The government has shifted its focus from the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a treaty which plans to encourage the government to pass legislation against online piracy, which could potentially mean monitoring citizens’ online activity. The government should repeal its signature on ACTA and stop wasting their time trying to regulate the internet.
Barack Obama signed ACTA, which encourages legislation which could potentially impede upon a citizen’s right to internet privacy. The treaty encourages the government to monitor online activity, something they have no business doing. The treaty is unconstitutional and the United States should repeal its signature.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) caused quite a stir in the online community in January. With strong opposition from Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Google, both SOPA and PIPA were shelved by the government.
Both SOPA and PIPA were bills that intended to put a stop to all online piracy of movies and music. The bills planned to do this by shutting down any site which had a link to pirated material.
For example, if there are uploaded videos on Youtube that contain links to any pirated material, under SOPA, that would be grounds for the site to be shut down. On Wednesday, January 18, Wikipedia along with 115,000 other sites shut down for 12 to 24 hours in protest of the acts.
Had the government decided to force these bills through Congress despite the will of the people, many popular sites would be shut down, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
But due to strong opposition from bloggers, well-known websites, and other internet users, the government decided to toss these bills.
“The Internet really flexed their muscles during this fight, and their infrastructure helped them advocate their positions that others don’t have at their disposal.” Michael Beckel, money-in-politics analyst at the Center for Responsive Politics, said in a CNN article.
Despite the government’s decision to shelf both SOPA and PIPA, they are still focused on taking control of the internet with their signature present on ACTA, which is essentially the main reason for the government trying to monitor online activity.
The government should move away from trying to control the internet and focus on bigger issues in our country, such the economy, which is still in a recession. Instead they want to focus on stopping internet piracy for music and movie studios when, in reality, hackers and other internet dwellers are always going to find ways to illegally pirate music and movies.
In addition, the government spent millions of dollars campaigning for these bills in hopes of getting them passed through Congress, according to a January CNN article. Surprisingly, the government did not learn its lesson the first time and is now trying to pass other piracy laws.
The fact of the matter is there is always going to be a way for people to access pirated material online. The internet is such a complex place that people looking to pirate music and movies for personal motives. In essence, the government is trying to fight an issue they will never end up winning.
The government should spend a little less time trying to monitor peoples’ virtual lives and a little more time on issues that are actually important to the country.