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Committee Goes 22-12 For China-Style Internet Censorship

December 15, 2011 - by Donny Shaw

During today’s mark-up of the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” a bill that would establish the first internet censorship system in the U.S., the House Judiciary Committee rejected a key amendment that would have removed provisions from the bill that call for entire sites to be blacklisted from the internet via DNS blocking, the same system used in the Great Firewall of China. Wired:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) urged panelists to remove the DNS and firewall aspects of the bill.

Rep. Mel Watt (D-North Carolina) said he was not a technological “nerd,” but said he did not “believe” security experts who said that the internet would become less secure unless Issa’s amendment was adopted. “I’m not a person to argue about the technology of this,” Watt said before he voted against the amendment. Issa’s amendment failed 22-12.

Full roll call details on that forthcoming…

The DNS filtering provision wasn’t removed because, despite what the bill’s proponents want you to believe, censoring websites is the core of this bill. The corporate backers of the bill want special rules that will allow them to stop dealing with individual violations of the law and instead take down entire networks just because legal violations are possible. They want the law to reflect their complete apathy towards the fact that a lot of legitimate speech is going to be censored in the process.

Stay tuned to this blog for more SOPA coverage as the mark-up continues.

Image from reddit user pantsmcawesome.

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Mel Watts PIPA SOPA censorship Darrell Issa
 

Comments

  • GamerLEN 12/15/2011 10:33pm
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    I wonder if these guys realize just how many computer techies are going to be pissed off at them if this thing passes?

    Its going to be like kicking over a bee’s nest except all the bees are wearing tiny Guy Fawkes masks from V for Vendetta and immediately swarm their bank accounts, cell phone contracts, email folders, and so on.

    Personally… I’m going to be laughing myself sick as the run around like headless chickens while their lives get hacked with vengeance. They’ll learn the hard way that when you mess with the /b/s the /b/s will **** you up.

  • CurtisNeeley 12/16/2011 2:02pm
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    I wonder if all the opencongress IP thieves here realize that everything in this bill is already possible but costly? This makes large copy[rite] owners more able to protect their ritual of copying.

    Naming the bill using the romantic term of “piracy” was the first error of the committee. This is about thieves. Not “Robin Hood” types digitally robbing from the rich to give to the poor.

    Appeal Reply Brief The lawsuit that asks the FCC to regulate ALL wire communications.

    GAME OVER.

    Television and radio in the United States are censored but are still FREE!

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    a sure fire way to piss off all the internet techs

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