away anytime soon.
Bad laws do go away, but only with great effort, struggle, and sometimes societal collapse and rebirth. Humanity is due for a good colonic, IMNSHO.
Sony (Score:2, Funny)
The bill should contain a provision for a national holiday any time anyone performs a public cracking of Sony's network.
remember how lobbying ALWAYS works (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) Expect A;
(2) Ask for something else A+B+C, where B and C are even more insane-sounding things and C is pratically unworkable;
(3) Make concessions to get people onside by suggesting that you're prepared to renegotiate on C;
(4) Wait for objections to be made to much of B and a near complete elimination of C;
(5) End up with all of A and a few scraps from B and C.
Notice this pattern in every jurisdiction with every proposed law. Always tackle the principles, which will be in A - you'll probably find that you want to eliminate the bill entirely. (That's at the second reading at the latest, if you're looking at the UK Parliament. Beyond that it's too late unless the increasingly castrated Lords throw up a fuss.)
Re:remember how lobbying ALWAYS works (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) Expect A;
(2) Ask for something else A+B+C, where B and C are even more insane-sounding things and C is pratically unworkable;
(3) Make concessions to get people onside by suggesting that you're prepared to renegotiate on C;
(4) Wait for objections to be made to much of B and a near complete elimination of C;
(5) End up with all of A and a few scraps from B and C.
Notice this pattern in every jurisdiction with every proposed law. Always tackle the principles, which will be in A - you'll probably find that you want to eliminate the bill entirely. (That's at the second reading at the latest, if you're looking at the UK Parliament. Beyond that it's too late unless the increasingly castrated Lords throw up a fuss.)
Congratulations on codifying reality succinctly. Hell, this is how most projects work, political or otherwise: Shoot for the moon, settle for what you need.
Which makes me wonder -- why doesn;t the opposition do this? We need to demand freedom, push for flory, and expect to get bits back incrementally. Hell, we aren't goign to repeal the Federal Code, but we might just take a few bites out of it and start something positive.
Often, the best way to defeat someone is to use their own tactics against them. Vote, demonstrate, get involved, fight. Anythign else is just posturing.
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Clearly put. It seems that the job of a politician is to compromise every value (on either side). Therefore if your opponent asks for something that is odious, as long as you can get that odiousness halved it looks like you have made a success.
The Politician equation is:
(Approved Change) = (Opponents Requested Change) / 2 = (Perceived victory)
Thus the Lobbiest equation is:
(Requested Change) = (Desired Change) * 2
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tl;dr version: "hey, I got this on sale!"
seriously, its how america relates to things.
isn't it interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
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DNSSEC which is not compatable with the DNS blocking provision of SOPA.
I keep seeing this assertion, but there is nothing about DNSSEC which prevents ISPs from blocking domain lookups. What DNSSEC mainly prevents is the forging of DNS responses to redirect users to another server. ISPs can still block the domain resolution by either allowing the request to time out or responding with an error (other than No Such Domain).
Re:isn't it interesting (Score:5, Informative)
What DNSSEC mainly prevents is the forging of DNS responses to redirect users to another server.
Which SOPA/ProtectIP, as written, would require.
By ”consultation with industry gro“ he (Score:2, Redundant)
Behind-door meetings with corporate sponsors who brought this bill to his table and deciding what to give up to pass the rest of it.
Just like the NDAA 2012 (Score:5, Informative)
All you have now is a signing statement about values to protect you from indefinite detention
As for US law enforcement and the inter tubes, recall the 84,000 "a domain" website efforts:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110220/17533013176/ice-finally-admits-it-totally-screwed-up-next-time-perhaps-itll-try-due-process.shtml [techdirt.com]
Ignore the pre committee PR and follow the bills
NDAA is okay because Obama approved (Score:5, Funny)
Everybody knows that democrats can do no wrong when it comes to civil rights. Only republicans are bad.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: NDAA
And then the version actually signed by the President specifically excluded US Citizens, US Resident Aliens, and ANYONE actually caught inside the USA.
