@mkhoury

SOPA: Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work

It’s insane to for people to submit legislation from areas of interest they know little to nothing about.  But that’s the Washington norm.  Like SOX stopped corporate corruption?  You can’t ever, ever stop people from making stupid mistakes - this legislation is no less.

“I am aware that there are some people out there who think that the internet is like Las Vegas, whatever goes on on the internet stays on the internet…”

Rep. Mel Watt (D-North Carolina)

“… Mr Chairman, would you use the gavel and your influence as the chairman to help move this along and stop your colleagues from wasting all of our time?”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California)

“The whole point of the legislation is to stop foreign websites from infringing, from stealing private property, from stealing content.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York)

“The problem of rogue websites is real, immediate, and increasing. It harms companies across the spectrum. And its scope is staggering.”

“It protects the security and integrity of the DNS by establishing a kill switch that would allow a provider to not carry out an order upon a finding that it would impair the security or integrity of the system.”

“The Stop Online Piracy Act has broad support across the aisle here in the House, across the street in the Senate and across the country.”

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas)

“All we are trying to do here is stop online piracy. Now, since when did the opposition get so fierce against this? What could be behind the motives of people or organizations that don’t think stopping online piracy is something that we need to deal with…?”

Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan)

“When we had the last hearing, there wasn’t a single person who could answer the technical questions, and they all admitted that… that is very unsatisfactory to me, and it ought to be very unsatisfactory to this committee, and it certainly ought to be very unsatisfactory to this institution.”

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-California)

“I think from cybersecurity to technical experts, the bill’s impact on the security of the internet and the integrity of the basic infrastructure of the internet is very much at risk.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California)

“It is very dangerous to give the government, and the Attorney General in this case, a power which can, in fact, only be used selectively, because the scope of the issue and the scope of the powers is so broad that it would take an unfathomable enforcement authority to enforce in every case.”

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado)

“It is very clear, we are going to lose here today. No, let me rephrase that, we are going to lose eventually, and we are going to lose in the worst possible way. We are going to lose without all the facts, we are going to lose without the process being open in the way that I would hope it will be in the new year.”

“Regardless of recent amendments to SOPA, both bills with risk fragmenting the internet global domain system, the DNS, and have other technical consequences. In exchange for this, such legislation would engender censorship that would simultaneously be circumventing deliberate infringers while harming innocent parties and their right and ability to communicate and express themselves online…”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California)