This has got to be one of the best anti-SOPA images that I’ve seen so far. Chad Rocco wanted to get the point across that Lamar Smith Can’t Hear You. If you’ve been following the SOPA news, then you know this astounding revelation came from Lamar Smith’s own mouth in a recent interview with Roll Call. Needless to say, netizens aren’t taking this quietly.
Chad elaborates further on the reason why he created this poster: “Meet Lamar Smith, representative from Texas, and Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. As Chairman he can kill any bill he doesn’t like by denying it a hearing while giving priority to the bills he wants to pass, Like SOPA. While addressing the massive outcry over SOPA he stated that: “It’s a vocal minority. Because they’re strident doesn’t mean they’re either legitimate or large in number. One, they need to read the language. Show me the language. There’s nothing they can point to that does what they say it does do. I think their fears are unfounded.” Above is a list of people that have pointed at the language, including law professors and computer experts. You have a civil war among video game companies, and the successful boycott of a company. How do you ignore that? It’s an election year. This November. Whatever happens, Texas, please kick this guy out of office.”
Also, follow some interesting news that Techdirt has been uncovering:
- Senator Lamar Smith caught infringing on photographer’s copyright
- Comcast admits DNS redirects are incompatible with DNSSEC
- Websites censored by Feds take up Lamar Smith’s challenge
- CreativeAmerica copies content to support anti-copying bill
- NBC Universal preferred researcher comes out against SOPA/PIPA
- Co-chair of Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus says SOPA interferes with online security
- ICE propaganda film happy with censorship and promises more
phew…and that was just in the past few days. But we have a couple of pieces of good news: The Nerd will be heard (of course it’s postponed due to a significant change in both SOPA and PIPA, like removal of DNS blocking) and the White House has finally responded to the people’s petitions against censorship in our democracy.
The fight is far from over with SOPA and PIPA, so we have to go on getting the word out until everyone sees what we see and comes up with a better solution to a valid problem that relies on antiquated laws and systems.
