Vint Cerf tells congress not to pass PIPA or SOPA

Vint Cerf, one of the Fathers of the Internet, signed an open letter to congress.  The letter urges them not to pass the internet protection legislation currently being considered (PIPA and SOPA) by congress and was also signed by 82 other inventors, company founders and engineers.

PIPA, or the Protect IP Act, is designed to protect the IP (Intellectual Property) of individuals and companies from being illegally disseminated via the Internet.  It requires ISPs to police all the sites they host and report sites that may have or are suspected of having other people’s IP present.

PIPA also requires web services companies like Google, Flickr, YouTube and others to monitor what their users store and also monitor what other sites they may link to or even visit.

SOPA, also known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, allows the government to seize domains they suspect of having pirated material present on them.  They can do this without any investigation or even on a hunch that material “may” be present.

SOPA also requires search engines to block searches for sites that the government suspects of illegal activity.

SOPA also makes the streaming of content that has not been authorized a felony.  The problem with this is the language of the bill is that terms are not defined well and you could possibly be charged with a felony for having a link on you blog that points to another blog that happens to post illegal content after you have linked to them.  You could do some hard time in prison because of something that is out of your control.

The main objection to these laws is that they allow the government to seize the sites before a determination as to the legality has been determined.

Vint’s letter concludes: “The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and open Internet, both domestically and abroad. We cannot have a free and open Internet unless its naming and routing systems sit above the political concerns and objectives of any one government or industry. To date, the leading role the US has played in this infrastructure has been fairly uncontroversial because America is seen as a trustworthy arbiter and a neutral bastion of free expression. If the US begins to use its central position in the network for censorship that advances its political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and destructive.

“Senators, Congressmen, we believe the Internet is too important and too valuable to be endangered in this way, and implore you to put these bills aside.”

Do you think PIPA and SOPA give the government too much control?