Stop Online Piracy Act Mirrors China's Great Firewall

When it comes to the Obama administration, I've not only learned to be skeptical of everything it says publicly but to believe the exact opposite far more often than I'd care to. That's why this statement from the White House about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) does slightly more than ring a little hollow.

Via Tech Crunch:

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.

That White House message should have come with a winking emoticon. Sorry, Carney and company, you have a significant trust deficit.

Anyway, for some inexplicable reason, Congress seems to be all too willing to push ahead with SOPA, which sounds great on its face (protection of copyrighted material) but politicians have mastered Orwellian speak. In essence, websites that post copyrighted content will be blocked, shut down, fined, etc. without recourse (reminiscent of the NDAA, isn't it). Let's not forget, Eric Holder is the Attorney General.

Perhaps the worst aspect of SOPA is that its solutions to online piracy seem to mirror what China does to quash dissent.

The big problem with SOPA is in the way it is supposed to be enforced, namely by blocking domain-name system (DNS) servers of copyright-infringing websites. But DNS servers are a basic technical component of the Internet (they translate site names like techcrunch.com into numerical IP addresses computers can understand better). Once you start messing with DNS, all sorts of unintended problems arise.

Blocking DNS without a full adversarial hearing in a courtroom raises the potential for censoring speech and other lawful activities. It is also the same method China uses to block “offending” content from China’s Internet. The practice also undermines new security protocols.

The good news is that public pressure is beginning to penetrate the thick skulls in Congress (that was a reference to Republicans who should know better). The bad news is that it's not dead yet.

h/t American Thinker