Internet Issues: SOPA/PIPA

I am a Washington State voter, and I want to urge you to denounce, reject and vote against the SOPA & PIPA bills currently working their way through Congress.

Information: http://americancensorship.org

The MPAA/RIAA lobbyists (who naturally have an anti-technology, pro-censorship bias) have managed to get our “representatives” to push these bills into Congress in an attempt to allow private corporations to censor the Internet.

The Internet is a public utility. What if AT&T or Verizon could decide who you were allowed to call? Or who was allowed to have a telephone number at all? What if FedEx or UPS were allowed to decide whether or not you had an address to deliver packages to?

It’s anti-American, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s just plain wrong.

When the opportunity to vote on these bills comes your way, please vote with the people you represent — not with the lobbyists.

Thank you.

P.S. I find it interesting that there is no “Internet Issues” selection on your contact form. “Internet” is different from “Science and Technology”. It’s 2012. The Internet is a critical component of how people communicate and get work done.

I would encourage you to pay attention to pro-Internet voters, because there is an entire generation of millennials who will very soon make up the majority of American voters.

I encourage you all to contact your representatives in government and let them know about your disapproval of these laws (in America), or similar laws in other countries.

Update: Response from Sen. Maria Cantwell

Dear Mr. Parman,

Thank you for contacting me about the internet streaming of copyrighted material. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

This isn’t what I contacted you about, and both SOPA/PIPA go way beyond the simple law enforcement of streaming copyrighted material.

On May 12, 2011, Senator Leahy (D-VT) introduced S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act. While I am supportive of the goals of the bill, I am deeply concerned that the definitions and the means by which the legislation seeks to accomplish these goals will have unintended consequences and hurt innovation, job creation, and threaten online speech and security. On November 17, 2011, I signed a letter along with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) objecting to the bill as it is currently written.

You are correct. This is really, really bad.

On December 17, 2011, Senator Wyden introduced the “Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade” (OPEN) Act (S. 2029), of which I am an original co-sponsor.

/me raises eyebrow…

The bill has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee, where it is currently awaiting further review. The OPEN Act is a more effective approach to stopping foreign web sites that are found to be primarily and willfully used to infringe intellectual property rights. The OPEN Act builds on the existing legal framework used by the International Trade Commission for addressing unfair acts in the importation of articles into the United States, or in their sale for importation, or sale within the United States after importation.

The United States government is working beyond the realm of its jurisdiction here. It might be currently legal, but this is still a bad thing. Who determines what “primarily and willfully used to infringe intellectual property rights” even means? How is this really any better?

And you’re a co-sponsor of this legislation?

Our trade laws have yet to catch up to deal with the global digital economy.

Incredibly, incredibly true. As a matter of fact, copyright law itself can be placed in this very same bucket.

The OPEN Act recognizes that the Internet has created new opportunities for foreign products to reach the U.S. market and that there is little difference between downloading a pirated movie from a foreign website and importing a counterfeit movie DVD from a foreign company. For those foreign web sites that are determined after an investigation to be primarily and willfully infringing, the International Trade Commission will issue a “Cease and Desist” order. The “Cease and Desist” order may also be served on financial intermediaries that provide services to that foreign web site, compelling financial payment processors and online advertising providers to cease doing business with the foreign site in question. This would cut off financial incentives for this illegal activity and deter these unfair imports from reaching the U.S. market.

*facepalm*

Pay attention, because this is important: THIS IS ENTIRELY THE WRONG SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM.

The entertainment industry has failed to innovate. They have failed to remain competitive. People want digital content. The entertainment industry has the opportunity to provide that to their customers. The fact that they often choose not to is not the fault of pirates. This is not the government’s problem to solve. Additional legislation is not the correct solution.

The OPEN Act addresses the same challenges as the PROTECT IP Act, while protecting freedom of speech, innovation, and security on the Internet.

How, specifically?

The challenge of rogue web sites is one that many nation’s face.

Provide an objective definition of “rogue web site”. Also, you have a grammatical error here. You don’t use an apostrophe when pluralizing words — like “nation”.

The United State has always been seen as a leader on Internet issues.

*blink*

No. No we have not. Especially in the 13 years since the Digital Revolution was ignited.

And we are the “United States”, not the “United State”.

Laws we establish in the United States regarding the Internet are likely to be used as models around the world.

You’re right. And the purpose of creating laws is (or rather, should be) to protect the freedoms of individual citizens, not to further limit our freedoms. Remember that.

