Rep. Paul Ryan warns anti-piracy bill may lead to Internet ‘censorship’

By Stephen C. Webster - RAW Story
Monday, January 9, 2012

One of the most conservative members of Congress signaled on Monday what may be the beginning of the end for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA): Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee and one of the GOP’s frontmen against so-called “job killing regulations,” has officially come out against it.

Taking issue with its potential for abuse, Ryan said that SOPA could actually be a new kind of onerous regulation — the one thing Republicans hate most.

“The Internet is one of the most magnificent expressions of freedom and free enterprise in history,” Ryan explained in a prepared statement. “It should stay that way. While H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, attempts to address a legitimate problem, I believe it creates the precedent and possibility for undue regulation, censorship and legal abuse. I do not support H.R. 3261 in its current form and will oppose the legislation should it come before the full House.”

Ryan’s statement comes days after a group of activists with the social media forum Reddit.com launched a campaign called “Pull Ryan,” in reaction to rumors that he was in favor of SOPA. Ryan later disavowed those rumors and insisted he hadn’t made up his mind.

Ryan is not the only prominent conservative to come out against SOPA. Although the bill was sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and supported by many of his fellow Republicans, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is also opposed.

“As a former tech entrepreneur and patent holder, I know that innovation depends on strong intellectual property rights and robust enforcement tools,” Issa explained to Raw Story in December. “SOPA, however, goes far beyond what is necessary to protect the rights of intellectual property owners from foreign rogue sites. It would put tremendous new regulatory and monitoring burdens on legitimate commerce in the digital space, leave the internet less secure and ultimately handicaps the policies that have allowed digital job creators to flourish.”

He also changed the profile photo on his personal Facebook page to a black box with the word “CENSORED” in the middle, in protest of the bill. Issa has a history working with technology products for automobiles. He is also part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate who’ve proposed an alternative to SOPA, called the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act.

Instead of using the courts to force search engines and ISPs to block websites accused of copyright infringement, as SOPA and Protect IP would, the alternative suggests simply cutting them off from all sources of funding, just like the banks did to WikiLeaks.

The lawmakers would accomplish this by regulating illegal downloads as a matter of international commerce. Doing so, the group of lawmakers hope to see the International Trade Commission (ITC) take charge of combating piracy, instead of judges. The ITC would be tasked with reviewing claims of online infringement against foreign website owners, and ordering them cut off from funding sources if the claims prove true.

It would also set up a rapid-response mechanism for temporary disconnections from funding if an imminent harm can be demonstrated by a copyright holder, such as broadcasters who air live events that are being illegally streamed online.

The House has delayed further hearings on SOPA until later in January, when it’s expected to come up for a vote before the House at-large.

A spokesman for Rep. Ryan did not return a request for comment.

Talks on anti-piracy bill adjourn until 2012

By Stephen C. Webster - RAW News
Friday, December 16, 2011

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Republican behind a controversial piece of legislation that would shut down any website accused of copyright infringement, abruptly adjourned a marathon session of the House Judiciary Committee on Friday as it was considering marking up the bill.

After roughly 14 hours of debate spanning two days, Smith accepted the proposal of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), an opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), who asked the chairman for more time and at least two more hearings so the committee could better understand some of the more technical aspects of the legislation.

The deal came after Chaffetz attempted to amend the bill to delay a provision that would strike websites from the Internet’s central domain naming system (DNS) — a proposal that critics have specifically targeted for fundamentally breaking the structure of the Internet.

When Chaffetz offered to set his amendment aside if Smith would agree to hold hearings on how the rule would affect classified and civilian cyber-security, the chairman agreed.

Although it’s not exactly a victory for opponents of SOPA, it does buy them a little extra time to lobby members of Congress. The next House Judiciary Committee hearing on the anti-piracy legislation will not take place until sometime early next year.

U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill

 (This is outrageous. We impose our laws on activities that might be legal in the rest of the world. Our imperial presence must be vast!--jef)


Radley Balko 10/7/11 Huffington Post

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) -- even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they're carried out. H.R. 313, the "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011," is sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

The law could also potentially affect academics and medical professionals. For example, a U.S. doctor who works with overseas doctors or government officials on needle exchange programs could be subject to criminal prosecution. A U.S. resident who advises someone in another country on how to grow marijuana or how to run a medical marijuana dispensary would also be in violation of the new law, even if medical marijuana is legal in the country where the recipient of the advice resides. If interpreted broadly enough, a prosecutor could possibly even charge doctors, academics and policymakers from contributing their expertise to additional experiments like the drug decriminalization project Portugal, which has successfully reduced drug crime, addiction and overdose deaths.

The Controlled Substances Act also regulates the distribution of prescription drugs, so something as simple as emailing a friend vacationing in Tijuana some suggestions on where to buy prescription medication over the counter could subject a U.S. resident to criminal prosecution. "It could even be something like advising them where to buy cold medicine overseas that they'd have to show I.D. to get here in the U.S.," Piper says.

Civil libertarian attorney and author Harvey Silverglate says the bill raises several concerns. "Just when you think you can't get any more cynical, a bill like this comes along. I mean, it just sounds like an abomination. First, there's no intuitive reason for an American to think that planning an activity that's perfectly legal in another country would have any effect on America," Silverglate says. "So we're getting further away from the common law tradition that laws should be intuitive, and should include a mens rea component. Second, this is just an act of shameless cultural and legal imperialism. It's just outrageous."

