Obama Administration Comes Out Against SOPA, PIPA
From TPM:
The Obama Administration on Saturday took a stance on two pieces of anti-online piracy legislation moving through Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate —- saying it would not support the bills as currently written, handing the biggest victory yet to a growing chorus of critics of the bills.
Fittingly enough, the Administration’s response came by way of a blog post published in response to two online petitions. As the post states:
‘While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet….
Even more promising for critics of the bills, the Administration came down firmly against one of the most vehemently opposed portions of the bills — the part that would give the government the power to force Internet Service Providers to stop loading overseas webpages accused of piracy. Under the original versions of SOPA and PIPA, ISPs would be required to change their Doman Name System settings to block sites accused of piracy, a measure that critics said would essentially break the Internet and make it more insecure.
