Issa: Piracy Bill Would Give Holder 'Broad New Powers To Police The Internet'...

[paulitician]

And Big Brother just keeps on coming for your Internet. Can he be stopped? And do you really want someone like Eric Holder snooping around on you deciding what's right or wrong? Eric Holder??


In a statement released Tuesday, House oversight committee Chairman Darrell Issa criticized an amendment proposed by Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, saying it does not fix anything and would give “Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice broad new powers to police the Internet.”

SOPA, which is Smith’s bill, would place authority over websites that facilitate copyright infringement under Justice Department jurisdiction.

The bill — heavily criticized by politicians, social networking sites and political advocacy groups for its “broad reach” — is expected to see full committee markup before Smith’s House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

“The manager’s amendment retains the fundamental flaws of its predecessor by blocking Americans’ ability to access websites, imposing costly regulation on web companies and giving Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice broad new powers to police the internet,” said Issa.

The Obama administration — through the Federal Trade Commission’s recent settlements with Google and Facebook, and the Federal Communications Commission’s passage of its so-called “net neutrality” regulations — has slowly expanded the executive branch’s power over the Internet.



Read more: Darrell Issa | Online Piracy Bill | SOPA | Policing The Internet | The Daily Caller

 

[jillian]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

 

[paulitician]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

Yes,lets cram our prisons more with Citizens for listening to music and watching movies. What a country.

 

[Dragon]

SOPA is a completely different kettle of fish from net neutrality and the two should NOT be lumped together. SOPA would indeed give the government excessive power over the Internet, allowing sites to be shut down on the pretext of stopping piracy.

Net neutrality, however, would not give the government power over the internet but rather deny similar power in the hands of corporations.

SOPA is a threat to liberty. Net neutrality is a protection of liberty. The two are night and day.

 

[paulitician]

Why can't Big Government just get off our backs? Man,the People have had it.

 

[konradv]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

Yes,lets cram our prisons more with Citizens for listening to music and watching movies. What a country.

Prisons? You're being a little over-the-top, aren't you. Sounds more like a "fine them to help balance the budget" scheme, if you're of a conspiratorial bent!

 

[iamwhatiseem]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

yeah...just like War on Drugs...let's have War on piracy...and build 200 more prisons to break 100,000's of families up just like war on drugs have done.

 

[paulitician]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

Yes,lets cram our prisons more with Citizens for listening to music and watching movies. What a country.

Prisons? You're being a little over-the-top, aren't you. Sounds more like a "fine them to help balance the budget" scheme, if you're of a conspiratorial bent!

This law would increase the chances of ending up in prison for listening to or watching unauthorized music & movies.

 

[paulitician]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

yeah...just like War on Drugs...let's have War on piracy...and build 200 more prisons to break 100,000's of families up just like war on drugs have done.

Welcome to Police/Prison State America. I'm just amazed so many Americans just sit back and allow this stuff. Such laziness and apathy.

 

[Dragon]

Why can't Big Government just get off our backs? Man,the People have had it.

Whose backs? Mine, or the big corporation's that is a threat to MY liberty just as much as the government is (and in some contexts more of one)?

 

[Intense]

yeah... they should keep letting thieves steal people's intellectual property.

Only when it's Government Sanctioned Redistribution.

 

[konradv]

Yes,lets cram our prisons more with Citizens for listening to music and watching movies. What a country.

Prisons? You're being a little over-the-top, aren't you. Sounds more like a "fine them to help balance the budget" scheme, if you're of a conspiratorial bent!

This law would increase the chances of ending up in prison for listening to or watching unauthorized music & movies.

What increases the chances of prison is commission of felonies. It's like you're giving pirates a free pass! I guess they just can't help themselves, eh? Freebies from private sources is less of a "sin" than freebies from the government?!?!

 

[paulitician]

Surprised Holder and his cronies haven't claimed "It's all for the Children" yet. That usually quickly follows.

