On January 24th, Congress will be voting on two very controversial bills, SOPA and PIPA. Well, perhaps “controversial” isn’t the right word. You see, there aren’t that many people who are actually in favor of this legislation. The exceptions are in the music industry; which has funded this entire effort. The coalition that opposes this legislation is as diverse as the global population.
The goal of the legislation is to give the executive branch the power to shut down all Internet sites suspected of sharing copyrighted information with a targeted American audience. While aimed at curbing music and film piracy, the legislation could mean the end of YouTube, the Washington Post, Wikipedia, and even Google Images and other similar services.
There are other major implications of this legislation besides just protecting our freedom of speech. As CNET explains very well, there would be enormous personal and national security ramifications if this legislation somehow becomes law.
What are the security-related implications of SOPA?
One big one is how it interacts with the domain name system and a set of security improvements to it known as DNSSEC.
The idea of DNSSEC is to promote end-to-end encryption of domain names, meaning there’s no break in the chain between, say, Wellsfargo.com and its customer. Requiring Internet providers to redirect allegedly piratical domain names to, say, the FBI’s servers isn’t compatible with DNSSEC.
Rep. Dan Lungren, who heads the Homeland Security subcommittee on cybersecurity, has said that an “unintended consequence” of SOPA would be to “undercut” the effort his panel has been making to promote DNSSEC.
The Sandia National Laboratories, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, has also raised concerns about SOPA, saying it is “unlikely to be effective” and will “negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity and Internet functionality.” And Stewart Baker, the former policy chief at the Department of Homeland Security who’s now in private practice, warned in an op-ed that SOPA “runs directly counter” to the House’s own cybersecurity efforts.
Today, many popular sites like Wikipedia and Reddit are protesting by blacking out, a first of its kind protest at this level. Other websites are protesting in their own ways. Just take a look at Google’s image for the day.
Critics are saying that Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and similar sites are for information and search purposes. They argue that issue advocacy isn’t something they should be involved with. That’s utter nonsense. SOPA/PIPA directly impacts their industry. In fact, it impacts them a heck of a lot more than it impacts the music industry and the unknown Texas Representative (Rep. Lamar Smith) from an aging, agriculturally dominated Congressional district with no technology market to speak of who wrote this legislation in the House. Wikipedia and the others are doing something few corporations take the time to do: be active citizens to protect the citizens, or in this case, Internet users.
As one of the websites protesting by shutting down for the day wrote: “When your kids ask you what our generation was doing when the Internet became lame, you can tell them, “I was raising Hell.”
If you petition your Congressman and Senators just once in your entire life, make it now. We cannot allow the Internet to be censored and endangered this radically without protest.
I’m glad to see you’re not afraid to throw your fellow Republicans under the bus when they do really stupid stuff like this. I’m a Democrat, but you have my respect.
Thank you Brian. I really don’t think this is a political issue. It’s a matter of common sense and if any Republican supports it, I’ll gladly say they either don’t know what they’re talking about, or as is more likely the case, have been bought out by lobbyists.
The same can be said of Network Neutrality’s opponents. They argue that it would be the government regulating the Internet, but this pretty much proves the government doesn’t need network neutrality to regulate the Internet. In fact, they already regulate it. Its illegal to advertise prostitution and drugs on sites like Craig’s List. If that’s not enough proof, they should see what happens if they try to transmit child porn back and forward with Nigeria or Indonesia. Money we make online is taxed, money we spend online is taxed by many of our states. The government is online and regulating. Network Neutrality is an important consumer protection, and it’s passage is as necessary as the defeat of SOPA and PIPA in a few days.