I have been following from a distance the political battle over intellectual property and freedom of the internet, but yesterday something happened that made me sit up and think. There are two bills with the acronyms, SOPA and PIPA, which are being fiercely fought for by the Hollywood Film Studios and their literally thousands of lobbyists loaded with money to grease their passage. And ex Senator Chris Dodd became the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, a lobbying group for the five biggest American film studios. I had had the feeling that the old Senate bull, Dodd, was going over to the dark side during his last days in the Senate, but then Iearned that some of my favorite Democratic Senators and Congress persons, including Barbra Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Al Franken, Pat Leahy and Harry Reid, among others from both parties, were sponsors of these bills, and my head began to spin.
These bills would allow the US Government to protect copyright infringement by blocking entire websites by manipulating the Domain Name Service or DNS system. A letter to Congress from over 100 law professors stated:
"The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system. The Internet's Domain Name System ("DNS") is a foundational building block upon which the Internet has been built and on which its continued functioning critically depends. The Act will have potentially catastrophic consequences for the stability and security of the DNS."
It would essentially give our government the same power as used and abused by the Chinese government to counter political discontents.
I can appreciate the problems with the online piracy of intellectual property but I also believe that the internet is something special in the intellectual evolution of mankind and exemplifies freedom of speech and freedom of thought as it is rapidly binding the entire world into a single sentient being. Paper news media and other forms of non-digital information must learn to adapt to new ways or vanish in the dustbin of history. And media such as movies, books and music, which can be easily digitized must also somehow find new ways to coexist with the chaotic and all-expansive freedom of the internet.
The power of the internet can be seen in the random appearance of "flash mobs" suddenly coming together in Railroad Stations, city streets and monuments to either make a political point or even to sing song, dance or read poetry. And most famously, the internet was mainly responsible for the "Arab Spring" revolutions which deposed and are still deposing long standing dictatorships. China in fact is so worried about the freedom of the internet that it tries to maintain the type of iron grip now being proposed to be given to the US Government, and is overjoyed that the US is considering these bills.
But suddenly on Wednesday of this week, more than 400 web sites routinely used by millions of people world-wide decided to protest against these bills and simply shut down their sites, while providing users with the phone numbers and emails of all their Federal representatives and Senators. The effect was instant and enormous. The phone systems of almost all the congress people almost collapsed from the irate calls and their email systems overflowed with complaints. And suddenly many congress people turned 180 degrees and decided that these bills were in fact bad and should not be pushed. So in spite of all the financial political contributions from the lobbyists and the power of large corporations and powerful friends, our government representatives saw the power of the people and made up excuses not to vote for these bills. This to me was astounding and opened my eyes to a new way to produce political change in our country.
I would argue that this may provide the way to maintain democracy and achieve goals in the political process. I finally can see a way forward to achieve progress on fighting, for example, the most serious problem of our civilization, climate warming. The overwhelming power of the truly millions of people using the internet can clearly do anything. It is true democracy unblemished by Republican filibusters or Tea Party control of the House. For once I am almost an optimist. We can finally stop racism, religious fanaticism, wars and the invasion of our privacy by the State. Our leaders will be beholden to the people if they want to keep their job, and the people will undergo a learning experience beyond belief.
This is a true revolution of the mind.