 

[Intense]

And Big Brother just keeps on coming for your Internet. Can he be stopped? And do you really want someone like Eric Holder snooping around on you deciding what's right or wrong? Eric Holder??


In a statement released Tuesday, House oversight committee Chairman Darrell Issa criticized an amendment proposed by Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, saying it does not fix anything and would give “Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice broad new powers to police the Internet.”

SOPA, which is Smith’s bill, would place authority over websites that facilitate copyright infringement under Justice Department jurisdiction.

The bill — heavily criticized by politicians, social networking sites and political advocacy groups for its “broad reach” — is expected to see full committee markup before Smith’s House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

“The manager’s amendment retains the fundamental flaws of its predecessor by blocking Americans’ ability to access websites, imposing costly regulation on web companies and giving Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice broad new powers to police the internet,” said Issa.

The Obama administration — through the Federal Trade Commission’s recent settlements with Google and Facebook, and the Federal Communications Commission’s passage of its so-called “net neutrality” regulations — has slowly expanded the executive branch’s power over the Internet.



Read more: Darrell Issa | Online Piracy Bill | SOPA | Policing The Internet | The Daily Caller

Reason for deep concern.

 

[Dragon]

Internet service providers have the technical ability to make sites they don't want people to see inaccessible, and give priority of access to other sites that will convey information they want people to have. Use of that technical ability would potentially be a threat to freedom of expression -- mine, yours, anyone's that uses the Internet to communicate. Net neutrality regulation is designed to PREVENT that happening.

The government has the technical ability to shut down sites altogether, by legally requiring the hosts to do so. Use of that technical ability would potentially be a threat to freedom of expression -- mine, yours, anyone's that uses the Internet to communicate. SOPA is designed to legally PERMIT that to happen.

Why isn't the difference between the two bloody OBVIOUS???

 

[paulitician]

When they came for your Internet,you said nothing...

 

[Intense]

When they came for your Internet,you said nothing...

It's about the hidden powers too. When the other shoe drops.

 

[ladyliberal]

PROTECT IP Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stop Online Piracy Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Protecting intellectual property is a laudable goal, but these bills seems to go way too far. Consider:

A rights holder (eg, Disney if the material is Aladdin) can write a letter to payment facilitators and ad networks (IE, the way a website makes money) and ask them to suspend business with a website that the rights holder feels (as a matter of statute they don't need to offer any evidence, apparently) has taken their intellectual property. The burden is then on the website to explain how they haven't. The effect will be that large corporations will be able to financially ruin broad classes of websites virtually at will, without directly involving the government or the courts.

If that doesn't work, the rights holder can sue to have the website blocked in the US. The US attorney general can also sue to block websites. All that is necessary is evidence (not beyond reasonable doubt, but evidence that "suggest") that a website is used primarily (though by no means exclusively) to facilitate copyright violation. That means that a site that distributes software which could be used to violate copyrights (anti-DRM software) could also be vulnerable.

The suggestion that the bills could send people to jail is quite plausible. The House version makes streaming copyrighted material a felony.

However, it's unfair to blame this on Holder or the Democrats. Google searches for Holder suggest he is more engaged in rolling out toothless PR campaigns against piracy (Government unveils anti-piracy campaign - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety) than in getting this bill passed. Both versions of the bill are bipartisan and one was introduced by a Republican. Almost all of the opposition listed on Wikipedia's pages is from left-leaning individuals or groups, and a Democratic Senator has placed a hold on the Senate version. This is largely a battle between internet companies/users and media producers, not between big-government Democrats and citizens.

 

[paulitician]

When they came for your Internet,you said nothing...Unfortunately most Americans just don't care. Oh well,i guess it's all about The View,stupid reality tv,cell phones,porn,and sports. They just don't have the time to care about unimportant things like this.

 

[occupied]

Two pages and not one mention of the entertainment industry lobbyists writing a bill and then spending millions to get it voted on. It's all the government's fault.