
Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful - llambda
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111226/23082117192/would-obama-veto-sopa-extremely-doubtful.shtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
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ams6110
_Throughout his administration, the President has left almost all intellectual
property issues up to Vice President Joe Biden_

Classic. Leave IP issues to the plagiarist.

~~~
jonursenbach
Plagarist?

~~~
TomOfTTB
Biden was knocked out of contention for the Democratic Nomination in 1988
because he copied a speech delivered by British Politician a year earlier (and
even went so far as to fudge his own familly history a bit to make the copied
lines work)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign,_1988#Kinnock_controversy)

~~~
fossuser
That hardly seems like plagiarism, more paraphrasing and even then it isn't
like he took the entire speech - just a basic idea and two sentences (which he
apparently cited everywhere except once).

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vectorpush
_leading into what may be a difficult election year, and dependent on money
from Hollywood and unions (the big Democratic funders), this is an easy call._

There is no way that Obama hasn't taken the temperature on SOPA by now.
Obama's most vocal liberal base will transform into an internet hate machine
to rival the likes of the tea party if SOPA is signed. There is also the Ron
Paul crew capturing more and more Democratic voters by the day, a signature on
SOPA would be an incredible windfall for them in terms of people who would
refuse to vote for Obama out of pure anger.

I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA
is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day.

~~~
jberryman
> I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but
> SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day.

I think it's really unpopular on HN and on websites with "tech" in the name,
but is the general electorate even aware of the issue? I don't see much about
SOPA in the MSM (admittedly the last several months have had a lot of news-
worthy events).

~~~
vectorpush
_but is the general electorate even aware of the issue?_

I would argue that the tech media is pretty hip these days and not as far
removed from the general electorate as you might think, but only time will
tell.

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ramblerman
Give him a "Freedom Of Speech Defender" award. I'm sure it will be as
effective as the premature peace prize.

I still believe wholeheartedly that he is a good man, with good intentions.
But he lacked the conviction and courage to be a "leader". Instead he focused
on reelections from the start. You're the president of the United stated of
America ffs! You can get away with a lot more than you think, look at your
predecessors.

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jballanc
There are some interesting points here, but the article misses one very, very
important constituency (from the President's point of view, at least): the
intelligence community. If the law remains as is and outlaws Tor, Obama will
have the head of every intelligence agency in his office telling him to veto
the bill or put the nation at risk.

If the law is amended to allow Tor (as was attempted) and then passes, then
how long before Tor becomes a household name?

~~~
kabdib
Is Tor really that important?

~~~
jballanc
The project was originally started by the Office of Naval Research. Really,
it's the perfect vehicle for electronic espionage: hide your tracks as an
intelligence agent on an anonymity network primarily occupied by ordinary
citizens.

More details here:
<https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military>

------
UncleBeard
I'll never forget what John Carpenter taught me in They Live. "The golden
rule: He who has the gold makes the rules."

~~~
thematt
The frustrating part is that the internet and tech companies opposed to SOPA
have _plenty of gold_. They're just not using it.

~~~
abjr
I agree. They are frustratingly quiet. Any ideas why?

~~~
jerf
Increased regulatory compliance costs plays to the advantage of existing big
players. The government won't _really_ let Google or Facebook be destroyed.
DuckDuckGo or Diaspora? No tears shed. Losing some profit today to know that
you just raised the bar of entry for your industry impossibly high for
everybody else? A hard offer to resist.

~~~
chc
What? Google is one of the few companies that's actually come out swinging
against SOPA. I would wager they've done more to defeat it than any other
company or individual with a presence on HN.

~~~
jerf
And I count that to their credit, as I do for the other companies who have
fought this. I count it to their credit because it is no credit to resist a
temptation not offered to you; my opposition to SOPA is easy, because I do not
stand to gain from it. They are actually resisting something. But the answer
to the question asked is, even if it appears to harm certain other companies,
it's still to their benefit if it harms others even more, and that's why we're
not hearing from them very much.

------
DillonF
What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the issues that are so very
important to them are probably just not that important to the president (if he
even knows about them at all.) He has a whole world full of things to worry
about and only 365 days a year. When something so important to you such as
SOPA arrives on his desk, he probably is forced to paint with very broad
strokes. Should I be strong on IP, weak on IP? Does my party support it? The
specific long term effects that so many of us fear probably don't even cross
his mind.

------
pasbesoin
As I've said before, just look at what Joe Biden's been up to.

This post is on the mark. "The Internet's" problem is that it doesn't have
anything to hold over Obama's head. Yet.

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zackzackzack
Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if
somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he
would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new
argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of
political candidates, especially those running for higher offices.

Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a strong case will win
this fight. Many different people from many walks of life need to be angry
about SOPA before Obama could walk away from the bill easily with "The people
don't want this." Nerds on the internet probably won't convince him alone.

~~~
pasbesoin
Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as
simple as that.

~~~
zackzackzack
Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that
young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last
time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up
a bunch of their voters?

~~~
pasbesoin
Start asking around, and find out how many people (outside your circle of
informed technical friends) even know that SOPA/PIPA are happening (just their
existence/names, not to mention what they are about). (Hint: Not many, in my
experience.)

~~~
RexRollman
It's just like privacy related issues. People seem to be totally apathetic
about it.

