Another Candidate Campaigning Against SOPA Supporter: Jack Arnold
from the keep-'em-coming dept
On Friday we posted about Karen Kwiatkowski running for Congress against Rep. Bob Goodlatte in Virginia using SOPA as a key campaign point. With Goodlatte being one of the key supporters of SOPA this makes a lot of sense. Soon after we posted that, we heard from Jack Arnold (and from his campaign, separately), noting that he's running against Rep. Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee and is also using SOPA as a key campaign issue. His "common sense" writeup about SOPA is absolutely worth reading. Here's a snippet:As SOPA is drafted at present, no thinking person could possibly support it. It would give unheard-of censorship power to the Department of Justice and would have numerous foreseeable negative consequences. For example, it would cripple the internet as it exists today and would remove Google, Yahoo and Bing from their positions as market leaders in internet searches in favor of less-restricted foreign search engines. Plainly, this would move U.S. jobs overseas.I expect that, as other candidates pop up around the country and realize that the incumbent they're challenging is actively supporting a bill that would enable censorship of the internet, hurt the American economy and put online security at risk, we're going to see plenty of others campaigning on this issue as well.
Worst of all, Congressman Marsha Blackburn claims (in public) to be staunchly anti-regulation, but she co-sponsored this bill. The same woman who is so “anti-regulation” that she leapt to the defense of Gibson Guitar’s right to use foreign endangered lumber instead of the home-grown kind – literally jumping in front of an ongoing federal investigation – now finds herself to be regulation-loving. The same politician who is in the fore of (correctly) lambasting Eric Holder’s mismanagement of The Fast and the Furious wants to turn over our right to use the internet to the management of the same man.
What gives? Well, the answer isn’t hard to find. We’re coming up on an election year. Some heavy-hitting lobbyists are behind SOPA: the MPAA and other media conglomerates, including ones that own record labels, pay their D.C. firms well. And these big corporations and interests are tired of seeing their bottom-line eroded by the theft of their products. These corporations, like Gibson and its Brentwood CEO, have deep pockets and are spreading around a lot of free cash and campaign ads to get the most draconian version possible of an anti-piracy law through Congress. Congressman Blackburn isn’t the only co-sponsor they bought. This bill has a total of 31 of them, from both parties.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: censorship, copyright, free speech, jack arnold, marsha blackburn, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Those K street positions may be a seller's market: Unless things change drastically between now and November, we're looking at a massacre.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hope the election year is enough to put this off
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That sounds promising.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
That sounds promising.
How'd the last todo work out for you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
That sounds promising.
How'd the last todo work out for you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I only made the donations last week.
And it was only $50 per candidate. One of whom I think that I'd be more than happen to donate real time to, but we're on different coasts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Remember: They are politicians!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Completely ignoring the whole "what is/isn't theft" argument, it has been repeatedly shown, in great detail, many other factors besides "piracy" that have a MUCH greater impact on the bottom lines of these corporations.
I still say the biggest factor is their failure to understand their biggest competition is "piracy" It's THEMSELVES.
I, personally, own over 1,000+ albums & 18,000+ songs (over 1,000 hours of music), 500+ movies and 100+ seasons of TV shows - all legally purchased. Add in the other member of this household and those numbers easily double if not triple. Clearly I/we don't really NEED to buy their products. What we need is a compelling reason to WANT to buy their products. Too bad they are mostly too busy chasing down people who will never give them money anyways, to take the time to find ways to collect it from people who will give it to them.
To me, inconveniencing people who WILL give you money, in order to inconvenience people who WON'T give you money regardless, and then bitching that your business is suffering on top of it is neither a good business decision or the product of a rational mind.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That! a trillion times THAT!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I own quite a bit myself which I've purchased (though now-a-days, its hard to know whether the CDs I purchased were legal or not -- I don't know who Amazon/CD Universe/etc. buy them from -- how the industry can expect me to know the entire path of everything I purchased when they can't even keep track of whom they gave promotional information to is beyond me.) I even have repurchased movies/music (how many different copies of Star Wars do I have, and I am thinking of buying the BD version.) I am obviously a bloody pirate.
Just wish the industry would listen to their customers instead of always calling them pirates and doing everything in their power distance themselves from their customers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Its time to start outing all of Congress members that support SOPA. We cant let any of these scum bags hide in the cracks like the insects they are. We need to start naming Democrat senators that will vote yes to SOPA.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Um... no they won't, because they don't think they will be voted out, ever. They pretty much figure that once they have the big companies' support, they are on easy street. Besides, if they get voted out, there is always a good paying position available from one of their "sponsers"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Censoring the Internet is wrong.
I am now "censoring" my wallet from ever giving the MPAA & RIAA a dime.
If I want to see it bad enough I can wait and be patient and then buy a used physical copy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Only January 3rd, and we might already have the understatement of the year. But, in SOPA's defense, currently there are no thinking people that support it. We have lobbyists that do the bidding of their masters... There's the Senators and Congressmen bought by these lobbyists and told what to think... And finally there's the MAFIAA who own the lobbyists and crafted the legislation. The backlash that has happened so far is proof that they clearly have not thought about the long term effects of ever trying to expand their draconian reach and keep from ever having to adapt. Nope, not a single thinking person in the lot!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I agree with you folks -- and I'm running for office
Mr. Arnold is joining the procession at the tail end. He wants votes now, but isn't ruling out accepting money later for supporting an "improved" version of SOPA. He might be worth voting for, but he'll definitely need watching later; a position he can assume when the issue is hot is one he can abandon when it cools off.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
BUT Marsha Blackburn did Vote FOR: Patriot Act Reauthorization, Electronic Surveillance, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening, Patriot Act extension; and only NOW she is worried about free speech, privacy, and government take over of the internet?
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her “blatantly unconstitutional” votes at :
http://mickeywhite.blogspot.com/2009/09/tn-congressman-marsha-blackburn-votes.html
Mickey
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Here's another candidate against SOPA
He's tweeted twice against SOPA:
http://twitter.com/#!/pashdown/status/136831495464681472
http://twitter.com/#!/pashdown/stat us/136486469744336896
And he's got good things to say on his issues page regarding copyright:
http://peteashdown.org/issues/copyright.html
Unfortunately, he has a (D) next to his name, which is a major hurdle in this reddest of red states.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Here's another candidate against SOPA
>major hurdle in this reddest of red states.
I always thought that Utah was full of reds--dirty commies. The sad part is that there ain't much difference between the Chinese communists who support their 1% ruling class and the republicans who kowtow to their 1%.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]