Wow, it's only being made worse. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), from what I can tell, is adding the payment processing blockage suggestion from Google in the last hearing, without removing any of the terrible, terrible components already in it.
The entire speech, too, was full of equivocation and mass confusion: sawdust breaks have exactly NOTHING to do with SOPA. Equivocating on physical goods and digital goods, when it comes to safety, is asinine.
Edit: HOLY HELL. Melvin Watt (D-NC) just said almost exactly: "A free and open internet is not unduly compromised by these changes to stop theft and piracy online." . . . "Trusting private rights-holders against foreign infringing sites will allow us to stop the compromise of US citizens and the influx of compromised goods." . . . "We need to be just as aggressive on the internet as we are with brick-and-mortar stores." . . . "This bill allows us to get into the internet." . . . "My perspective, as an old country boy, we need parallels on the virtual world to what we have in the real world." YOU ALREADY HAVE THEM!!!
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) is up: please save us. YAY! "The integrity of the Internet is very much at risk." . . . "Especially disturbing given that today is the anniversary of the First Amendment." "The internet is not lawless. Breaking the law can already be punished, just like the physical world. But we have shut down illegal conduct at the source. The government has never tried to use the network itself to prevent illegal conduct . . . This will be historic, and not in a good way. Once the government has a taste of this power...expanding it will be irresistible. The US Government has never tried to monitor mail to prevent some sort of illegal content from being sent." Support this congresswoman!
Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) reminding us all that NOBODY was qualified to comment on DNSSEC issues. Good scenarios, including phishing-style attacks mimicking SOPA-takedown-esque redirects.
Howard Berman (D-CA) argues that "we can't stop the foreigners from stealing" argument. But that's always been the case, whether physical or otherwise. We can't stop a foreign company from making, say, fake Nike clothes and selling them in South Africa. You can work with foreign governments to shut them down according to their own laws. And once again, Zoe Lofgren nails it in her response: "This is the beginning of the balkanization of the internet."
Chaffetz (R-UT) says, "Let's get some nerds in the room." "How can you support a bill that will dramatically change how the internet works without understanding what it does?"
Alright, back to work. But this doesn't seem like SOPA's being fixed in ways that are important.
Was that a direct quote? I'm Canadian, which means that I have no impact on this legislation whatsoever. I can't email my congress(wo)man, threaten to vote for the other guy, throw money behind a better candidate, etc. All I can do is sit back and hope that somehow you yanks'll take care of it, so therefore I try not to pay too close attention to this since it depresses the hell out of me. As such, I wasn't watching the proceedings today and don't know if that's a direct quote or not.
If it is, then I find that comment extremely disturbing. The reason being that Congress, being made up mostly of old people largely out of touch with technology (senate.gov lists the average age of members to be 56.7 years in the House and 62.2 years in the Senate[1]), they should be looking to the younger generation in general, and experts in technology specifically, to help them make informed decisions. Calling these people "nerds" seems incredibly derisive and shows a general lack of respect for the very people that can best help them.
Just to let you know, that is a quotation, but it wasn't meant in the derisive manner (as you decided to interpret it). On the contrary, the reasonable members of the House understand they need more technical people to weigh-in and are pushing for another hearing with such people present.
They used the word "nerd" frequently, but it wasn't really meant derisively, and a few people self-identified as nerds. (The tech-savviest man in the room used to run an ISP, I believe he was one such "nerd".)
The entire speech, too, was full of equivocation and mass confusion: sawdust breaks have exactly NOTHING to do with SOPA. Equivocating on physical goods and digital goods, when it comes to safety, is asinine.
Edit: HOLY HELL. Melvin Watt (D-NC) just said almost exactly: "A free and open internet is not unduly compromised by these changes to stop theft and piracy online." . . . "Trusting private rights-holders against foreign infringing sites will allow us to stop the compromise of US citizens and the influx of compromised goods." . . . "We need to be just as aggressive on the internet as we are with brick-and-mortar stores." . . . "This bill allows us to get into the internet." . . . "My perspective, as an old country boy, we need parallels on the virtual world to what we have in the real world." YOU ALREADY HAVE THEM!!!
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) is up: please save us. YAY! "The integrity of the Internet is very much at risk." . . . "Especially disturbing given that today is the anniversary of the First Amendment." "The internet is not lawless. Breaking the law can already be punished, just like the physical world. But we have shut down illegal conduct at the source. The government has never tried to use the network itself to prevent illegal conduct . . . This will be historic, and not in a good way. Once the government has a taste of this power...expanding it will be irresistible. The US Government has never tried to monitor mail to prevent some sort of illegal content from being sent." Support this congresswoman!
Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) reminding us all that NOBODY was qualified to comment on DNSSEC issues. Good scenarios, including phishing-style attacks mimicking SOPA-takedown-esque redirects.
Howard Berman (D-CA) argues that "we can't stop the foreigners from stealing" argument. But that's always been the case, whether physical or otherwise. We can't stop a foreign company from making, say, fake Nike clothes and selling them in South Africa. You can work with foreign governments to shut them down according to their own laws. And once again, Zoe Lofgren nails it in her response: "This is the beginning of the balkanization of the internet."
Chaffetz (R-UT) says, "Let's get some nerds in the room." "How can you support a bill that will dramatically change how the internet works without understanding what it does?"
Alright, back to work. But this doesn't seem like SOPA's being fixed in ways that are important.