Conspiracy laws in general are problematic when applied to the drug war. They give prosecutors extraordinary discretion to charge minor players, such as girlfriends or young siblings, with the crimes committed by major drug distributors. They're also easier convictions to win, and can allow prosecutors to navigate around restrictions like statutes of limitations, so long as the old offense can be loosely linked to a newer one. The Smith bill would expand those powers. Under the Amsterdam wedding scenario, anyone who participated in the planning of the wedding with knowledge of the planned pot purchase would be guilty of conspiracy, even if their particular role was limited to buying flowers or booking the hotel.

The law is a reaction to a 2007 case in which the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals threw out the convictions of two men who planned the transfer of cocaine from a Colombian drug cartel to a Saudi prince for distribution in Europe. Though the men planned the transaction from Miami, the court found that because the cocaine never reached the U.S. and was never intended to reach the U.S., the men hadn't committed any crime against the United States.

But the Smith bill goes farther than necessary to address that outcome in that case. "They could have limited this law to prohibiting the planning of activities that are illegal in the countries where they take place," Piper says. "That would have allowed them to convict the guys in the Miami case. There was an amendment proposed to do that and it was voted down on party lines. They intentionally made sure the bill includes activities that are legal in other countries. Which means this is an attempt to apply U.S. law all over the globe."

It wouldn't be the first time. Over the last several years, a number of executives from online gambling companies have been arrested in U.S. airports and charged with felony violations of U.S. gambling, racketeering and money laundering laws, even though the executives were citizens of and the companies were incorporated in countries where online gambling is legal.

Last May, one U.S. citizen saw how the policy can apply in reverse. Joe Gordon, a native of Thailand who has lived in America for 30 years, was arrested while visiting his native country for violating Thailand's lèse-majesté law, which bans criticism of the Thai royal family. Gordon had posted a link on his blog to a biography of Thailand's king that has been banned in Thailand.

In recent years, officials have also attempted to impose U.S. white collar crime policies on other countries as well, such as pressuring Switzerland to soften its privacy laws to help American officials to catch tax cheats and money launderers.

But Silverglate says the Smith bill breaks new ground. "I'm horrified by the pressure on Switzerland, and that's probably the libertarian in me, but at least there you have an argument that there's an American interest at stake. Here, I don't see any interest other than to a desire to impose our moral and cultural preferences on the rest of the world."

US: The Danger of Indefinite Detention

(Mainstream media not giving this the airtime it deserves, and this surprises whom? Thanks to Thomas for the share. And I agree with Scalia's statement. How weird is that?--jef)

+++++

by Antonio Ginatta - The Hill - June 1, 2011

The House Judiciary committee plans on Thursday to move forward a bill to create a system of indefinite detention for immigrants in the United States. The bill would allow the government to detain deportable immigrants who can’t be sent home for as long as they live.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has described H.R. 1932 as a way to protect “endangered” U.S. citizens from “criminal immigrants.” He did not mention that the bill does away with the constitutional protection against indefinite detention, nor did he mention that the bill very likely violates U.S. obligations under international human rights law.

To understand the scope of Chairman Smith’s bill, take the example of someone who commits a crime and serves a five-year term. If he’s a U.S. citizen, after his prison sentence, he is released into society. If he’s an immigrant, lawfully in the country or not, the U.S. can move to deport him after his five years in prison.

However, if he is a legal immigrant but from a country such as Cuba, with which the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations, he probably cannot be deported. There are a handful of countries around the world with which the U.S. has such constrained diplomatic relations that deportation is very difficult.

What this bill would do is allow the government to lock that person up indefinitely. All it would take is a written certification every six months from the Homeland Security secretary that the detainee is a risk to the community.

So a person who completes his sentence is suddenly subject to a lifetime in detention based purely on the unilateral and unappealable decision of an administration appointee. It gives that official full authority to subject someone to incarceration well beyond the criminal sentence imposed by the judge or jury.

Many other countries have clear rules preventing the indefinite detention of immigrants. The European Court of Human Rights has held that detention of immigrants must end when realistic prospects of deportation do not exist. Argentina limits detention after a final deportation order to 45 days; Brazil says 60 days, after which the detainee must be released under supervision.

Freedom from arbitrary detention, including prolonged indefinite detention, is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. ratified in 1992. Currently, the U.S. is in line with Europe and with countries that do not favor indefinite detention of immigrants after the decision to deport becomes final. Many immigrants in the U.S. spend years in detention before a final order of deportation is issued. Afterward, the detention limit is typically six months, unless deportation is reasonably foreseeable.

Chairman Smith’s bill wants to do away with this six-month limit. He contends that obstinacy by countries like Iran in repatriating detainees requires this draconian change. But it violates the Constitution’s due process clause, which applies to immigrants as well as citizens. He also argues that community safety requires indefinite detention, but there are alternatives to keep our communities safe without wildly expanding the government’s power to lock people up.

What the Judiciary Committee will be debating on Thursday is nothing less than trading core constitutional protections for vague promises of security.


Justice Antonin Scalia stated once that the “very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive.”

This bill gives the president imperial power over the judiciary and the legislature when it comes to locking up immigrants. Congress should reject this bill.