by Erik Kain on January 14, 2012
Concerns over anti-piracy bills in congress are finally beginning to influence lawmakers. SOPA architect Lamar Smith is, apparently, listening – especially now that the Obama administration is voicing its own concerns over the legislation. In a statement, Smith said he will remove controversial DNS-blocking rules from the bill, though his counterpart in the Senate, Patrick [...]
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by Erik Kain on January 11, 2012
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) showed up at in to issue a stark warning: we’re running out of time to stop legislation aimed at cracking down on copyright infringement. That legislation – the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate – is intended to [...]
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by Erik Kain on December 10, 2011
Nearly every elected official in Congress voted for the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill placing domestic terrorism investigations into the hands of the US Military. We need to elect more politicians willing to vote ‘Nay.’ Over on Google Plus, in a response to this very excellent post by Alex Tabbarok, Jim Henley writes: The [...]
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by Erik Kain on December 5, 2011
If Obama does one thing for the remainder of his presidency let it be a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act – a law recently passed by the Senate which would place domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of [...]
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by Erik Kain on November 28, 2011
Two bills aim to lock down the internet with a host of new government censorship powers. Two bills are moving through the Senate and the House at the moment, aimed at creating a host of new controls and regulations over the internet, and threatening to change the way everybody does business and interacts online. SOPA, [...]
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by Erik Kain on September 26, 2011
It’s funny how history repeats itself. Conor Williams has an excerpt from Michael Kozin’s The Populist Persuasion up at his blog describing the 1896 elections. The echoes of our own time are glaring: During the presidential campaign, the major parties fought, more pointedly than ever before, to control the symbols and definitions of patriotism. The [...]
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