Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) Passes the House

US House Resolution 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), was passed by a 410 to 15 vote tonight. If the Resolution becomes law social networking sites and chat rooms must be blocked by schools and libraries on those institutions computers or the will loose their federal internet subsidies. And with a margin as big as that one, one would think it would pass the Senate easily as well.

So, if it passes, what does this mean? Will it be applied to blogs like this one, where you create a login and can describe yourself? Or will they apply it loosely and just block the big sites?

From Techcrunch,

An incredibly vague law, DOPA will require schools and libraries to block access to a potentially huge range of sites on the internet. The goal is to protect children from adult predators. Sites that must be blocked include those that allow people to post profiles, include personal information and allow “communication among users.”

Which would include all blogs, all chat rooms, news sites like News.com, shopping sites like Amazon, all the social sites, not just MySpace, but sites like Digg, Slashdot, Reddit, Facebook, but most of the talk has been about sites like MySpace. So, it makes you wonder, do they REALLY know what they are doing? If you’ve read any of my other posts, like the one from Senator Ted Stevens who is Senate President Pro Tempore, and is also Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, then you know how little some of these people know, and these are the people that are deciding the internet’s future right now, and this during an election year.

From Declan McCullagh at Zdnet,

Fitzpatrick’s re-election campaign is one reason why the Republican leadership, which is worried about retaining their slender House majority, arranged a vote on DOPA. Fitzpatrick, who represents a politically moderate district outside of Philadelphia, has found himself in a tight race against challenger Patrick Murphy, an Iraq War veteran and prosecutor.

Technology lobbying groups, which were taken by surprise by this week’s speedy approval of DOPA in the House, are now scrambling to throw up roadblocks to the measure in the Senate. Some expect that the Senate leadership will hold a vote as early as next week. (Libraries also oppose the measure.)

So the time is short for this one. I would say this one will end up in court, as one commenter on the Techcrunch site said,

U.S. Constitution: First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Social Networking site are just peaceful assemblies. This is against our right to free speech.

Just one argument, and a good one, if you can get them to see that it is an assembly, even if it is one person on a computer at a time.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels July 2006

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