New PAC to Defeat Lamar Smith

A political action committee, the Alliance for Internet Freedom, is hoping to defeat Rep. Lamar Smith (R—Inbred) in the Texas Republican primary on May 29th.  This PAC is made up of IT professionals who don’t appreciate Smith’s sponsorship of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

As you probably remember, SOPA — which was defeated last January — would have basically allowed the government to shut down YOUR blog or website if somebody somewhere said they heard from a friend’s coworker’s roommate that you might have unknowingly linked your blog to another site that might possibly have violated somebody’s copyright.  Or something.

If this asshole came up with an abortional idea like the Stop Online Piracy Act, there’s sure to be more harebrained ideas where that came from.  Let’s hope he gets primaried.

A spokesman for the Alliance for Internet Freedom said:

“The Alliance hopes to give a voice to the techies, bloggers, and IT companies nationwide that we can band together and be just as strong as say the ACLU or NRA.  Since our formation we are working on registering political action committees in California, Ohio, Illinois, and Canada.”

In addition to the Alliance for Internet Freedom, there was already another PAC which was also formed specifically to get rid of Lamar Smith — Test PAC, which is made up of a group of Reddit users.

Believe it or not, the Stop Online Piracy Act isn’t even Lamar Smith’s worst idea.  Last year he sponsored the Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011.

(I wrote a post about it at the time.)

This law would make it a federal crime for an American citizen to do something in a foreign country which is LEGAL in that country, if the thing he/she is doing is illegal in the United States.  WTF???

Smoking marijuana in Amsterdam — Busted!  Purchasing a drug over the counter in a foreign country, if that same drug requires a prescription in the U.S. — to the slammer!

Lamar Smith has done enough damage already.  Primary the bastard.  Kill it before it multiplies.  (Figuratively.)

Anonymous, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Protect IP Act

Whatever one thinks of Anonymous and other “hacktivist” organizations, they couldn’t pick a nicer target than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Anonymous attempted to hack the U.S. Chamber’s computer systems last May, with mixed results.  Now they’re planning another attack.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce exists mostly as a money launderer, enabling large corporations and wealthy individuals to make huge anonymous political contributions.  Elections and politicians can be purchased without the public even knowing who the purchaser was.

But now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found another purpose:  lobbying aggressively for the Protect IP Act (also known as the Stopping Online Piracy Act, SOPA).

If you like the idea of people getting fined millions of dollars for downloading music without paying, you’ll love the Protect IP Act.  Using the smokescreen of “stopping online piracy,” the Protect IP Act would give the U.S. government sweeping unprecedented powers for censoring the Internet.

So which is it?  Does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce want a tiny bathtub-size government that lets the Free Market run wild, or do they want a gigantic Orwellian Big Brother controlling everything we do online?

Here’s Anonymous’ description of the Protect IP Act:

“This bill would allow the United States Government to force ISP’s and search engines to censor websites they do not like under the guise of ‘copyright protection.’  Instead of reducing piracy, this bill endangers the free flow of information. Through Domain seizures, ISP blockades, search engine censorship, and the restriction of funding to accused websites, this bill takes Internet censorship to a new level…

“The Internet is a place where anyone and everyone can come together freely to share information and opinions.  The freedom the Internet provides has served us well, and driven our intellectual progress, sparked revolutions and changed the lives of many, all of which has been accomplished without the interference of corporations, governments, or any other global institutions until now.”

Aside from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the only other group that favors the Protect IP Act is the entertainment industry — i.e. those Hollywood Elitists that conservatives are always ranting about.