Stupid Politics As Usual To Drive The CISPA Narrative

from the unfortunate dept

Well, this is not too surprising, but it is unfortunate. As the Obama administration has said it would veto CISPA, the House has now turned this into a partisan fight. As with IP issues, I tend to think it's dangerous and stupid when privacy fights become partisan. Once the debate is partisan, it seems to lose all sense of reason and perspective and just degrades into name calling. And there's a chance exactly that is happening with CISPA and other cybersecurity bills, as the Republicans are "daring" the Democrats to support these bills, with the political calculus being that if they don't support these bills and something terrible happens (planes falling from the sky, etc.) that they can then blame the Democrats for being soft on cybercrime. That narrative, of course, ignores the very real privacy concerns that are being raised by a variety of parties. It effectively shifts the entire debate away from finding a real solution, and into a situation where some are pressured to accept a bad solution for the sake of political optics.

Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, democrats, obama administration, privacy, republicans

Senator Leahy Hands Republicans A Gift By Giving Them Credit For Delaying Vote On PIPA/SOPA

from the do-these-people-have-no-clue? dept

We've noted how intellectual property issues are historically non-partisan. Sometimes, that's good, because it means that debates on the issues don't fall into typical brain dead partisan arguments. Sometimes, it's bad, in that it basically means both Republicans and Democrats are generally really bad on IP issues... happy to give industries greater and greater monopoly rights for no good reason. However, we noted an interesting thing happening on the way to the collapse of PIPA and SOPA: the Republicans were first to come together as a party and decide to speak out against these bills, recognizing the groundswell of public interest. That resulted in Republican leadership coming out against the bills, and Republican Presidential candidates all rejecting the approach in the bill. The Democrats, who have traditionally been considered more "internet friendly," simply couldn't bring themselves to go against Hollywood and unions -- two regular allies.

However, as many more net savvy Democrats have explained, this appears to be a major miscalculation on the part of Democratic party leadership -- potentially losing an entire younger generation of voters to the Republicans. Already, mutliple strategists have been suggesting that the Republican Party use this as a chance to cozy up with Silicon Valley, despite its typically "blue" leanings (though, generally with a strong libertarian bent). It certainly appears that the Republicans are ready to do just that. House majority leader, Eric Cantor recently tweeted about meeting with Sergey Brin.

The Democratic leadership, however, still doesn't seem to recognize the importance of the tech community and the wider internet. Rather than learning anything from what happened last week, PIPA sponsor Senator Leahy is actually trying to blame the Republicans for killing PIPA. It's (yet again) an amazingly tone deaf response. It's as if he's pushing the internet and the tech community right into the Republicans' arms. Perhaps he's making a bet that those constituencies don't matter as much as Hollywood... but that seems like a pretty risky bet to make.

Filed Under: copyright, democrats, patrick leahy, pipa, politics, protect ip, republicans, sopa

Senate Minority Leader McConnell Tells Reid/Leahy To Kill PIPA

from the ouch dept

Looks like the next domino in the SOPA/PIPA fight just fell. Tony Romm is reporting that Senate minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell is calling on Democrats to drop PIPA. That has a high likelihood of killing off what little Republican support is left for PIPA, because where McConnell goes, so go most Republican Senate votes. As we predicted this morning, it's looking like this is becoming a partisan issue -- with the Republicans lined up with internet users... and Democrats lined up with a couple of big Hollywood studios who don't want to innovate. The real shame in that, of course, is that for many, many months, the only person keeping PIPA from moving forward was Senator Ron Wyden -- a Democrat... and it appears his entire party has totally abandoned him. I'm still worried this now becomes a partisan issue, but it's still pretty stunning that Democratic leadership appears to have made a really, really bad calculation on the politics of this bill.

