Republicans Supporting Internet Censorship

You know the Republicans are out of control when you find yourself cheering Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Ron Wyden. The issue is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). It was introduced in the House by Republican Congressman Lemar Smith. It has the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood, and the music industry. Under the mantra of stopping Internet piracy the bill would impose censorship and mandate that Internet service providers block offending web sites. The sites are foreign, in jurisdictions that are not into copyright enforcement, but the burden will be on American Internet providers and allow a federal judge to order any site-foreign or domestic- to be blocked. The basic issue is freedom of the Internet which is supposed be subordinated to the interests of the movie and recording industries. Pelosi and Wyden are not suddenly born again defenders of the first amendment. They too have interests to protect. The battle has come down to a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn have registered their opposition. Yahoo is so angry that it quit the Chamber of Commerce in protest. Oddly this turkey has attracted support from two public sector labor unions, the National Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters. Why cops and firemen care about copyright infringement isn't clear but maybe there is some safety issue connected to downloading a pirated copy Microsoft Office.
Senator Wyden has received over 100,000 signatures and promises to read them all as part of his threatened filibuster when the Senate version of the bill (Protect IP ) is brought to the floor. One study finds that of some 1,900 bills that have been introduced in the Senate, only 18 other bills enjoy the same number of bipartisan cosponsors as Protect IP does. Here are the Republican supporters:
Senators Alexander, Ayotte, Blunt, Boozman, Chambliss, Cochran, Corker, Enzi, Graham, Grassley, Hatch, Isakson, McCain, Risch, Rubio, and Vitter. No one should be surprised to see Lindsy Graham, Orrin Hatch, and John McCain on board but Marco Rubio's appearance is a disappointment. On the House side there are only 24 sponsors. Rep Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is the only Tea Party disappointment.