Yesterday, he placed a hold on Senator Leahy’s PROTECT IP Act (or PIPA), which would allow the government to restrict ordinary users’ access to websites that have been accused of copyright infringement, by forcing Internet service providers and search engines to block these sites.
Though this bill was unanimously approved yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Wyden has prevented it from going to the full Senate, citing concerns that it would “muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth.” Wyden’s full statement can be read here.
Express your opposition to PIPA by signing Demand Progress’s petition here.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt publicly came out against the legislation, and yesterday, Demand Progress and more than a dozen human rights and civil liberties groups sent a letter in opposition to PIPA to Leahy. The full letter is posted here.
Earlier this week, Demand Progress was attacked by the Motion Picture Association of America because torrent site Demonoid linked to us. This attack reveals PROTECT IP’s proponents’ warped sense of how the Internet works, or should work — a world where sites that link, and sites that are linked to, are responsible for each other’s actions.
Demand Progress is a political action committee and online activist group with more than 400,000 members.
