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What Everyone Who Uses The Internet Needs To Know About CISPA
Online advocates, fresh off their victory against the Stop Online Piracy Act, are now gearing up to oppose CISPA because of the disastrous effect the bill could have for private information on the internet. The bill’s opponents argue that it goes too far in the name of cybersecurity, endangering citizens’ personal online information by giving the government access to anything from users’ private emails to their browsing history. As the fight in the Senate begins, here is everything you need to know about CISPA: CISPA’s broad language will likely give the government access to anyone’s personal information with few privacy protections : CISPA allows the government access to any “information pertaining directly to a vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or private entity.” There is little indication of what this information could include, and what it means to be ‘pertinent’ to cyber security.
Update: Several people have asserted that Quayle's amendment actually made CISPA better, not worse. I've now posted my thoughts on that . Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168 .
Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote
We Don't Need SOPA Because DMCA Is Already Broken Enough
Now don’t get me wrong, there are awful, awful aspects to both SOPA and PIPA . The prospect of DNS blocking is egregious censorship. The prospect of cutting off funds and ad revenue to “infringers” without due process is egregious. Even without those provisions, though, we still don’t need or want SOPA or PIPA.
Freakonomics: Piracy Costs the Economy $200 B. a Year? ‘These Figures Were Made Up Out of Thin Air’ | Betabeat — News, gossip and intel from Silicon Alley 2.0.
Attempts to quantify the cost of IP piracy have failed, say Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman. By Adrianne Jeffries 1/23/12 8:31am Share this: Anti-piracy rhetoric holds that online piracy is a devastating force on the U.S. economy, responsible for the theft of between $200 billion and $250 billion per year and the loss of 750,000 good American jobs. “These numbers seem truly dire: a $250 billion per year loss would be almost $800 for every man, woman, and child in America.
SOPA and PIPA have been shelved, however, the government’s plan to censor the public is an ongoing threat. It’s disconcerting that each government is initiating censorship tactics spontaneously while attacking our fundamental rights. Have you met the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement aka: ACTA? — an international trade agreement negotiated by the EU, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, among others whose supposed sole purpose is to forge ahead with tackling counterfeited goods and copyright infringement.
Meet ACTA; It’s SOPA and PIPA on steroids, the Global Edition
The Sopa blackout protest makes history | Amy Goodman | Comment is free
Websites protest against Sopa and Pipa on 18 January 2012. Photograph: ars technica/ minecraft/mozilla/ reddit/ wired Wednesday 18 January marked the largest online protest in the history of the internet . Websites from large to small "went dark" in protest of proposed legislation before the US House and Senate that could profoundly change the internet .Choice
There's been plenty of talk (and a ton of posts here on Techdirt) discussing both SOPA (originally E-PARASITE) and PROTECT IP (aka PIPA), but it seemed like it would be useful to create a single, "definitive" post to highlight why both of these bills are extremely problematic and won't do much (if anything) to deal with the issues they're supposed to deal with, but will have massive unintended consequences. I also think it's important to highlight how PIPA is almost as bad as SOPA. Tragically, because SOPA was so bad , some in the entertainment industry have seen it as an opportunity to present PIPA as a "compromise." It is not.
The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas
Controversial Copyright Bills Would Violate First Amendment–Letters to Congress by Laurence Tribe and Me « Marvin Ammori
Today, both Professor Laurence Tribe and I submitted letters and legal memoranda to Congress explaining that proposed copyright legislation would violate the First Amendment and be struck down in court. (His letter is available here , and mine is available here .) Who Else Opposes the Bills? Professor Tribe and I both felt compelled to write because of the threat to freedom of speech from the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) in the House. Others have also come out to oppose the bills, including the leading civil liberties organizations (at home and abroad ), venture capitalists , the leading technology platforms from Facebook and Google to Tumblr and Zynga, and (today) hundreds of entrepreneurs.
How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation
Over the weekend, the Obama administration issued a potentially game-changing statement on the blacklist bills, saying it would oppose PIPA and SOPA as written, and drew an important line in the sand by emphasizing that it “will not support” any bill “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." Yet, the fight is still far from over. Even though the New York Times reported that the White House statement "all but kill[s] current versions of the legislation," the Senate is still poised to bring PIPA to the floor next week, and we can expect SOPA proponents in the House to try to revive the legislation—unless they get the message that these initiatives must stop, now. So let’s take a look at the dangerous provisions in the blacklist bills that would violate the White House’s own principles by damaging free speech, Internet security, and online innovation:
White House Airs Objections to SOPA, PIPA Anti-Piracy Bills | Truthout
Score one for Google. The White House raised concerns Saturday about aspects of pending anti-piracy legislation that has been strongly backed by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, Hollywood's chief lobbying arm. In an unusually blunt statement, Obama administration officials signaled that the White House would not support parts of two bills wending their way through Congress -- the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that critics say would limit freedom of speech on the Internet and unfairly punish legitimate websites.
DNS provision pulled from SOPA, victory for opponents | Media Maverick
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET) In a move the technology sector will surely see as a victory, a controversial antipiracy bill being debated in Congress will no longer include a provision that would require Internet service providers to block access to overseas Web sites accused of piracy. Rep. 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 requirements from the Stop Online Piracy Act . "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.Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox is calling for a clampdown against piracy of films, music and other copyrighted material. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The gathering storm over online piracy legislation being debated in the US Congress has sucked two more heavy hitters into the fray, with the Obama administration and Rupert Murdoch lining up on opposite sides of the argument. The controversy over the Stop Online Piracy Act ( Sopa ) going through the House of Representatives and its Senate equivalent, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa), has intensified. Websites including Reddit and possibly Wikipedia are planning to "go dark" on Wednesday in protest at the proposals, which they say will lead to government censorship of the internet and be disastrous for innovation.
Rupert Murdoch squares off with Obama over online piracy legislation | Technology
Hollywood or Silicon Valley? — Obama faces a difficult choice on SOPA - The Hill's Hillicon Valley
A controversial online piracy bill could force President Obama to choose between two of his most important allies: Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Obama hasn’t taken a position yet on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that has divided senior lawmakers in both parties, but that will have to change if it clears Congress. If Obama signs the bill, he will dash the hopes of Silicon Valley executives who donated heavily to his 2008 campaign and are vehemently opposed to the anti-piracy measure. But the entertainment industry would see a veto as a betrayal by the administration on its most significant priority.Stop Online Piracy Act
The Stop Online Piracy Act ( SOPA ) is a United States bill introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods . Provisions include the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the websites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the websites. The law would expand existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.By now you've probably heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), the bills that want to cripple your internet . Perhaps you want to do something about it. Here are some tools that can help you keep track of SOPA and PIPA as well as prepare for problems in case they pass.