MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd wants to resurrect SOPA, confirms secret negotiations

Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post
 
Many people thought that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was going to be dead for good after it was protested by millions of Internet users and some of the Web’s largest entities like Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and more.

Unfortunately, Chris Dodd, the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and formerly a long-time Senator and Congressman, wants to bring it back and once again threaten everything that the Internet was built upon.

When asked if there were negotiations currently going on surrounding a revival of SOPA, Dodd said that he was “confident that’s the case.”

However, he wants to keep this out of the public eye and away from the scrutiny it deserves. “I’m not going to go into more detail because, obviously, if I do, it becomes counterproductive,” Dodd said.

While this isn’t a current legislator standing up and demanding that it be brought back on the floor, Dodd is the head of one of the entertainment industry’s most powerful lobbyist groups while also being a man with major connections on Capitol Hill.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dodd says that the legislation now needs to be reworked by a group of people who understand both content and technology and the connections between them.
“There are not a huge number of people who understand that content and technology absolutely need each other,” Dodd said.

Dodd wants people who have a foot in both worlds, like Jeff Skoll, founder of eBay and film producer, along with other “smart and highly respected [individuals] in both communities” to bring both sides together to push for legislation before the upcoming presidential election.

According to Dodd, Obama is on his side and is attempting to bridge the gap between the worlds of content and technology to refocus the legislative efforts which are supposedly aimed at stopping piracy.

Of course, in reality, such anti-piracy operations end up allowing for massive domestic surveillance operations like the one soon to be voluntarily implemented by most major Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Dodd noted that Obama has close relationships in both the technology and content world, adding that he is “confident” that the president is leveraging his connections.

Dodd seems to be advocating the top figures in both the entertainment and technology world to come together to draft legislation behind closed doors while making an end run around the American people, effectively eradicating what little role we still have in the American political system.

The people of the world have consistently said that they want nothing to do with draconian legislation which crushes internet freedoms like SOPA.

Take, for instance, the massive protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Europe.

Unfortunately, here in the United States ACTA has already been signed under our noses without so much as a ceremonial vote in Congress.

Dodd’s behind-closed-doors approach to the legislative process is thoroughly despicable but it seems to have worked out for him in the case of ISPs.

The entire controversy surrounding SOPA and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), SOPA’s sister bill, is a perfect example of just how corrupt and undemocratic America has become.

Remember, GoDaddy openly boasted about having a large role in crafting the legislation (something which later was used against them) and now Dodd is talking about secret negotiations to get SOPA back on the agenda.

Such blatant corruption is thoroughly disturbing, especially since they make absolutely no effort to hide it since many Americans are ignorant either by choice or by design, with the help of the establishment media.

Dodd has claimed that he doesn’t seek to “revisit the events of last winter,” but when he is doing the exact thing which brought about the events, it’s hard to expect a different outcome.

Dodd and his cronies are perfectly exemplifying insanity, as defined by Albert Einstein, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

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RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLE:
Fascism Comes to the Internet: Introducing CISPA

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This article first appeared at End the Lie.