Brewing Code

I got an email today from Senator Mark Kirk’s office in response to my contacting them regarding SOPA/PIPA – 3 months ago. Here is the respone.

Dear Mr. Phelps:

Thank you for contacting me about the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), S. 968, and its House of Representatives companion, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In January 2012, due to overwhelming public pressure and opposition, Congress pulled the bills from further consideration.

I stand with those who stand for freedom and opposed PIPA. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right granted to each and every American, and the Internet has become the primary tool with which we utilize this right. The Internet empowers Americans to learn, create, innovate, and express their views. While we should protect American intellectual property, consumer safety and human rights, we should do so in a manner that specifically targets criminal activity. The extreme measures taken in PIPA would not only have stifled First Amendment rights, but would also have hampered innovation on the Internet.

S. 968 would have allowed for abuse of our Constitutional rights, giving the Attorney General sweeping powers to block domain names of websites the Justice Department deemed were “dedicated to infringing activities.”  Under current law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act already requires service providers to block access to infringing material, but S. 968 would have blocked access to entire websites that may have only carried a page containing infringing material generated by a third-party user.

S. 968 would also have placed too great a burden on small Internet startups, as it would have provided a private right of action to copyright owners. Since the bill would have forced the takedown of an entire site, not just the specific infringing page, it would have held user-generated websites liable for any content posted. This fear of liability and resulting uncertainty would have crippled innovation on the Internet, one of our greatest economic engines.

I was also concerned about the bill’s provisions to undermine the security of the entire Internet. Network engineers and cybersecurity experts warned the technical implementation of the Domain Name System blocking requirement could not function with new security protocols, also known as DNSSEC, currently being implemented across the worldwide web.

While I support the need to protect online intellectual property theft, PIPA in its original form is unacceptable. It would have had widespread unintended consequences that would have stifled freedom of speech and Internet innovation across the globe. This bill placed far too much regulation on the Internet and would have impacted more than just those foreign “rogue” websites for which it was intended. I cannot support such a measure that recklessly tampers with the Internet and our inalienable rights as citizens of a free nation..

Thank you for taking the time to contact me on this issue.  Please feel free to contact me at (312) 886-3506 or online athttp://kirk.senate.gov if you have any questions or concerns before Congress or the federal government. It is an honor to serve you in the Senate.

Very truly yours,

Mark Kirk
U.S. Senate

Awfully convenient to wait on responding until after the public has spoken. It’s a lot easier to be on the “right side of history” when the history book has already been written. I’ll let you know how they respond to my inquiries regarding the next batch of privacy invading, constitution evading bills.

While I missed “Move Your Domain Day” – I’m going to my domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap I think. I have some internal conflicts about it because I like to be consistent in my behaviors and views. In particular, what is the threshold? Objectively, when should I no longer patronize a business. It’s hard for me to identify that. But I do think that supporting SOPA is definitely meritorious on it’s own – but beyond that, GoDaddy’s initial attitude in response to the boycott was very dismissive. No business should be so comfortable as to not care about their reputation or boycotts.

What are your thoughts? Have you moved your domains? Will you? What is your objective metric for cutting off a business relationship?