Sweet Victory on Internet Censorship: Senate Backs Off!

December 2, 2010 by admin

Yesterday's diary, Internet Engineers tell the Senate to Back Off!, was about the very dangerous Internet Censorship and Copyright Bill [COICA] and the opposition to it by 87 leading Internet Engineers. As a matter of fact, there has been a lot of opposition to it, some of it generate here at DKos. Today I have the happy task of announcing that the Senate Judiciary Committee won't be considering this disaster until after the mid-term elections at the earliest. Yesterday Politico reported:

SENATE JUDICIARY IP HEARING POSTPONED – A markup on SJC Chairman Leahy’s IP infringement bill was postponed late Wednesday, as staffers anticipated the chamber would finish legislative work and adjourn for recess before the hearing could commence. The change in plans should delight some of the bill’s critics, at least, who expressed concern that the legislation was moving forward quickly.

No doubt, this delay has been influenced by the ground swell of opposition to this bill and is an important victory. It buys us more time to educate ourselves and the public about some very complicated questions where the stakes couldn't be higher.

However, wining a battle is not winning the war. We need to use this delay to build even more opposition to it. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been spearheading this fight, from their website:

Tell Your Senator: No Website Blacklists, No Internet Censorship!

Update: On September 30, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed the scheduled markup of the Internet censorship bill — a fantastic outcome, given that the entertainment industry and their allies in Congress had hoped this bill would be quickly approved before the Senators went home for the October recess. Massive thanks to all who used the EFF Action Center to write to your Senators to oppose this bill.

This gives the public more time to remind legislators why any bill that interferes with the infrastructure of the Internet is a bad idea. This bill will be back soon enough, and Congress will again need to hear from concerned citizens like you. So stay tuned to EFF.org for new developments!

Here is a link to the Demand Progress Stop the Internet Blacklist! petition.

All and all, not a bad way to start October!

Here is a recap of my other DKos dairies on this subject:
Why is Net Neutrality advocate Free Press MIA?
Obama's Internet Coup d'état
Julian Assange on Threat to Internet Freedom
FCC Net Neutrality's Trojan Horse
Free Press: Country Codes for the Internet?
The Mountain comes to Mohammad
Keith Olbermann's Deception
Court rules -> Google Must Be Evil & Maximize Profits
EFF on the Google\Verizon Net Neutrality Proposal
Google-Verizon: What is the Free Press Agenda?
End of the Internet As We Know It!
Free Press would make this Illegal!
Google Verizon Announce Terms of Deal