SOPA/PIPA - A Legislative Litmus Test

The Internet is now the primary tool for the advancement of liberty in the world. Wherever you look, this is glaringly obvious. Here in the US, both the Tea Party and Occupy movements have made extensive use of the Internet. The Arab Spring would not have happened without the Internet. Every day, individuals around the world are using the power of free information exchange over the Internet to escape from, or subvert and replace, coercive factions in their own society.

Those who seek to bring the Internet under the control of government are the enemies of liberty. At worst, they are actively plotting to corral First Amendment freedom of speech through control of the medium. At best, they are useful idiots serving their corporate donors at the expense of basic rights, too ill-informed to be trusted any longer with the reins of power. I wrote of the technique used to promote legislation like this in an earlier essay, and we know that power once abused will be abused again.

The November elections are nine months away. The Internet community came together virtually overnight to defeat SOPA and PIPA. If we fail to do the same to those who supported these bills, we will have only ourselves to blame when they finally sneak equivalent legislation through in the dead of night while our guard is down. A man bitten once by a rabid dog can reasonably blame the dog. If he allows the dog to remain in the House (or Senate) after that, he has only himself to blame for further injuries -- no matter how friendly that mutt seems to be in other circumstances.

With that mission in mind, I suggest those efforts be prioritized for maximum success.

I would recommend beginning with the sponsor of Senate Bill 968, the Protect IP Act of 2011, Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, and the sponsor of House Resolution 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas. These two men have shown themselves to be enemies of liberty and/or dupes to their corporate contributors of the highest order, and need to be removed from office at the first possible opportunity presented by the ballot box. Unfortunately, Vermonters are stuck with Leahy until 2016, unless some serious scandal raises its ugly head, but Smith can be replaced this fall.

Initial co-sponsors of the bills should follow. Again, whether they were aware of the threat to free speech their actions represented, or were simply wheeling and dealing away that right to advance their career, makes little difference. When a man's pocket is picked, it hardly matters if it is done by the master criminal or merely one of his compatriots.

Finally come the late arrivals, those who sponsored the bills later in the legislative process. It's almost guaranteed that these supporters were gained by promises of quid-pro-quo support for their own legislation, rather than from any principled conviction. Perhaps that's a better reason for throwing out the First Amendment than the original sponsors, or perhaps it's worse, that they would sell such a treasure to promote their own particular mess of pottage. That's for you to decide.

Note that I've also included the date of withdrawal of sponsorship, where applicable. Whether that indicates a rat deserting a sinking ship or a principled reaction to a realization of what the bill represents, again, seems to matter little to this Tireless Agorist. In either case, their hands should be removed from the reins of power.

Both tables are sorted based on how quickly these politicians decided to jump on the "sell free speech down the river" bandwagon. Senators whose terms expire in 2012 stand out in the last column.

You can easily use the "Search this page" function in your browser to locate Senators and Representatives from your state who made these lists.

...and that's all I have to say about that.

S.968 - Protect IP Act of 2011 Introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, D-VT 05/12/11 with 11 initial Co-Sponsors
Senate Sponsorship

