Rep. Anna Eshoo (From Silicon Valley!) Thinks PROTECT IP Is About Immigration?
from the well,-it-does-involve-ICE... dept
Last week, we noted that a bunch of law professors (at final count, 108) signed on to a letter to every member of Congress highlighting problems with PROTECT IP. One of the key authors of the letter was Mark Lemley, the respected lawyer and Stanford law professor, who is one of the leading voices on this and related issues. He, of course, sent the letter directly to his own elected official, Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents a large part of Silicon Valley, and thus should be one of the Congressional Reps leading the charge against this horrific bill -- especially since a bunch of VCs (many of whom live and work in her district) have pointed out that if this goes through, they'll fund less innovation in her district.In other words, this is an issue that Eshoo should be front and center on. Unfortunately, the only Silicon Valley Rep. who has actually bothered to pay attention and speak out against this has been Rep. Zoe Lofgren, from a nearby district. I've really been quite disappointed that none of the other Silicon Valley Reps, including Eshoo, Jackie Speier and Mike Honda, have spoken up about this awful legislation. But, it's even worse than that when it comes to Eshoo. In response to Lemley's letter, Eshoo appears to have responded to a totally unrelated issue: immigration:
"I do share your concerns about illegal immigration and have consistently supported legislation to strengthen our Border Patrol. Our immigration system is in dire need of reforms. This is a national security issue and an economic one as well. We have porous borders and illegal crossings which make us vulnerable on the security front. We have heavy backlogs to process those waiting to become citizens (years-worth) in a system that is highly strained, lengthy and inefficient. There are, as you know, 10 to12 million people in our country without legal status. Each of these issues represents a critical problem which must be addressed and I think they need to be taken up comprehensively to overhaul the system.Oops. Now, in our discussions about Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group's Operation In Our Sites effort to seize domain names without due process and under very questionable legal theories, many people have asked: what does immigration have to do with copyright? The ICE folks and their supporters note that one of ICE's mandates is to keep counterfeit products out of the country, and the group has stretched and twisted that mandate into believing it now can run roughshod over any intellectual property issue, no matter how little it grasps the legal details. So perhaps in some twisted way, folks in Eshoo's office think that PROTECT IP is an immigration issue? Or we can go with Occam and his razor and assume that Eshoo's people sent back the wrong form letter. Either way, it's not particularly comforting to think that this is the level of concern they put in when a leading voice on a particular issue contacts them about a bill under discussion.
While I agree that more needs to be done to curb the flow of illegal immigrants into our country, I shall continue to vote against legislation that in large part places unnecessary burdens on individuals who have legally immigrated to the U.S."
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Filed Under: anna eshoo, immigration, mark lemley, protect ip
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I believe
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Re: I believe
Probably dead on though :)
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Re: I believe
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Re: I believe
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Re:
Well done, Fudbuster. You beat me to the funny....
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Re: Re: Well done, "Dark Helmet"!
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I was going to go with "Eshoo obfuscation."
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It's proof that this official is running on autopilot, opposing things without understanding them.
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that's not a response
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Re: that's not a response
There's a "republican set" and a "democratic set".
It's short for "we didn't read the email you sent us"
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It makes perfect sense...
What many Senators and Congressmen do is do a quick keyword search of mail, and send a form letter if that keyword search returns a result that has a prewritten form letter.
In this case, the letter probably mentioned ICE a few times and thus that flagged the letter as dealing with immigration.
For another example, I wrote that same Senator about the Protect IP act and have not received any response, but both of my letters about the PATRIOT Act have been responded to in a matter of days with form letter responses.
In the end, this shows that our elected representatives have no intention of actual representing those who elect them. They might as well have a big sign stating, "Unless you plan on donating the my next campaign, I don't give a crap what you have to say."
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Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
t's not that protest isn't worthwhile for its own sake -- one should do some -- but for a "respected lawyer" (IS there such a thing? I almost couldn't suspend disbelief enough to get past that point) to expect that his name is so prestigious as to be recognized and immediate attention given to the weight of his "authority" from a Congress person just borders on insane chutzpah.
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Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
It's really quite sad that Techdirt stoops this low.
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Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
Yeah, yeah, can't find any fault with the article, so you just make a generic insult. We've seen this before, get some new shtick.
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Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
Why defend the post when it is clearly intended only to mock the opposition?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
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Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
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Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
If powerful VC's can't properly voice opposition to the bill with their elected representatives, what chance do those who lives will be destroyed when enforcement of the law starts have?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
If the VCs want some attention, they should work to get a meeting. Sending a letter and then mocking the off topic response really doesn't add much to the discussion either way. It just proves that they took a weak approach and failed. The error is as much on them, I guess.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
I think a VC might be able to wing it, but if that is what it takes to get the attention of your elected representative, then the average person is pretty much screwed.
I understand that elected officials receive a lot of mail, snail and electronic. However, it would be nice if this mail passed by an actual human's eye every once in a while.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Meta-view: similarly, pontificate here as much as you can,
Definitely not as desperate as you and your ilk trying to come down hard at it. And failing.
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My senator does this too
I don't contact his office much anymore. What's the point if he's not even hearing what I say? I only hope he starts a long and pleasant surprise retirement next year.
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Feinstein sent a great response...
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Stretched and twisted? ICE runs the National Intellectual Property Rights Center in Alexandria, VA. I'm pretty sure that they received direction in setting up that operation and dream it up (and fund it) while standing around the water cooler. ICE has a mandate, it's not some renegade agent dreaming up and implementing Operation In Our Sites.
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Hell, for all I know, modern technology allows them to open, OCR, respond with a pre-printed response, and destroy any trace of the letter without human eyes ever touching it.
And god help you if you think email does anything.
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from Sen. Lautenberg: "The “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act of 2011” (S. 968) would give law enforcement additional tools to combat the illegal online sale of counterfeit or copyright infringing goods. Specifically, this bill would give the Attorney General the power to serve issued court orders on search engines, payment processors, advertising networks, and Internet service providers. It would allow suit against site operators, but would not allow law enforcement to block access to a site. This bill would also require plaintiffs to sue the owner or registrant of a domain name before bringing suit against a site itself."
The irony is that the one thing he says this bill won't do is "allow law enforcement to block access to a site", which is something that law enforcement (ICE) has already grabbed for itself.
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/Eshoo
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Eschoo and PROTECT-IP
I will have to rethink voting/campaigning for Eschoo.
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