Update: Here's McConnell's official statement:

“While we must combat the on-line theft of intellectual property, current proposals in Congress raise serious legal, policy and operational concerns. Rather than prematurely bringing the Protect IP Act to the Senate floor, we should first study and resolve the serious issues with this legislation. Considering this bill without first doing so could be counterproductive to achieving the shared goal of enacting appropriate and additional tools to combat the theft of intellectual property. I encourage the Senate Majority to reconsider its decision to proceed to this bill.”

Reading between the standard DC political lines... McConnell is making this partisan.

Filed Under: copyright, democrats, harry reid, mitch mcconnell, partisan, patrick leahy, pipa, protect ip, republicans, ron wyden, senate, sopa

Are Democrats About To Lose An Entire Generation Of Voters By Pushing PIPA/SOPA Forward?

from the do-they-not-understand dept

I've talked, in great detail, how the SOPA/PIPA debate has been a non-partisan discussion. It's not bi-partisan and it's not partisan. It's just non-partisan. The debate has nothing to do with traditional Democrat or Republican lines. This has confused cable news, who has a script to follow, but doesn't know what to do with strange bedfellows. However, some people have noticed an interesting thing in the response to yeseterdays' protests: it was mostly Republicans who moved decisively away from PIPA and SOPA. While a few Democrats did so, many took hedging steps -- saying they "heard concerns" and would "work to fix" things -- but still supporting the bill. This is -- quite reasonably -- infuriating internet savvy Democrats who point out that the party is on the verge of losing an entire younger generation by supporting not just this legislation, but the corrupt process that created it:

If you keep reading that story, the Democrats listed all remain adamant that they'll remain co-sponsors of the legislation but work to "fix it".

Bullshit.

It's been a while since we've seen Democrats this tone deaf, this oblivious to political reality.

You have an entire wired generation focused on this issue like a laser, fighting like hell to protect their online freedoms, and it's FUCKING REPUBLICANS who are playing the heroes by dropping support?

Those goddam Democrats would rather keep collecting their Hollywood checks, than heed the will of millions of Americans who have lent their online voice in an unprecedented manner.

Are they really this stupid? Can they really be this idiotic?

Indeed. Even worse, there are rumors that the White House itself may flip flop on its earlier statements, and pretend that any "new" deal meets the standard it set with last week's announcement. If true, it seems that the White House and the Democratic Party are making the bet that young people really aren't paying attention to this issue. It seems to me that that's a huge miscalculation on their part.

Those pushing for this quick solution don't seem to have understood the protests yesterday. They weren't protesting this bill per se. They were protesting the entire process through which these bills were made. Using the same backroom dealing to come out with another bill... and pretend that "all stakeholders" had been heard from and were in agreement seems like a very, very dangerous position to stake out.

Over the last few years, the Democrats have been considered the party who "got" the internet much more than the Republicans. Is that about to switch?

Filed Under: democrats, internet generation, partisan politics, pipa, protect ip, republicans, sopa

To Pols Trying To Raise Money From Silicon Valley: Supporting SOPA/PIPA Probably Isn't Wise

from the well,-look-at-that dept

A brief, little report from Politico notes that various Democrats are ramping up their efforts to raise money from Silicon Valley for the 2012 election. What struck me as interesting was the first two names on the list:

As the election season is ramping up, so too are pols’ trips to Silicon Valley. That includes Vice President Joe Biden, who’s heading to San Francisco on Jan. 18 for a lunch reception. Tickets cost $2,500 per person, with $7,500 for lunch and a photo for two. Sen. Robert Menendez will also be in the area on the same day, starting with a dinner in Menlo Park, Calif., followed by a breakfast in San Francisco.

Biden, of course, has been the leading voice in the administration for worse and worse copyright enforcement efforts, and almost certainly supports SOPA/PIPA. Sen. Menendez is a PIPA co-sponsor. Given how widespread the outrage in the tech community is against these bills, it seems like an odd choice for them to try to raise money while supporting legislation that will make innovation in tech a lot harder...

Filed Under: democrats, fundraising, joe biden, pipa, robert menendez, senators, silicon valley, sopa