emma rocks

thedailywhat:

Breaking SOPA News of the Day: After Thursday’s 11-hour hearing on over 50 amendments to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, the House Judiciary Committee was expected to approve the sending of the unaltered legislation to the floor.

But, in an optimistic twist, today’s hearing was abruptly adjourned, with the future of the so-called “Internet Blacklist Bill” suddenly less certain.

Despite the act’s supporters in the Judiciary Committee outweighing its skeptics by a margin of nearly two to one, SOPA’s author, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), agreed to consider speaking with cybersecurity expects about the bill’s potential impact.

83 prominent Internet inventors and engineers recently published an open letter to Congress, insisting that both SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA “will risk fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences.”

“NetCoalition is encouraged that Chairman Smith is considering the requests of many on the committee that additional hearings be conducted, particularly on the issue of Internet security, in order that the committee be fully briefed on the potentially serious and negative consequences that the proposed legislation would create,” said NetCoalition executive director Markham Erickson.

Though SOPA proponents’ appear to be softening their steadfastly pro-industry stance on certain issues, it remains likely that an amended SOPA will be approved as soon as the committee reconvenes, which could be as early as next week.

The Senate’s anti-piracy legislation left committee a while ago, and is expected to be voted on early next year.

[thehill / wired / deadline.]

See Also: In case of SOPA, use this list.

I’m terrified.