[jeffreyg]

I'm listening currently (11:43a EST) and they're quoting cyber security experts about how it could undermine security. From consumer union groups about how it affects consumer safety, from venture capitalists about how it can stifle innovation. A lady right now is addressing how it's an issue that they don't have any technical expertise on the panel. It's not ALL madness..

[esmevane]

I'm so glad to hear that there's a mild representation from a few voices of reason. Trying to drum up any sort of attention from my Facebook/Twitter list is just frustrating and had left me very disheartened.

[feralchimp]

Talking about the Firefox plugin to workaround site blocking now...popcorn...

[ukgent]

FoxyProxy!

[sp332]

No, that only works against blocking traffic. SOPA would remove the DNS entry from the .COM domain. It's an attack at the DNS level so using a proxy won't work. You'd need something like the MAFIAFire plugin to keep a "shadow" DNS going.

[apotheon]

That's the extension they must have been discussing, because it's the extension Mozilla was pressured to remove from its listings.

[davidhansen]

That's not the madness of the legislative process.

You'll witness the madness play out when the legislators, having given the plebes their "voice", ignore every single one of them and proceed with graduating the bill to a full vote. Which will likely pass.

[jad]

> Which will likely pass.

Pass the House of Representatives. Then a similar bill has to pass in the Senate, which, because of filibuster rules, now effectively requires 60 votes to pass anything significant rather than a simple majority of 51 votes. Once it's passed in both the House and the Senate, the two sides have to reconcile the differences into one bill that both houses then have to pass again. That final bill then has to be signed by the President to become law.

All of this has to happen in an election year, which always makes it harder to pass significant legislation.

There are still lots of places for the bill to die, or at least be weakened significantly, and there's still plenty of time for voters to take action to make their voices heard.

[tomkinstinch]

If it does pass, there is still a chance (however small and expensive) that it will be ruled against in the courts. The judiciary seems like the branch least impacted by the influence of big-media.

[JoshTriplett]

That requires someone to bring a relevant legal case to an appropriately positioned judicial body, which requires a great deal of money, and two sides willing to take it that far.

[pnathan]

I suspect (hope?) that Google has both the cash and the will to force the issue.

[regularfry]

Doesn't that just mean YouTube v. Viacom redux?

[Natsu]

Viacom v. YouTube. The one who complains is listed first.

But yes, it does mean wasting a lot of money on lawyers to fight a very bad law which Google could instead be using to build computer-driven cars, improve machine translation, and to create more high-paying jobs.

Instead, we're getting the broken window version where they're forced to create more highly-paid lawyers, instead.

[mMark]

Hopefully it won't have to come full circle back to YouTube. The Puerto80/RojaDirecta case seems like it has lawyers who know what they're doing(cough unlike a certain other Harvard-based lawyer cough) - I'm hoping they get a good precedent before SOPA even takes effect

[kpozin]

Not entirely. Cf. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

[delinka]

But how many Little People (i.e. those who can't afford to pay a defense lawyer) will have to roll over and pay up before a court actually gets a chance to strike at the law? That kind of injustice should be stifled before the law ever passes. Should