As Alex discussed yesterday, the battle over a Hollywood-backed amendment to the stimulus bill that would allow Internet Service Providers to filter their networks for copyright violations is not yet over. The conference committee for the bill is meeting as I write this, and for that reason, we have launched a new action alert to ensure that the House and Senate conferees understand why this amendment is bad as both a substantive and a procedural matter, and should not be included in the final stimulus package.
Again, the conference is happening now and is expected to conclude by day’s end. So please, act NOW. We’ll keep you updated. And thank you!
Feinstein has a history of
Feinstein has a history of using hot-button issues like c-porn as an excuse to censor the internet. She voted for the CDA and COPA. If there were a viable alternative (that is, not a right-wing Republican who is even less a friend of free speech) I would vote for him/her.
We need to make clear that ISPs have a right to stop disruptive activity (e.g., DOS attacks) and to limit (or charge for) excessive network usage (for a reasonable definition of excessive), and to cache web pages for improved performance, but should not be looking inside packets for any other purpose.
Any extension of ISP power to look at our data streams is going to come back and bite us in a sensitive area.