Senator		Co-sponsored	Withdrew	Term Ends
Patrick Leahy	D-VT	05/12/11		2016
Richard Blumenthal	D-CT	05/12/11		2016
Chris Coons	D-DE	05/12/11		2014
Dianne Feinstein	D-CA	05/12/11		2012
Al Franken	D-MN	05/12/11		2014
Lindsey Graham	R-SC	05/12/11		2014
Charles Grassley	R-IA	05/12/11		2016
Orin Hatch	R-UT	05/12/11	01/23/12	2012
Amy Klobuchar	D-MN	05/12/11		2012
Herbert Kohl	D-WI	05/12/11		2012
Charles Schumer	D-NY	05/12/11		2016
Sheldon Whitehouse	D-RI	05/12/11		2012
Later Sponsors		Sponsored	Withdrew
Roy Blunt	R-MO	05/23/11	01/23/12	2016
Lamar Alexander	R-TN	05/25/11		2014
Kirsten Gillibrand	D-NY	05/26/11		2012
Marco Rubio	R-FL	05/26/11	01/23/12	2016
Kelly Ayotte	R-NH	05/27/11	01/23/12	2016
Bob Corker	R-TN	06/09/11		2012
John Boozman	R-AR	06/15/11	01/23/12	2016
Thad Cochran	R-MS	06/23/11		2014
Jerry Moran	R-KS	06/23/11	06/27/11	2016
Richard Durbin	D-IL	06/30/11		2014
Jeanne Shaheen	D-NH	06/30/11		2014
Kay Hagan	D-NC	07/05/11		2014
Joseph Lieberman	I-CT	07/07/11		2012
Tom Udall	D-NM	07/07/11		2014
Benjamin Cardin	D-MD	07/13/11		2012
Michael Bennett	D-CO	07/25/11	01/23/12	2016
John McCain	R-AZ	07/26/11		2016
Robert Casey	D-PA	09/07/11		2012
Michael Enzi	R-WY	09/07/11		2014
Bill Nelson	D-FL	09/23/11		2012
Tim Johnson	D-SD	10/03/11		2014
Mary Landrieu	D-LA	10/17/11		2014
Jeff Bingaman	D-NM	10/19/11		2012
Sherrod Brown	D-OH	10/20/11		2012
Robert Menendez	D-NJ	10/31/11		2012
Saxby Chambliss	R-CA	11/02/11	01/26/12	2014
John Isakson	R-GA	11/02/11		2016
James Risch	R-ID	11/07/11	01/23/12	2014
David Vitter	R-LA	11/07/11	01/26/12	2016
Barbara Boxer	D-CA	12/12/11		2016

H.R.3261 - Stop Online Piracy Act of 2011 Introduced by Representative Lamar Smith, R-TX 10/26/11 with 11 initial Co-Sponsors
House Sponsorship

Representative		Co-sponsored	Withdrew
Lamar Smith	R-TX(21)	10/26/11
Howard Berman	D-CA(28)	10/26/11
Marsha Blackburn	R-TN(7)	10/26/11
Mary Bono Mack	R-CA(45)	10/26/11
Steven Chabot	R-OH(1)	10/26/11
John Conyers	D-MI(14)	10/26/11
Ted Deutch	D-FL(19)	10/26/11
Elton Gallegly	R-CA(24)	10/26/11
Robert Goodlatte	R-VA(6)	10/26/11
Tim Griffin	R-AR(2)	10/26/11	01/23/12
Dennis Ross	R-FL(12)	10/26/11	01/23/12
Adam Schiff	D-CA(29)	10/26/11
Lee Terry	R-NE(2)	10/26/11	01/18/12
Later Sponsors		Sponsored	Withdrew
Mark Amodei	R-NV(2)	11/03/11
Karen Bass	D-CA(33)	11/03/11
John Carter	R-TX(31)	11/03/11	01/24/12
Peter King	R-NY(3)	11/03/11
Thomas Marino	R-PA(10)	11/03/11
Alan Nunnlee	R-MS(1)	11/03/11
Debbie Wasserman Schultz	D-FL(20)	11/03/11
Melvin Watt	D-NC(12)	11/03/11
John Barrow	D-GA(12)	11/14/11
Ben Lujan	D-NM(3)	11/14/11	01/23/12
William Owens	D-NY(23)	11/14/11
Steve Scalise	R-LA(1)	11/14/11	01/23/12
Judy Chu	D-CA(32)	11/30/11
Tim Holden	D-PA(17)	11/30/11	01/18/12
John Larson	D-CT(1)	11/30/11
Joe Baca	D-CA(43)	12/07/11
Brad Sherman	D-CA(27)	12/07/11
Jim Cooper	D-TN(5)	12/12/11
Ben Quayle	R-AZ(3)	12/13/11	01/17/12