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Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

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Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#11
post #8
post #6

There are some interesting points here, but the article misses one very, very important constituency (from the President's point of view, at least): the intelligence community. If the law remains as is and outlaws Tor, Obama will have the head of every intelligence agency in his office telling him to veto the bill or put the nation at risk. If the law is amended to allow Tor (as was attempted) and then passes, then h…

Is Tor really that important?

The project was originally started by the Office of Naval Research. Really, it's the perfect vehicle for electronic espionage: hide your tracks as an intelligence agent on an anonymity network primarily occupied by ordinary citizens.

More details here: https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#12
post #3

Throughout his administration, the President has left almost all intellectual property issues up to Vice President Joe Biden Classic. Leave IP issues to the plagiarist.

Plagarist?

Via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden#Early_life_and_educat...

"He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University's College of Law in 1968,[19] where by his own description he found it to be "the biggest bore in the world" and pulled many all-nighters to get by.[15][20] During his first year there, he was accused of having plagiarized 5 of 15 pages of a law review article. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F, which was subsequently dropped from his record.[20] He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.[19]"

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#13
post #3

Throughout his administration, the President has left almost all intellectual property issues up to Vice President Joe Biden Classic. Leave IP issues to the plagiarist.

Plagarist?

Biden was knocked out of contention for the Democratic Nomination in 1988 because he copied a speech delivered by British Politician a year earlier (and even went so far as to fudge his own familly history a bit to make the copied lines work)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign...

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#14
post #8
post #6

There are some interesting points here, but the article misses one very, very important constituency (from the President's point of view, at least): the intelligence community. If the law remains as is and outlaws Tor, Obama will have the head of every intelligence agency in his office telling him to veto the bill or put the nation at risk. If the law is amended to allow Tor (as was attempted) and then passes, then h…

Is Tor really that important?

I think not only Tor, but many other encryption/anonymizing tools will face risk of being outlawed. I can imagine many situations in which the work of intelligence agencies will become more difficult.

Along with that a conundrum will be created, since such tools are used by Chinese citizens to bypass their governmental firewalls, by people in the middle east to bypass similar types of blockages among others, etc.

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#15
post #3

Throughout his administration, the President has left almost all intellectual property issues up to Vice President Joe Biden Classic. Leave IP issues to the plagiarist.

Plagarist?

Biden plagiarized a speech in an earlier campaign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign....

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#16

Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of political candidates, especially those running for higher offices. Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a…

Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as simple as that.

Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up a bunch of their voters?

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as simple as that.

Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up a bunch of their voters?

Start asking around, and find out how many people (outside your circle of informed technical friends) even know that SOPA/PIPA are happening (just their existence/names, not to mention what they are about). (Hint: Not many, in my experience.)

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#18

Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of political candidates, especially those running for higher offices. Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a…

A better phrasing would be:

"A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of challengers of sitting political candidates, especially those running for higher offices."

This gives incumbents yet another way to defend their seat. If an incumbent has any authority over any agency that decides, submits, enforces, or challenges these requests, would it be misused?

We like to think not.. but I think we've seen otherwise.

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#19

Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of political candidates, especially those running for higher offices. Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a…

Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as simple as that.

Yep second that.

Last election he ran on transparency, change and hope.

And as three years went by there was no transparency in billions of dollars (TARP) given to big corporations. Change? yeah sure, for worse. And he does not talk about hope any more, since millions of Americans does no have job and economy is not even getting better.

In this campaign he is all about class warfare, soak the rich taxes. Do we even count him as leader who divides people of the country every day in his speeches?

Make me fool once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Re: Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up a bunch of their voters?

Start asking around, and find out how many people (outside your circle of informed technical friends) even know that SOPA/PIPA are happening (just their existence/names, not to mention what they are about). (Hint: Not many, in my experience.)

I agree.
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