House Kills SOPA 495
An anonymous reader writes "In a surprise move, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to the huge online protest and the White House threatening to veto the bill if it had passed. But don't celebrate yet. PIPA (the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration."
Keep it Up (Score:5, Informative)
CALL YOUR SENATORS!!
Re:Sopa (Score:5, Informative)
was*
Re:Got a reliable source? (Score:4, Informative)
Be Vigilant (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Source? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Got a reliable source? (Score:5, Informative)
go to www.house.gov and see for yourself. almost everything congress does is public record and recorded
Shelved, not killed (Score:4, Informative)
The blogger is a bit overenthusiastic at the bill behing shelved. It's far from dead.
Re:Internet wins... (Score:5, Informative)
But not in the way many slashdotters might think.
Little appreciated here on Slashdot is the fact that SOPA was as unpopular on the right side of the spectrum as it was on the left. Many conservatives and libertarians rightly see SOPA has a HUGE power grab, and massive step towards an even more centralized government.
Eric Cantor is very tied in with the Conservative Blogosphere and with conservative internet "consciousness". As such he promised early on to do his best to kill SOPA.
It appears that he has kept his promise. Well Done Mr. Cantor. Well Done.
Examiner article is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
I recommend an article [cnet.com] that has actual quotes from Darrell Issa (the person who is talking to the press about this). The bill is on hold until the wording is changed in the bill so more people agree with it.
Opening 2 paragraphs from the cnet article:
The latest string of setbacks for supporters of the bills came Saturday when Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that he was promised by Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that a vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will not occur "unless there is consensus on the bill."
"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act [a similar bill to SOPA introduced into the Senate last year], I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House," Issa said in a statement, according to the blog The Hill. "Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any antipiracy legislation coming before the House for a vote."
Re:Internet wins (Score:3, Informative)
Not yet. TFA states "However, it isn't quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.
[...]
PIPA is less well known than SOPA, but the provisions are basicly the same. It still includes the same DNS blocking and censoring system that the original SOPA did, just without the SOPA name. There are around 40 co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate so far, with no word on how many senators support the bill in addition to that."
Which Senators co-sponsered PIPA?
Obama's advisors came out against it (Score:4, Informative)
By the way, one of my former co-workers said that he did contact his representative in Congress. He did not say who his representative was (most likely it's a Republican) but he said that it was clear that his representative really did not understand the bill at all and was framing it in the simplistic "Let's stop evil job stealing piracy!" terms that the entertainment industry has used to sell it to Congress.
Re:Keep it Up (Score:5, Informative)
Official listing of contact info (mailing address, phone numbers, and web e-mail) for US Senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm [senate.gov]
Since any bill would have to pass both houses, and since the Representatives from your state should also have some influence on the Senators from your state you may want to contact them too:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/ [house.gov]
Re:Sopa (Score:5, Informative)
SOPA reversed is APOS, which stands for A Piece Of Shit.
Even more clever, "Sopa" in Swedish means trash.
Lamar Smith still needs to lose his job over this. (Score:5, Informative)
This is good. The next step is to keep Lamar Smith from getting re-elected. Right now he's running unopposed for the republican nomination in a district that includes parts of Austin, a very techie town. With the right amount of national support for "Anybody but Lamar Smith" he can and should lose his seat over this.
Re:Internet wins... (Score:5, Informative)
How can a single representative kill the bill?
Because he's the House Majority Leader [wikipedia.org].
Why is a Jew in such a powerful position?
Because it's America, where even an Anonymous race-baiting Cracker such as your own fine self can get elected to Federal office.
Re:SOPA vs PIPA (Score:2, Informative)
The House and Senate each propose and vote for their own bills. The bills that pass one side, go to the other side. The other side can either vote on that bill as is, or change it and pass that. If other side changes it, then the changes have to be voted on by the first side. If things get stuck, they can appoint a 'conference committee' to attempt to hash out a bill that both the House and Senate can pass.
It is common for the House and Senate to each propose and vote on their own 'versions' of a particular bill - mostly for political grandstanding purposes. (saying 'we're waiting for the other guys to act on that' just doesn't have the same ring to it!) If both bills pass, they 'reconcile' them into one bill, and that's what gets sent to the president to sign or veto.
