[drinian]

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.

In short, reserving the right to build a Great Firewall around the US.

[rquantz]

What am I missing here? This statement and your response seem utterly unrelated. This is what I read:

targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law

A gap exists in current law, and new laws should be aimed at that gap instead of at increasing penalties for existing law.

cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws

The new law should not criminalize things that are not already illegal.

with strong due process

It shouldn't give the government the right to take away property without trial.

focused on criminal activity

Rather than, for instance, speech the government doesn't like.

You can disbelieve the statement, but I don't see a way to read this as an implicit reservation of the right to China-style censorship. It is in fact claiming exactly the opposite.

I'm not saying that I totally trust the Administration's motives, or that I believe they will necessarily do the right thing, but I don't think this sentence has any sinister undertones. What do you see in here that says otherwise?

[drinian]

Everything that China blocks with their national firewall is considered "illegal" in China. That is, in fact, the exact same justification, even the same wording, that was used to build the Great Firewall of China.

It's true, in many ways US law is much more just than Chinese law. But that doesn't mean that walling off US citizens from the rest of the Internet in any way is a good idea.

[rquantz]

Everything that China blocks with their national firewall is considered "illegal" in China.

Yes, but the statement refers to existing US law, not Chinese law. In the US, speech is protected.

[bediger]

The "gap" existing in current laws hasn't been demonstrated. That's one of the real issues here. How much harm does counterfeit drugs do? How much harm does "stolen" "IP" do?

Once we establish harm, then we can propose solutions. Once we propose solutions, we can see if any solution actually cures the problem, and doesn't cause more problems than it solves.

That's basic policy making 101. Don't make everyone look at your Beautiful Assistant while you shove the problems induced by the solution behind the black curtain.

[rayiner]

> How much harm does counterfeit drugs do?

My dad works in public health, and counterfeit drugs do a lot of harm.

I think SOPA, etc, is bad, but I also think the reaction of the geek crowd has been monumentally ineffective. These laws are all ultimately drafted by policy wonks. They actually do have the statistics on the prevalence of counterfeit drugs if you take the time to do the research. You can't oppose bad laws by pretending the political process doesn't exist, by dismissing off-hand what other people consider to be legitimate grievances, especially without having studied the subject.

[bediger]

Then go after counterfeit drugs specifically. SOPA casts far too wide a net, conflating counterfeit drugs, counterfeit/unauthorized fashion and copyright infringement. This conflation may be part of calling it all "IP" (a falsehood in fact, I believe), or it may be part of some effort to slip the mechanism of censorship in, but it's still a bad law, and "IP" is still a messy, confusing concept.

[pbz]

Foreign sites are outside of the "current US law". The only way you can influence them would be to either "convince" the foreign nation to follow the US law, unlikely for most countries, or somehow block the site and hence the great US firewall.

[rayiner]

Completely false dichotomy. There is a whole field of law studying extra-territorial application of domestic law in certain circumstances.