And because the Internet is global in nature, it is important that we carefully consider how the laws and policies we adopt in this area may be received and translated by other countries.

Precisely.

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. You may also be interested in signing up for periodic updates for Washington State residents. If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sen. Cantwell, your lack of understanding of the core of the issue at hand makes me realize that you are not a person who truly represents the people of this state.

You will not be receiving a vote from me come election day.

From PCR Consultants, citing POLITICO:

In a disheartening turn of events Senator Webb (D-Va.), a long-time supporter of criminal justice reform in the United States Senate, had his bill shot down. The bill in question would have established a commission to review and propose changes to the criminal justice system in America. [...]

Individual Republican senators said they had come under pressure from local district attorneys and judges in drug courts to oppose [Senator Jim Webb (D-VA)]. But the Democrat countered that he had strong support from the drug court judiciary and the model for his proposal was the influential presidential commission on crime and the judicial system in the mid 1960’s led by then-Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.

Webb said that 40 years later it is reasonable to have a second review, especially given the high incarceration rate in the U.S. at a time of relatively low crime rates.

“Our criminal justice system is broken in many areas,” he told the Senate in his own floor comments. “We need a national commission to look at the criminal justice system from point of apprehension through reentry into society of people who have been incarcerated.”

It is troubling how partisanship can play so heavily to a major issue facing the United States, which incarcerates almost 25% of the entire globe’s prisoners.

25%? Wow. I didn’t know it was that high. But if you look at things, a Kindergarten boy kissing a Kindergarten girl on the cheek is considered a sex crime. Seriously? Now Congress is trying to imprison people who sing along to songs and post them on YouTube. In some cases, Congress is trying to bypass the vote of the American people all-together by signing treaties that were crafted in secret.

Right now, people are marching on Wall Street. We shouldn’t stop there.

But over the past few years, I’ve really been digging into the details of legislation that affects me most as a technologist — DMCA, Net Neutrality, Internet Radio Royalties, NSA spying via telecoms, and the outright suspension of my digital 4th amendment rights (e.g. search and seizure of digital property).

I’m sick of the partisan mentality in government. I’m sick of the RIAA/MPAA getting away with passing bogus laws in the name of “copyright protection” against “pirates”, making it near impossible for an interested party to come up with a newer, better business model for the digital age. I’m sick of candidates who don’t know the first thing about what I’m most passionate about — technology.

Watching the recent Republican debates, I cringe at how awful they all are. Except Ron Paul. I like Ron Paul, but he doesn’t strike me as a good leader, and he’s certainly unaware of technological issues — which are the issues that matter to me most, and affect me on far more of a daily basis than whether abortion is legal or not.

After spending the last several weeks really digging into the candidates and the issues, and watching the debates on TV and YouTube, I’ve officially decided to stand behind Barack Obama. And not just stand behind him, but rally others to do the same. Obama is the first candidate I’ve cared about because I believe he’s the first candidate to care about people like me. I might not agree with all of his stances (e.g. Pro-Life vs. Pro-Abortion), but I do think that Obama is the right leader for this moment in time.

I get really irritated when I see people with bumper stickers that say “Re-Defeat Bush”. He was never defeated in the first place, moron. If he had been, he wouldn’t have become President. Yes, the election was close, but he was never defeated. The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote in favor of Bush. If you don’t like Bush, that’s fine. But don’t be a moron about it—make intelligent choices.

I received this from a friend of mine, and thought it was interesting. I’m not saying that I’ve verified everything here, but if these statistics are true, then Bush is doing a great job in office. Maybe you don’t like him ’cause your a Democrat. Fine, then use that as your excuse to want to get rid of him. But this war cannot be one of those reasons.

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of January. In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January. That’s just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq.

When some claim President Bush shouldn’t have started this war, state the following;

F. D. Roosevelt led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,334 per year.

Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden’s head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but…

It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51 day operation.

We’ve been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick (with a young lady inside ).

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!

Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military moral is high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts.

I just hope that people who’ve taken the time to study the issues and the candidates will be at the polls in November. I also hope that the people who don’t know very much about this election will just stay home, since they obviously don’t care enough about it anyways.

Old Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

Moral of the Story: Be responsible for yourself!

Modern American Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Tom Daschle and John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Ant Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

Moral of the Story: Vote Republican

People who are pro-abortion have chosen a very sly way to market their ideas. They call it “Pro-Choice”. Everyone wants to have a choice, right? I know I do. I like being able to choose my clothes, music, spouse, and all sorts of other things. It’s cool, right?

