
Sen. Ron Wyden: "You can't come up with sensible Internet policy on the fly" - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/sen-ron-wyden-you-cant-come-up-with-sensible-internet-policy-on-the-fly.ars
======
jerfelix

        Wednesday's protests against the bills (in which Google, Wikipedia, 
        Ars Technica, and other sites took part) was "a day for the history 
        books," Wyden said, one that will "change permanently the way citizens 
        communicate with their elected officials."
    

It seemed like one of the goals of the Occupy movements was to reduce
corporate influence in politics. It's somewhat ironic that there's overlap
between the people who support the Occupy movements and those that are glad
that Google, Wikipedia, Ars Technica, and other sites stepped up to influence
this political situation.

Understandably, we're in this mess because of corporate influences like the
MPAA who helped fund the congressmen who supported the bill. But if you were
truly against corporate influence, you wouldn't be happy that Google got
involved.

~~~
thomaslangston
There's a big difference between buying a politician and educating the public.

If a business wants to speak their point of view and persuade the public,
that's fine by me.

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newbusox
In my mind, an underlying problem hindering any bill that purports to enforce
IP rights on the internet is the judiciary. Almost be definition, laws such as
SOPA/PIPA and whatever else will be evaluated by judges, therefore changing
(or, rather, more precisely defining) terms within the law. The vagueness and
ambiguity within SOPA and PIPA was the big problem. But until our judges (and,
frankly, lawyers) understand the ramifications that poorly reasoned decisions
could have on the internet as a whole, this problem will continue, likely
regardless of how tightly drafted the bill is. We have a separate bar, and
mostly separate courts, for many IP law issues, so a focus should be placed on
educating judges and lawyers in this realm--or maybe even creating a new court
system for these issues specifically.

If our elected officials don't understand these laws, there is little hope
that (often) elderly judges will be able to not only understand them, but
interpret them in such a way that they effect their narrow purpose.

~~~
mtrichardson
Check out the OPEN act. Ars links to their writeup in the article:
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2011/12/censorship-f...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2011/12/censorship-foes-roll-out-antipiracy-plan-say-stop-
butchering-the-internet.ars)

It moves the focus on handling these things away from the DoJ and to the ITC.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Why do you expect the ITC to do any better? Remember this story from last
month: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3371392> ?

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CountHackulus
Well that certainly sounds reasonable. Maybe I'm just being overly cynical,
but I'm wondering if there's a catch to this.