Remember that Obama didn't issue a signing statement because the NDAA allowed indefinite detention of US Citizens, he did that because he thought he ALREADY had the power to detain someone captured outside the USA indefinitely, and didn't like Congress suggesting
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A neat trick, one can quote the part that seems most fair but indefinite detention is ready to use when needed under a few old laws (Authorization for Use of Military Force).
Then they get to select military detention (trial by military commission?), an alternative court or competent tribunal, a civilian criminal trial, transfers to third-country or to delete your overly protective "US Citizen"
Classical way of pushing law through.... (Score:2)
Re:Classical way of pushing law through.... (Score:4, Funny)
A law like this can only be pushed through by making it Draconian at first,
I've been playing too much D&D and Skryim the last couple of days, because I completely misinterpreted your post on the first read through.
Stuff Still In (Score:5, Insightful)
The stuff that is still in the bill is still completely unacceptable. It still gives the MAFIAA the power to shut down the revenue of a company based merely on accusations, and removes any liability for payment processors or advertising programs for refusing to do business with a company based exclusively on a hit list written by the MAFIAA.
Between the MAFIAA shutting down the MegaUpload song and Warner's admission in court that checking whether they actually own some copyright is too much trouble, they cannot be trusted with that kind of authority.
Moreover, we have already given them law after law after law for more than a decade. They keep saying, "We need this to stop copyright infringement, even though it is going to be costly, intrusive, and strain the bounds of civil liberties." And it keeps not working, and they keep abusing what we do grant them, and they keep asking for more.
We have given them more than we have given any other industry except maybe the investment banks, and they are still telling us they need more.
It does not make sense for us to keep going to more and more extreme lengths to protect this business model. Either it works in the Internet age, or they need to come up with some ideas for funding their production that does not rely entirely on heavy-handed interference in the marketplace. Centralized enforcement is a blunt and expensive weapon. If this particular government-granted monopoly is no longer a cost efficient means to channel revenue into science and the useful arts, we need to try some new approaches instead of just plugging holes in the failing levee.
Re:Stuff Still In (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stuff Still In (Score:5, Informative)
Under SOPA, downloading a film from the internet could result in MORE jail time than if you walked into a store and stole the DVD at gunpoint.
If the fact that downloading a file from the internet is considered a more serious crime than stealing things at gunpoint doesn't show that the USA is totally screwed up, I dont know what does.
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What other serious flaws might it contain? (Score:4, Interesting)
Given that the DNS provisions were seriously flawed, so much that they're simultaneously ineffective and would break many things on the internet, what other serious flaws are in the bill? If something that major "slipped past" all the sponsors and people promoting the bill, I have no faith that the rest of it is any better. Until the whole thing has been thoroughly reviewed for technical feasibility and constitutionality, the whole bill needs to be put on indefinite hold.
Anything that bypasses or takes shortcuts on due process is absolutely unacceptable. And, there must be severe civil penalties and recourse, and possibly criminal penalties for false allegations.
"On second thought, North Korea is doing it wrong" (Score:2)
I believe I speak for everyone here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck you. We still don't want it.
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Republicans love Big Government when it suits them (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Republicans love Big Government when it suits t (Score:5, Interesting)
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The Democrats have plenty of their own problems, but they're not the ones always yelling about small government while voting up laws that make the government bigger and more intrusive.
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At least it's honest.
Re:Republicans love Big Government when it suits t (Score:5, Insightful)
Day Late Dollar Short Big Govt Reply (Score:4, Informative)
Just pull the plug on SOPA and nobody gets hurt.
This means you too, EA.
I've given you tens of thousands of dollars over the decades, but my checkbook and credit card is shut if you don't back down.
What's left in SOPA minus DNS blocking? (Score:3)
I thought that was most of it. What is left now?
Piracy was already illegal... how does the law change without the DNS issue?
