US Congressman Wants To Ban New Internet Laws 205
SchrodingerZ writes "Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, has drafted a bill for the internet. The bill, aptly named the Internet American Moratorium Act (IAMA), is, 'a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet.' In short it hopes to deny any new government bills related to lawmaking on the internet for the next two years. The bill was first made public on the website Reddit, and is currently on the front page of Keepthewebopen.com, a website advocating internet rights. 'Together we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet,' Issa writes on his Reddit post. The initial response to the bill has been mixed. Users of Reddit are skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility. As of now, the bill is just a discussion draft, whether it will gain footing in the future is up in the air."
Re:1st! (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress can't make a law that binds Congress's lawmaking ability
Is that actually true? In the UK, Parliament can't pass laws that bind a future Parliament[1], but in this case he's only proposing a 2-year limit (i.e. for the duration of this Congress), so that wouldn't apply: they'd be voting to limit themselves, not future holders of their office. That said, wouldn't it be simpler to get 50% of the members of one of the houses to sign a pledge to vote against any such legislation?
[1] This raised some interesting constitutional issues when we signed the Treaty of European Union.