Official Veto SOPA Petition Gets 25,000 Signatures in Two Days

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I won't reiterate all the specifics of my objections, but the long and short of it is that the bill would effectively allow the US government to censor sites it believes are distrubting copyrighted content,and also those who LINK to copyrighted content. That latter category includes places like Google, Yahoo, Blogger, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit and my own site, Unreality.

The White House's new "open" government policy allows citizens to create official petitions on its website about certain issues. 25,000 signatures within a month and the issue gets an official review and response from the White House.

In only two days, the Veto SOPA petition has gotten 26,481 signatures. Here's the text in its entirety.

"The more freely information flows; the stronger that society becomes" President Obama (

By allowing free conversation it is so easy to drop a link,

It would be ridiculous for an ISP to block the entire domain on court order because a single user posted a link. It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to copyrighted material are done with permission. This will kill the free flow of information and conversation on the internet.

SOPA is too blunt. Please veto."

Unfortunately, I don't think the internet put forth its most eloquent spokesperson to draft this petition, as judging by the imgur link, it was written by a random Reddit user, but this variant is the one that got all the signatures, and it's the one that should draw a response.

The funny part of this however, and what the author was going for, is that by posting that image link (copyrighted content of Virtual Shackles, stolen and put on imgur) that the site is itself in breach of SOPA, as it is now a site linking to infringing content, no matter that it was a random user that posted it. And that's the whole point.

These petitions haven't exactly gotten the best sort of responses from the White House, as passionate pleas about the legalization of marijuana and such have gotten pretty canned answers along the lines of "it is the policy of this administration that illegal drugs are illegal."

For SOPA however, it's unclear what the White House's position will be. The law is still working its way through Congress, but should it pass, it's anyone's guess what President Obama would do with it. I would like to imagine that he's more technologically literate than most members of Congress, who have wanted to pass the bill out of boredom, and have openly stated they don't use the internet. I assume he would actually consult with all the tech giants strongly opposed to the legislation to find out why they're so passionate about it. In short, should it come down to it, I believe Obama would veto SOPA. I could be wrong , but that's my hope.

When the White House does issue an official response to the petition, I'll have it for you. Until then, keep signing. It can't hurt.

While we're waiting, here's Leah Kauffman (writer/performer of "Obama Girl") with a rather catchy anti-SOPA tune "Firewall."