Re:What's left in SOPA minus DNS blocking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Goes from a civil tort to a federal felony, which is a pretty big fucking deal.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea again... even from the perspective of anti piracy advocates because it would basically create something like the drug war.
We'd start filling our prisons with people that aren't really hardened criminals.
The piracy legislation should definitely be handled with kid gloves. But we do need to start coming up with alternative plans. Congress and the lobbying groups are making it pretty clear that simply stonewalling is not an effective political position.
Smith's Robots.txt allows him to backpedal anon (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like the game companies are in on the fight (Score:5, Interesting)
While we wait for Wikimedia to do their committee thing it looks like about a dozen game companies and communities are going completely dark in sync with Reddit. I see a couple rumors that Google's having internal talks about how to get involved - but it's a very tricky thing. We like other websites, but many of us actually need Google. If enough small fry get involved it could become a big enough deal.
I forget... where were we on shutting down /. for the day?
Re:Looks like the game companies are in on the fig (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea is to back-pedal a little bit on this bill so we heave a sigh of relief over the DNS part and don't notice what they left in.
Next time around they do DNS thing plus something far worse. We protest the "worse", they back-pedal a bit on that and DNS blocking gets passed amidst all the sighs of relief.
Rinse, repeat until they get everything they want.
Bottom line: Unless we defeat the WHOLE of this bill and get a few morons kicked out of office then we might as well just hand the keys of the Internet over to the MAFIAA. They'll get them eventually if we don't.
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not enough to change the people. We have to change the system. We need publicly financed elections, some form of preference voting, and a "no confidence" option with actual teeth on every ballot.
Which will mean (Score:3, Insightful)
that the government will be run by the public employee unions. Just like it is in California.
Re: (Score:3)
He said public employee unions. Those unions are run by members of the 1%, their members don't get to set union policy, members simply get the benefit of not being able to get fired and guaranteed mediocre wages.
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Informative)
We have it. It's called "voting."
Gee, I wonder if "preference voting" might be a specific term [wikipedia.org] for something which allows votes to express more nuanced opinions than first-past-the-post plurality votes do and could lead to better outcomes, more viable third parties, and other beneficial features?
Nah, it must just be a synonym for voting.
Re: (Score:2)
why is preferential voting, per se, unconstitutional?
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not in any way. It's an abused stretch of the concept of "one man, one vote," though it doesn't actually change that. You don't actually get more than one vote counted, but for people who are mathematically illiterate it's trotted out as an excuse for why any change to the way votes are held is bad.
First past the post is about the worst method for choosing a palatable leader, and its failure is more clear as elections become more partisan. For having accurate minority representation it fails entirely for any minority which is not at least close in size to the majority party.
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leader ... minority representation
Are you even listening to yourself, and did you sleep through 2008?
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i think he was referring to greens, not blacks.
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Those last two sentences refer to two different things. We have more than one type of election in the US, last I checked. There's one with a single winner for the leader of an entire branch of government, and others which are designed to pick representatives of an area smaller than the entire country.
And if you believe Obama is an actual minority representative, you've just lost all credibility for being a rational person.
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Perhaps you would also recall some history on what the world was like when the constitution was written - and how much of our current electoral system has changed since the constitution was written.
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but different methods of voting aren't in any way constitutional. Simple plurality voting, which is used in all US States is the absolute perfect method for representing the will of an electorate when there are 0, 1, or 2 choices. For 3 choices and above, it's the worst method. This is a self-evident fact to anyone who has actually studied the issue. That simple plurality method is not specified anywhere in the constitution for the general public, only for the electoral college. The constitution basically says that, for the presidential election, the electoral college members cast their lots for the candidate they choose (the constitution doesn't guarantee that they can't just pick whoever they like, although some states have laws requiring it) and that the candidate who gets the majority wins the election. For House and Senate (since the 17th amendment at least), the constitution says that the members will be elected by "the people". Aside from that, there are parts of the constitution specifying that women and minorities get to vote as well and establishing the minimum voting age as 18 (States can constitutionally allow people younger than 18 to vote, but they can't withhold the vote from anyone 18 or older on the grounds of age). I think there's some bits in there about poll taxes and so forth as well. There is however, absolutely nothing saying how elections are to be carried out. Maybe the writers thought there was only one way. In any case, constitutionally, the States can conduct elections in any way that meets the requirement that Congressmen are elected by the people and for the President, they can appoint Electors any way they feel like. That's right, constitutionally, the States don't even have to hold popular elections to appoint their Electors. That falls to state law.
