noteworthy wrote:
It's interesting that advocates of free speech and good Internet governance have adopted the strategy of flooding the opposition with campaign donations as a way of influencing an elected official's position on a pending bill.

There is some irony there, but this is more or less how our system works. I suspect that fundraising in Silicon Valley plays a key role in the fact that some Congressmen have been vocally opposed to SOPA. There is also a limit to what grass roots opponents could do to oppose the campaigns of politicians who support SOPA without spending any money. Even flyering costs money.

I think a lot of people rationalize that individual expenditures are OK but expenditures by corporate entities are not OK. However, that still leaves you with a system where certain economic classes wield a hell of a lot more influence than others.

What is the "right way" to oppose a bill in our system?

Is there a viable alternative course of action for those like Ryan who seek to address the "legitimate problem" of foreign-sourced counterfeit goods?

Yes. I think there are approaches to this problem that would be reasonable.

SOPA and PIPA have two primary provisions.

1. The creation of an internet censorship infrastructure run by DOJ.
2. Domestic payment processors and advertising networks cannot service sites that are dedicated to infringement.

1. The first provision is not acceptable under any circumstances. It has to go. The way you deal with foreign sites is through international collaboration on intellectual property laws. We do tons of this. I'm not sure why we've thrown our hands up on it.

2. The problem with this provision as it was originally written as a total lack of due process. If anyone anywhere made any allegation that a site was "dedicated to infringement" these services providers would have 5 days to stop serving that site. Thats not acceptable. However, if you have a court proceeding with a standard of evidence and consequences for false allegations, I don't see a problem with this.

There is an alternative proposal called the OPEN Act that provides a mechanism for this.

RE: Congressman drops support for SOPA - Boing Boing