After the protests against SOPA and PIPA and the blackout of several websites on January 18, anybody looking at the statements of the various sponsors and other congressmen and senators would see a clear pattern. Many of these people who supposedly represent us only turned their votes around when they saw the backlash, and furthermore tried spinning it to appear like they had stood up for the little guys against clearly problematic legislation.
I ran across a quote from Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who introduced the legislation, that surprised me. Back in 2006, when a net neutrality amendment to the COPE Act was killed by the Republican party, he said that he “want[s] a vibrant Internet just like [the Democrats] do,” but that their “disagreement is about how to achieve that. They say let the government dictate it…I urge my colleagues to reject government regulation of the Internet.”
If this was the way Smith was speaking in 2006, why is it that he’s introduced so many bills to cut down on what you can do online? Perhaps the answer lies in his sources of the coinage in his campaign coffers–Opensecrets.org, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics, reports that most of Smith’s money for this election cycle, $60,800, came from the entertainment industry, with another $28,500 from the tech industry and even more going to his PAC, a trend that goes back several years.
Similarly, the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, a major force for the bill, was former Senator Chris Dodd, whose “controversies” section on Wikipedia is longer than any other on the page. On national television, he said that those “who count on “Hollywood” for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”
Now, there’s a worthy discussion of the government’s place on the Internet, but these sorts of developments and implications that Hollywood could essentially buy a member of Congress seems dirty to me. Unfortunately, this is just a clear end result of the Citizens United case and Speechnow.org v. FCC, which have only helped to put more money into politics.
It seems like the main conflict here is between those seeking freedom of information and those seeking to control it like any other industry or resource. Frankly, I think literacy is the greatest human invention, and the widespread flow of information that follows from it to be the greatest force for change.
The printing press of this millenium is the Internet, and Wikipedia is our library of Alexandria. Like the historical opposition to the printing press, there are those who would like to limit the flow of information of the Internet due to its sometimes uncomfortable implications.
It’s 2012. It’s no longer okay to not know how the Internet works. And unfortunately, SOPA and PIPA were only a small part of what happens when you mix politics and a lack of understanding of technology.
There’s been several tactics tried so far– several telecoms like Verizon, COX, Comcast and AT&T gave up records to the NSA to supposedly fight “terrorism.” Other times, it’s been “necessary” to give up control in the name of fighting crimes like counterfeiting, and more recently, piracy. And in what honestly seems like a war on the Internet, another bill threatens the way people use it.
The latest angle of attack is claiming to prevent child pornography with the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” by recording every internet user’s name, address, phone number, credit card and bank account numbers, online history and IP addresses for an entire year. For quick reference, there have only been 10,000 child pornography arrests by the FBI since 1996 according to the Denver Post, and over 272,100,000 Americans online. An unsuccessful attempt to amend it was made, asking to change the name to “Keep Every American’s Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act of 2011.”
With this bill, Smith is working to treat all Americans as if they’ve committed a despicable act by manipulating public emotions about the safety of children. He wants ISPs to be swamped in data, logging everything we do online. However, doing so wouldn’t fight child pornography effectively–US law already allows for storage of most data for 90 days, and much of the illegal activity in question happens in the “dark net,” parts of the worldwide web not accessible without special actions.
Really, there’s not much that’s dead about SOPA, or at least the attitudes behind it, as evidenced by several comments by the creators and others that they’ll essentially try again in the future. It was just one of several horcruxes, if you will. The Internet is one of the greatest global democratic tools of our lifetimes. But like Benjamin Franklin’s words about our form of government, this will only continue to be true “if you can keep it.”
Chris Sonntag is a Biochemistry major, and a Traveler columnist.
His column appears every other Wednesday.