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voteing?
VOTING?
really - is that the best you got?
cause you aint got much if that's the old sloan you're dragging out.
quick: kang or kodos? which one? WHICH ONE? come on, pick. you vote counts!
oh be serious. are you really that dumb or just trolling?
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:4, Informative)
Would you really complain if $2 of your taxes went to the candidate that you actually voted for?
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Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that there's really no other choice that preserves democracy. Either you spend taxpayer dollars to ensure that everyone who meets some reasonable set of criteria (e.g. getting n signatures) is funded equally from the public treasury or you have elections in which the politicians are inherently for sale.
This is one of the few issues that is absolutely black and white. Giving money to a politician is a bribe, and those who give the most money will inherently have more influence. There's just no good way to prevent that. Public funding prevents corruption precisely because you are forced to support not just your candidate, but also everyone else, thus ensuring that politicians have no incentive to try to raise more money than their competitor. Without that built-in leveling, you cannot have a truly free election.
The founding fathers could not possibly have envisioned a world in which the cost to run for President would be equal to an average person's salary over eleven thousand years (based on 2011 U.S. median income). They did their best to make sure that we would not end up in a plutocracy, but we managed to end up there anyway. So clearly, those founding fathers you so are so enamored with didn't know everything....
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The problem is that there's really no other choice that preserves democracy. Either you spend taxpayer dollars to ensure that everyone who meets some reasonable set of criteria (e.g. getting n signatures) is funded equally from the public treasury or you have elections in which the politicians are inherently for sale.
This is one of the few issues that is absolutely black and white. Giving money to a politician is a bribe, and those who give the most money will inherently have more influence. There's just no good way to prevent that. Public funding prevents corruption precisely because you are forced to support not just your candidate, but also everyone else, thus ensuring that politicians have no incentive to try to raise more money than their competitor. Without that built-in leveling, you cannot have a truly free election.
So if politicians must be publicly funded, then what constitutes an illegal bribe? If a guy gets a good deal buying a used car, is that a bribe? If someone buys a hooker for a politician, is that a bribe? Are birthday presents from family a bribe? From friends? From "friends"? Are you going to make a list of what financial transactions politicians are allowed to make and who they are allowed to make them with?
Trying to prevent politicans from being funded privately has 3 real problems:
1) It's impossib
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That's an easy one, actually.
Was it a better deal than the dealer would have given someone else? If so, yes, if not, no.
Was it his bachelor party? If so, we might let it slide. If not, yes.
Would those people have done the same thing for him/her were h
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They did their best to make sure that we would not end up in a plutocracy, but we managed to end up there anyway.
Given that property qualifications for voting were the norm when the Constitution was enacted, and for some years afterward -- and really started to go away at about the same time that those who had been at the Constitutional Convention were dying off -- I think it's hard to argue that the FF's were particularly opposed to plutocracy. We, the people, managed to dismantle it once. We can do it again, if we have the will.
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Now corporations control the rule making so that 'good to the nation' == 'good to the corporations'
The l
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me, sonny boy, but "younger" isn't the problem. Some of us old folk (aka, fifty in my case) know what the hell is going on here: We're all being frelled by morons and ignorati with this bill and other pieces of stupid legisilation.
I don't give a damn about who's on my lawn (literally, kids walk thru my yard all the time) -- I want these damned politicians out of my head, thank you very much.
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I'm 50ish too.
and we are young, by politician years.
or dog years? I'm not sure, anymore. (woof!)
