Thursday, January 19, 2012

Hsieh PJM OpEd: SOPA, Guns, and Freedom

The 1/19/2012 edition of PJMedia has just published my OpEd, "SOPA, Guns, and Freedom".

I open with the following question:
Q: What does the proposed SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) legislation have in common with gun control?

A: Both would punish the innocent for the bad acts of a guilty few.
Click through to read more on how this applies to SOPA, gun control, freedom, and limited government.

This piece isn't directly related to health care policy, but I do briefly discuss how ObamaCare is yet another example of this dangerous statist mindset.

For more detailed discussion on how SOPA could have "broken the Internet", technically-minded readers might enjoy Paul Vixie's article from 1/11/2012, "Refusing REFUSED". Because of the intense political pressure from anti-SOPA advocates, some legislators have proposed a modified version of SOPA that they claim will avoid some of these technical problems.

PJMedia also published the following technical analysis on 1/14/2012, "SOPA and PROTECT-IP: A Line-By-Line Analysis of the Bills We Must Kill".

Diana has more links and information about SOPA in her recent webcast on this topic, "SOPA and Online Piracy".

(Note: This OpEd was written the day before the 1/18/2012 "blackout" and subsequent political events.)

Update: Thank you, Instapundit, for the link!