Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Is Washington Out Of Control, Again

( Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and thirty-one other elected representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties are trying to legislate the internet.

In November they came up with SOPA or HR 3261 as a legislative response to the myriads of phishing, illegal meds, and various other illegal or immoral sites on the internet.  They want businesses to police the net.  They idea is novel but the other parallel here would be Dodd Frank that only added financial firms millions in extra costs. You cannot legislate morality.

Despite the law not being implemented yet (just came up in November right?), things have already happened to one David Rusenko who founded a website hosting business called getting a call from saying that there has been a complaint about his website and his sites will be taken down.  You can read his story here.

After that trouble, he quickly transferred his domains away from GoDaddy.  As did Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales after hearing about GoDaddy’s support for SOPA. Still not sure what Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is?  There is a pretty respectable write up on Wikipedia here.

We really need term limits in the United States Congress as these people are in their positions too long and seem to lose contact with what the people (business people) need in order to pay the representatives salaries (through taxes).