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"frelled"? I guess you are old--still using Farscape slang? The kids have moved on to Battlestar (`reimagined'), and the preferred euphemism for "fuck" is now "frak"....
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Fifty is quite young in Congress.
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"or are heavily educated in the ways that this shit works"
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Interesting)
That statement assumes that those elected officials currently in office and favor such legislation do so out of ignorance. As has been noted, it's not technological ignorance that motivates the push for SOPA: it's money. We're talking LOTS of money, offered by the entertainment industry lobbyists.
Everyone needs to wake up and realize that we don't live in a representative system of government. We live in a plutocracy, in which government policy is shaped solely by those who have the money and power to buy it. The Citizens United SCOTUS decision was not so much evidence of such bribery as it was a reflection of the brazen impunity with which corporations now feel they may act. Same thing with SOPA and Protect-IP. The government knows EXACTLY what it's doing. Don't think for one second that they're just clueless, doddering old fools who barely understand email. They know full well the consequences of their actions--they just don't care, because they're being paid off. Most Americans in their place would do the exact same thing.
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:5, Insightful)
I did not know this kind of thing growing up. that was the 70's and some of the 80's and there was no mass communication other than the boob tube, for us. it spoke and we watched. at school, the approved textbooks gave us the 'view' on things. we really didn't know any better! the disney view of life they rammed down our throats (cops are trustable good guys, politicians care about us, judges and lawyers are honest. ok, the last one was never ever taught, lol) is mostly what we knew. dissent was not allowed and effectively was filtered.
but NOW, its really different. kids at school can hear the bullshit preaching by the teachers who are paid to carry the company line and not really tell things how they are - then they can come home, login and read the real truth by people, totally unfiltered and make up their own minds! the info is NOW THERE for them. it wasn't for me when I was growing up.
this is a huge difference from now compared to ALL of mankind's past. ALL of it. for the first time in earth history, people can directly exchange ideas even if they are not approved ideas by their current state. that's HUGE. and its hugely scary to those in usual old-style control positions.
my point is that there is hope for the future because the next generation will be at least potentially informed about how the world really runs. they can possibly make it different. if they do not, they have a LOT of blame on their hands. we have half the blame (us older guys) but the new ones can see how bad the architecture is and try to correct it when they get power, when they grow up.
I don't see change in my generation or lifetime. but I would hope for it for the next one.
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Well, they're doddering old fools who barely understand email but they have a finely honed sense of Big Brother and all the fun that flows from there.
It's corruption, not ignorance (Score:5, Interesting)
The bill was drawn up by lobbyists. Congress don't know, and don't want to know what the bill is about. All a matter of who pays for the campaign contributions.
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Not to mention, congress critters don't even READ the damn legislation they are passing for the most part. A few years ago in a Michael Moore documentary, several congress critters that were interviewed openly admitted they don't have time to read most of the legislation they pass.
If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Democracy is always 10-20 years behind technology."
I'd quote the guy's name but you probably wouldn't know who he is, so no point. He's one of Canada's leading expert witnesses, in both handling physical and electronic evidence. That includes wire taps, electronic communication, and so forth. The cold reality is, government is always playing catch up, the problem is, in this case they're seeing the internet as a "printing press" moment. If you go back, you'll see similar panicking over the masses having the ability to print whatever they want.
The difference this time is that people can slow them down and rap their knuckles over it. Otherwise you get a mishmash of laws that do nobody any good or go too far in what they're supposed to do, and give overly broad powers, instead of 'just enough' to law, and in other cases "idiots".
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Maybe you didn't notice, but Biden was removed from office. Except in the rare event of a tie in the Senate, the VP doesn't get a vote on much of anything unless the President snuffs it.
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He was promoted to a different office from which it would also be nice to see him removed.
The original post is fine the way it is.
Re:Hm. (Score:5, Funny)
Honestly, I think that if Lamar would get a few deep packet inspections he'd probably be less of a useless asshole.
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Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain, a Biography
Suppose you were a greedy, power hungry corporate shill. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. --FTF Mr. Clemens