Wednesday Open Line

Did anybody see the Mystery Machine in town today? What do you think they’re investigating?

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Today, some websites will be going offline in a show of protest against new bills curretly in talks SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) aimed at combating online piracy.  Wikipedia joins sites like MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and the ICanHasCheezBurger network. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr will not be joining the day of protest, however, all have expressed their stance against the bills.  SOPA and PIPA are intended to curb the illegal download of copyrighted materials from foreign “rogue” sites, like The Pirate Bay. There is already legislation that provides some protection for copyrighted material, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires companies to remove copyrighted content “in good faith.”  Worst-case scenarios are being debated. The Electronic Frontier Foundation speculates, “Instead of complying with the DMCA, a copyright owner may now be able to use these new provisions to effectively shut down a site by cutting off access to its domain name, its search engine hits, its ads, and its other financing even if the safe harbors would apply.”

The criticism is the way the bills are written that they are the beginning of the ‘great firewall of America’, similar to the great firewall of China, and systems in Iran, even Australia and England.   In its current forms, if a website provider received notification from another party that in good faith and evidence claimed an infringement, that provider is required to shut it down.

This is something that, as written, can be done outside of courts, and by anyone.  For instance, if your business competitor decided to claim infringement on something on your website, they could write up the documents and send it in and the provider would be required to remove your website.  Without contacting you or giving you the chance to prove otherwise.

If the provider does not shut down the website, the goverment would have the authority to shut it down for them.  The infrastructure changes that would need to take place to implement that means that the US would then have the ability to shut down any website.  That could very easily grow to include websites that aren’t of popular opinion to put it lightly.

A petition was started on the White House Petition page for the white house to address the issue, and quickly reached over 100,000 signatures.  The White House has responded as such: 

By Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt

Thanks for taking the time to sign this petition. Both your words and actions illustrate the importance of maintaining an open and democratic Internet.

Right now, Congress is debating a few pieces of legislation concerning the very real issue of online piracy, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN). We want to take this opportunity to tell you what the Administration will support—and what we will not support. Any effective legislation should reflect a wide range of stakeholders, including everyone from content creators to the engineers that build and maintain the infrastructure of the Internet.

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.

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. Across the globe, the openness of the Internet is increasingly central to innovation in business, government, and society and it must be protected. To minimize this risk, new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.

We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.  It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. That is why the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response.  We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values.

This is not just a matter for legislation. We expect and encourage all private parties, including both content creators and Internet platform providers working together, to adopt voluntary measures and best practices to reduce online piracy.

So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right. Already, many of members of Congress are asking for public input around the issue. We are paying close attention to those opportunities, as well as to public input to the Administration. The organizer of this petition and a random sample of the signers will be invited to a conference call to discuss this issue further with Administration officials and soon after that, we will host an online event to get more input and answer your questions. Details on that will follow in the coming days.

Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue websites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders. We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge.

Moving forward, we will continue to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting, while vigorously defending an open Internet based on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation. Again, thank you for taking the time to participate in this important process. We hope you’ll continue to be part of it.

Victoria Espinel is Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget

Aneesh Chopra is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Technology at the Office of Science and Technology Policy

Howard Schmidt is Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff

Home in Henderson will not be blacking out today, at least not on purpose due to this, because I wanted to ensure that you knew of the bills and not just see an empty page.

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Perdue Pushes To Temporarily Restore Three-Quarters Of The One-Cent Sales Tax To Stop Deep and Unnecessary Cuts to Schools saying “Our children’s future is so important that today, I want to let you know that when I present my budget this spring, I will once again call on the Republican-controlled General Assembly to temporarily restore three-quarters of the one-cent sales tax as a vital step to funding our schools. Also, in the days ahead I will be speaking with you about other budgetary matters that affect North Carolina families.”

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You have until lunch time today to post suggestions for the Board of Commssioners to read during their retreat tomorrow.  Click the link in the right hand header menu and add your comment.  We’ll compile them and send off this afternoon.  They will read them, but will not have any official comment as their retreat agenda is quite full.

Welcome to the Open Lines!