Then we hear on the news that those mean ol’ conservatives trying to take choices away from women, those mean ol’ rich white men. Whatever.

Like I said, I’m 100% for women’s rights. Women are equal to men in every way, and they absolutely have the right to be treated as such. But why are they allowed to take choices away from their kids? Pro-choice sounds awfully Anti-choice to me.

Isn’t it the liberals who pushed for civil and human rights a few decades ago in America? I absolutely believe in human rights. That includes the right to be born in the first place. Women are asking why anyone has the ability to take their rights away? I ask them the exact same question.

Why did my mom have the right to kill me? I know that for some, being pregnant is awfully inconvenient. But why do they wait until after-the-fact to think about the consequences?

Did you know that at 6 weeks, the child has every organ it will ever need to sustain life? Most women don’t even find out they they’re pregnant until then. Do you know what partial birth abortions are? Just a term for something? Perhaps it’s when they induce labor, and as the child is in the process of being born, they slit open the baby’s neck and suck the brains out with a miniature vacuum. Yummy. Anyone up for some tapioca pudding?

This is just one of the things that frusterate me.

The following is a table of the issues that were presented in the questionairre. I’ve listed my answers, along with those of Bush and Kerry, who were my top two matches. Wherever you see a “»“, that means that I’d like to explain my stance a bit more thoroughly, so click through.

Outlaw Abortions Except for Rape/Incest

Although rape is a terrible, terrible thing, we must remember one thing: It’s not the child’s fault! We can’t murder a child just because the father was a rapist. That would be just as wrong as the rape in the first place.

Religion in Goverment

Although I am a Christian, I do not believe that Christian beliefs should be unwillingly forced upon those who do not want anything to do with them. Even the Bible says that if a person’s heart is hardened against the will of God, then we should not try to force them to believe in Christ. Rather, we should pray for them, and ask God to break down their hardened hearts.

Christ changed the world one life at a time. That’s how it should be with Christians. Integrating a particular belief system into a governmental system only brings about corruption and false beliefs… such as with the Roman Catholic Church.

Gun Control

I am absolutely all-for the second amendment right to keep and bear arms. However, we should make it as difficult as possible for criminals and felons to legally obtain weapons such as these. If you want a gun, you absolutely have the right. But you need to go through proper channels first.

Gun Lawsuits

People need to step up and take responsibility for their own actions. If a person shoots someone, it’s the person’s fault… not the company that made the guns. Get a grip people.

Tighter Immigration Controls

If you want to come to this country, that’s fine by me. I don’t mind. As long as you go through proper channels and get documented, I’ve got no problem with anyone being in this country.

But if you come over illegally and don’t pay any taxes, don’t expect education, medicine, driver’s licenses, welfare, or anything else. You have no right to be here. Don’t expect me to pay through the nose in taxes just your your illegal kids can go to school.

Immediate Withdrawal of U.S. Troops

I’m sick and tired of trying to help Iraqui’s who are bombing, shooting, and otherwise killing our troops. WE’RE THERE TO HELP THEM, and all they can see is “invasion”. My first instinct is to call them ungrateful little brats, then bomb them all. However, this wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

If we pull out now, those people will be left in horrible conditions. Even though we were able to overthrow their dictator, their country has been run that way for so long that these people don’t seem to know how to function any other way. We need to continue to help them re-build their country, even if we need to smack them upside the back of the head from time to time until they realize that we’re trying to help, and not hurt them.

Universal Government-Supervised Health Care

Although Universal Health Care is a great idea, I cannot say that I support it in the U.S. Most new medicines are developed in the U.S. Why? Because the money is being spent here to fund the development of these new drugs. How many new leading-edge medicines have come out of Canada? Or Europe? Not nearly as many as the United States. That’s because we have to pay to go to the doctor’s office, and the money trickles through the system to fund these types of medical breakthroughs.

If Russia, China, or Europe was creating these types of drugs, then it would be great for the U.S. to implement a universal health care system. If we don’t continue to stimulate the pharmaceutical industry, who will?

Welfare Benefits for Legal Immigrants

As long as they’re legal, I have no problem with them having the same rights as the rest of Americans.

That being said, I do think that we need to seriously reform the welfare system so that it makes it very hard to exploit. Welfare is a good thing for people who truly need it. But I’m tired of being in the 28% tax bracket and having to pay through the nose for slackers. I worked hard to get where I am. You should too.

