Rep Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the principal instigator of the Internet-killing, freedom-hating, pro-censorship Stop Online Piracy Act, has dismissed the bill’s enormous, widespread opposition. Smith claims that the million emails sent to Congress in one day, the phone calls received on the Hill at the rate of one per second, and the opposition from scholars, artists, lawyers, civil rights groups, big companies, little companies, librarians, and the engineers who created the Internet are all irrelevant, representing a “vocal minority” who are not “able to point to any language in the bill that would in any way harm the Internet.”
We’ve done exactly what he’s claimed we haven’t — as have numerous other parties, including famed Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, who also cited specific language in the bill. Ditto with former DHS Assistant Secretary, Stewart Baker, who also cited language from the bill about how SOPA will cause significant security problems for the internet.
(via Beth Pratt)