Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, the Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists, and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet Read Online Free PDF Page A

money, but when the people do not show up, money will always win.
Aaron Swartz
    It was amazing, it was huge, the power of the Internet rose up in force against this bill. And then it passed the committee unanimously.
3. COICA Becomes SOPA and PIPA
Patrick Ruffini
    Two different versions of online censorship passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by unanimous 18-0 votes. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden stood as the Senate’s lone opponent, and was twice able to place a “hold” on the bill, delaying further action. (As revealed in the Judiciary Committee’s vote count, Wyden was not even a member of the relevant committee tackling the issue.) In 2010, Wyden’s hold was accurately described as killing the COICA bill—which had emerged too late that year to pass. When Wyden did the same after the initial Judiciary Committee vote on PIPA in May 2011, the “hold” merely ensured delay. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would still be able to bring the legislation to the floor with a simple motion to proceed.
Ernesto Falcon
    The only reason the full Senate did not pass the bill shortly afterwards was because one courageous senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, stood against the bill from the onset. He understood from the beginning that what was being proposed would fundamentally alter the Internet in a negative way and that it would be unacceptable to the public (once they found out about it, that is). If it was not for his “hold,” then it is likely that PIPA would already be law. Americans owe him, and most importantly his dedicated staff, a lot for their bravery in the face of fierce political pressure.
Dave Dayen
    In November, Sen. Ron Wyden had vowed to place a hold on the bill, but I knew that wouldn’t mean much. “Holds” and other Senate rules don’t matter to leaders when they really want to make the effort to pass the legislation in question. Here’s an example: throughout the first two years of Democratic Senate control in 2007–2008, Republican Tom “Dr. No” Coburn would routinely hold up virtually any spending bill on the grounds that the country’s deficit was too high. In almost every case, the holds got honored, even when the bills held widespread support. Harry Reid didn’t want to take the floor time to beat the filibuster. But in 2008, Democrat Chris Dodd placed a hold on legislation to immunize telecoms from their liability from participating in warrantless wiretapping. Despite Dodd’s longtime tenure, despite the typical practice of honoring holds, despite his own party’s control of the chamber, eventually the Senate took the time and broke Dodd’s filibuster and immunized the telecoms. This seemed like the same thing. If they really wanted SOPA and PIPA, they could break Wyden.
Aaron Swartz
    Now, as you may know, a single senator cannot actually stop a bill by themself. But they can delay it. By objecting to a bill, they can demand that Congress spend a bunch of time debating it before getting it passed. And Sen. Wydendid—he bought us time. A lot of time, as it turned out—his delay held all the way through the end of that session of Congress, so that when the bill came back it had to start all over again. And since they were starting all over again, they decided they might as well give it a new name. And that’s when it began being called PIPA and eventually SOPA.
Larry Downes (author, Unleashing the Killer App
    When SOPA was unveiled in October, the seventy-page draft was worse—far worse—than PIPA, offering a virtual Christmas list of new legal powers and technical remedies for copyright and trademark holders, none of which would have done much to stop infringement even as they rewrote basic rules of digital life.
    In the name of combating rogue foreign websites, SOPA would have allowed law enforcement agencies and private parties to force U. S. ISPs to reroute user requests, force search engines to remove valid links, and require ad networks and payment processors to cut ties with