Taxes

I think that everyone should pay an equal share in taxes. Taxes should be 20-25% across the board for everybody. As a kid, my family was on welfare for a while. Now my wife and I make over $70,000 between the two of us. We shouldn’t get punished by having to pay more in taxes just because we worked hard to get where we’re at. Screw that! Write-off’s for donations to charities are fair, because you don’t have the money/car/items anymore, so you shouldn’t have to pay taxes on them. I also like the tax breaks for the families of college students. It’s an incentive to make our nation smarter. Other than that, there shouldn’t be any other tax breaks.

Oil Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge

I ride both sides of the fence on this issue. On one hand, I don’t want to further destroy another part of the world for the sake of greedy humans. Granted, humans are, and will forever be more important than the animals. However, there should be a balance. If it’s a matter of human greed, then forget it.

On the other hand, if we were to stop depending on oil from other countries to power our factories, cars, and other things that help to maintain our current way of life, it would be a good thing. I’m tired of gas costing two bucks a gallon. If we didn’t have to depend on other countries for it, we might be able to bring prices down, and avoid any international power struggle over this required fuel source.

Ideally though, we should continue work to try to develop a successor to the combustion engine. One that runs off of a fuel source that is forever abundant, such as hydrogen or sunlight. I’d like to see the federal government mandate that all new cars must utilize a gas-electric hybrid engine or better. We’ll see what continues to develop on those fronts.

Issue 1: Iraq War; Although I don’t particularly like how everything was gone about in regards to how the war came about, I am glad that we were able to successfully remove Saddam from power for the sake of the people there. I only wish that we would have gone there for the sake of the people.

Issue 2: Pro-Choice/Pro-Life; Read my article “Politics and Religion, Part I” for how I feel about the issue.

Issue 3: Affirmative Action; “Let’s end discrimination by discriminating against the race of people who used to discriminate, but who for the most part no longer do.” Does this make any sense to anyone? If so, please explain this to me! You don’t fight discrimination with reverse discrimination, you fight it with equality. I am all for men and women being treated, paid, etc. as equals. I am all for whites, blacks, browns, reds, yellows, etc. being treated equally with fairness and respect. But you don’t do it by oppressing the middle-class white male. Saying “it works” is a crock of crap.

Issue 4: Outkast Breakup; All I know about Outcast is that they sing “So Fresh and So Clean”.

These ultra-liberal ideas are popular ideas, because they basically say that we can all do whatever we want with no responsibility to anyone, and it’s all crap. Get a brain, get a mind, and think for a second. This society promotes these ideals that will do nothing positive. “What is popular is not always what’s right, and what’s right is not always popular.”

Another reason why I’m glad Arnold won the election is for one main reason — he’s not a politician. I’ve believed for quite some time that the problem with federal, state, and local governments is because there are too many politicians in politics! Arnold is not a politician, and that’s what I like about him. He hasn’t been swept up in all of the political corruption that many politicians have.

Regarding whether or not I agreed with the electin in the first place, my feelings are mixed. On one hand, some are calling it a political power grab from the Republicans. Gray Davis did win the election last year. However, if you saw the statistics for the vote Republicans lost nearly all positions to Democrats by a very slim margin… including the Governor’s position. For me, I didn’t like either candidate (Davis or Simon). So it was a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. But the Governor’s position is supposed to be for a term of 4 years once elected, and there’s a certain sacredness about that.

On the other hand, I don’t like Davis. Besides disagreeing with his politics, I don’t like many of the choices he made or the money that was taken out of my hard-earned paycheck in the form of State Taxes that was horribly mis-spent. Now there will be a conservative in office (well, economically anyways) and I like that. So, like I said, my feelings are mixed.

Anyways, I just wanted to say congratulations to Arnold, as the next governor of Cah-Lee-Foh-Nee-Ahh

Anti-war activists are bitching about human rights? Let’s blow Saddam to smithereens…

Anyways, I think that the people who are out in San Fran protesting this war are retarded. If it was before the war had begun, then sure, okay, protest away. But now that the first bombs have fallen, I think it’s a waste of time to try to make the president change his mind. War has begun. Deal with it. The best thing that we can do now is support our troops… whether we agree with the war or not… so that they can get their job done, and then get their butts back home where it’s safe… to get back to their families, friends, and loved ones.

Ech. That, and I want the economy to pick back up. This sucks. I need to find a cool web job. Anybody hiring?