[Infowarrior] - Dear Lamer Smith & House Judiciary: Have You Learned Nothing From SOPA?

[Richard Forno]

(Note: In accordance with the spirit of my views on the matter, I corrected the spelling of Smith's name in the subject line.  --rick)

Dear Lamar Smith & House Judiciary: Have You Learned Nothing From SOPA?

from the ridiculous dept

I've been hearing for a few months now that the staffers on the House Judiciary Committee, who were the main supporters of SOPA, haven't been able to let go of what happened (or even understand it). That's been pretty obvious from the few public statements they've made since SOPA failed. And now it's been made doubly clear. On Monday, we wrote about how Lamar Smith and the House Judiciary Committee that he chairs were looking to rush through a piece of SOPA embedded in another bill. It wasn't one of the most controversial bits, but it was an issue we had raised with SOPA, even if it took a back seat to some of the bigger problems. 

What was stunning was that the SOPA protests were largely about process -- backroom deals, without public input or scrutiny -- and in this case, with this new bill (officially dubbed the Intellectual Property Attache Act) they not only did the same thing, but were trying to rush it through on a fast track significantly more extreme than SOPA. That is, they only shared the draft on Saturday and announced that there would be a markup on the bill (which they never even introduced) on Tuesday morning. That's rare. Normally, you officially introduce the bill, hold various hearings that involve experts, make some adjustments, and then hold a markup hearing to allow for additional amendments. In this case, they jumped right to that last step -- completely skipping over some rather major steps that would allow for public input and scrutiny. 

In other words, they did the exact opposite of what the SOPA experience told them they should do.

< - >

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120711/18211719667/dear-lamar-smith-house-judiciary-have-you-learned-nothing-sopa.shtml


---
Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.