It's supposed to be the case that all 'spending bills' originate in the House. This is a holdover from when the Senate was a body intended to represent the State Legislatures of the Several States, with the House representing The People. In those days, the federal government had limited taxing abilities, and instead the State governments were responsible for generating the bulk of government revenue, and the feds essentially sent a bill to the States for the State's share of the federal budget (proportional to their total congressional representation). That system broke down when States weren't paying their bills, and when State Legislatures got too tied up in politics to vote on seating a Senator - leaving the Senate short. That's when Senators started getting elected by citizens, rather than by legislators, and that's when they created the federal income tax, allowing the feds to tax folk directly, without the States being able to interfere. So now, now we get city taxes, school taxes, state taxes AND federal taxes. Whoopie!
Re:Sopa (Score:2, Informative)
PIPA in greek means blow job.
And in Polish it means "vagina".
Re:Internet wins... (Score:5, Informative)
You can blame both sides for this one - sure it was introduced by House Judiciary leader Lamar Smith, a Republican, but co-sponsors include Democrats Howard Berman, John Conyers, and Ted Deutch, amongst others. You would think someone on a Judiciary committee could write a bill that wouldn't trample all over first amendment rights, but Lamar Smith has that one down to an art. This is at least the third piece of legislation I know of that he has sponsored that has been tossed out over first amendment concerns.
Many businesses strongly supported SOPA, including Ford, Pfizer, the BSA, the ESA, NBC, Go Daddy, the MPAA, the RIAA... the list goes on. The problem is, it was business friendly to a fault, giving copyright holders unprecedented power to shut down sites, whether they were violating copyright or not and without requiring proof. There was no way this would ever pass a legal battle in court - it was killed as it needed to be. At least this one was killed before it got to court - congress has done a good job of passing these things and then having them immediately killed.
Now maybe we can wait for the China to bully us by threatening sanctions in the same way we bullied Spain...
Re:Internet wins... (Score:5, Informative)
SOPA Is very much a right-wing bill. What could be more right-wing than attacking a system where anyone can communicate equally, regardless of where they fit into the hierarchy of society? The point of SOPA is to curb the free and open nature of the Internet and to reinvigorate the power of established corporations and government agencies -- sounds very right-wing to me."
For some definition of "right-wing" that is so broad as to be mostly useless. (Unless your point is, "what's considered 'left' in the US would be viewed as center-right anywhere else".) It's a "corporatist" bill, and most American Senators and Representatives are in the pocket of corporations, including many of those who pass for "left-wing". The entertainment industry is the primary proponent of this bill. Among the sponsors of the (PIPA) bill in the Senate you'll find such "liberals" and proponents of 'net neutrality as Al Franken (who last year was keynote speaker at Netroots Nation, but I'll bet he has "schedule conflicts" that prevent going to it this year).
Virtually everybody in Washington ("right" or "left", Obama or Bush) wants to keep extending the power of the government, witness the recent vote to extend the "Patriot" act.
Re:Internet wins... (Score:5, Informative)
or pretty soon there won't be any debate
What do you mean "pretty soon"?
There is currently no meaningful debate in American politics, only posturing on superficial or social issues and very strong bi-partisan agreement on:
- Less civil liberties, more state surveillance (NDAA, warrantless wiretapping etc.)
- Interventionist foreign policy, supported by an over-sized military-industrial complex
- Unconditional support for Wall Street (no meaningful regulation)
- Corporate interests always take precedence/outweigh individual citizens' rights and well being
- A political system with a high barrier of entry (unchecked campaign spending, no representation for small parties)
Re:Corporatism aka right wing politics (Score:5, Informative)
The mistake you are making is thinking that the Democrats are really left-wing. They are, at best, moderates, with left-leaning tendencies on certain social issues.
Re:Internet wins... (Score:5, Informative)
sopa is delayed (Score:5, Informative)
SOPA IS DELAYED not cancelled they didn't kill it they are posturing and trying to figure out what to change about the bill before they have hearings on the bill
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120113/23560217407/sopa-delayed-cantor-promises-it-wont-be-brought-to-floor-until-issues-are-addressed.shtml [techdirt.com]
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)