Contact Congress

This letter was sent by OpenCongress user BenSanders76 on February 09, 2012 in opposition to S.968 PIPA. Privacy setting: PUBLIC
To:

Comment on this letter below

S.968 PIPA
I am writing as your constituent in the 2nd Congressional district of New Mexico. S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011 is a clear violation of the 1st and 14th amendments. I, along with 99% of Americans, oppose S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011, and we are tracking your voting record using OpenCongress.com. This bill allows government and corporate takedowns of full websites over a single link, thereby violating constitutional free speech, and denial of property without Due Process protections for internet users that follow the law. This Bill establishes a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be "dedicated to infringing activities." The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against the alleged infringer and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. In some cases, action could be taken to block sites without first allowing the alleged infringer to defend themselves in court.

S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011 allows for new liabilities and legal uncertainties caused by the bill would restrict start-up growth in the technology sector and limit job growth in one of the most important areas of the U.S. economy. With a law such as this in place, websites like Google, eBay, YouTube, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia would have never been born, and we would have lost their $19.9billion annual revenue and approximately 54,000 jobs. These are just a handful of startups internet based computer companies that would have never existed had a bill such as this existed. As my voice in government I am instructing you as my Civil Servant to vote “NO” on S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011.

Sincerely,
Dr. Benjamin D. Sanders; D.B.A.
MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, CNA, CCE, C|EH, SCJP, MOUS, Security+, Network+, A+
PMI Member, IACIS Member, IEEE Member, NARA Certified Records Manager
DUNS Number: 607359945
This letter was a reply from the office of Rep. Steven Pearce [R, NM-2] on February 14, 2012.
Confirmation of Receipt

Thank you for contacting me.  I wanted to let you know that the office has received your message and we are working on responding expeditiously.  As you can imagine, the office receives a large volume of mail and phone calls, and I thank you for your patience. If this is time sensitive, please call my office at 202-225-2365, or if calling from within New Mexico, 855-4-PEARCE.


Sincerely,


Steve Pearce
Member of Congress

This letter was a reply from the office of Sen. Jeff Bingaman [D, NM] on March 12, 2012.
Response from Sen. Bingaman
Dear Dr. Sanders:

Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (PROTECT IP Act) and the House's H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  I appreciate your taking the time to write.

S. 968 was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy on May 11, 2011.  I believe that we must do what we can to address intellectual property theft to protect American jobs and businesses.  It is estimated that upwards of $50 billion each year is lost due to online piracy from rogue websites.  Especially troublesome is the impact this lost revenue has on our economy and jobs. This legislation will give the Department of Justice the tools it needs to combat foreign websites devoted to providing access to unauthorized downloads, streaming or sale of copyrighted content and counterfeit goods.

Many of the provisions, such as those that go after the revenue streams of these illegal websites, have broad support.  However, I understand there are very legitimate concerns regarding several provisions in the legislation, particularly with respect to security.  I have contacted Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Patrick Leahy, to discuss the various concerns that have been brought to my attention.  Furthermore, my staff has attended multiple briefings with stakeholders in support and in opposition to this legislation.  In recognition of the fact that additional work is needed to improve the bill, Senate Majority Leader Reid has postponed the debate so that these issues can be resolved.  It is my hope that the Senate will soon develop consensus legislation that tackles intellectually property theft without impacting cybersecurity and the openness of the Internet.

I am also aware of concerns with regard to SOPA, which was introduced in the House of Representatives and takes a different approach than the Senate bill.  Should this legislation come before the Senate I will keep your views in mind.

Again, thank you for writing.  I hope you will continue to keep me informed of issues of importance to you and your community.

Sincerely,

JEFF BINGAMAN

United States Senator

Phone:  (202) 224-5521

Toll-free in NM: 1-800-443-8658

Website:  http://bingaman.senate.gov

Subscribe to my e-newsletter.

Look for me on Facebook and YouTube.

JB/sk

Comments

No Comments Start the Conversation!


Note to Congressional staff & elected officials reading this: this letter was sent through Contact-Congress features on OpenCongress.org, a free public resource website, but in the future we seek to compel the U.S. Congress to adopt fully open technology for constituent communications. For more information how your office can better handle public feedback through an open API and open standards, contact us -- even today, there are significantly more efficient and responsive ways for our elected officials to receive email feedback than the status quo of individual webforms. For greater public accountability in government, we must make the process of writing one's members of Congress more accessible and empowering. Looking ahead, we will release more data from Contact-Congress letters and Congressional response rates back into the public commons. This will result in a new open data source on bills & issues people care about, as well as encourage best practices in constituent communications and make it possible to grade members of Congress on their responsiveness & citizen satisfaction.

OpenCongress is a free and open-source project of the Participatory Politics Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to increase civic engagement. The non-profit Sunlight Foundation is the Founding and Primary Supporter of OpenCongress.