There has been much ado about SOPA and, until last Saturday, it was unclear where the Obama White House stood on the controversial bill. While some commentators hoped that President Obama harbored so powerful “an aversion to any significant changes in the status quo of the internet” that he would veto the bill, others were decidedly less optimistic. In responding to two petitions (garnering over 50,000 signatures each), the Administration has now settled the debate, indicating that the president will veto the bill in its current incarnation.
Given the considerable push that bills like SOPA, the PROTECT IP Act, and the Online Protection and Digital Enforcement Act have received in Congress recently, it is a safe bet to assume that the Senate and the House will pass some kind of bill combating online piracy this year. That said, the White House’s comments on Saturday have made it clear that such a bill will not become law so long as it “[creates] new cybersecurity risks or [disrupts] the underlying architecture of the Internet.” While such a statement is painted in broad strokes, the Obama Administration has thankfully made their meaning clear: “[proposed] laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System….”
The White House clearly feels that creating a DNS “blacklist” is a bad idea, so it is fortuitous that the author of the bill, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), has agreed to drop the provision from SOPA “after consultation with industry groups across the country.” Those industry groups likely echoed the same concerns over security voiced by the White House and others: that any DNS blocking would merely inconvenience pirates as opposed to stopping them, while simultaneously frustrating the adoption of new, improved web security platforms.
"As heartening as it is to hear that the White House is against DNS blocking, it may trouble some that President Obama didn’t treated the due process vagueness issues quite as strongly."
In its statement, the Obama Administration also addressed a number of other problems with the SOPA legislation, though with less definite force than was directed at DNS blocking. One of the serious flaws in SOPA is its apparent disregard for the “basic principles of due process.” Also at issue is the vagueness of SOPA, which currently does little to adequately define offending websites. On these severe shortcomings present in the bill, the White House has stated only that “new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity.” As for SOPA’s potentially negative effects on Internet commerce, the statement goes on to read that “any provision covering… online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.”
As heartening as it is to hear that the White House is against DNS blocking, it may trouble some that President Obama didn’t treated the due process vagueness issues quite as strongly. Indeed, groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have boldly claimed that “this bill cannot be fixed; it must be killed.” While it is true that the Administration was not so overt as to promise to block any version of the bill, staunch SOPA opponents should be happy to read the Administration’s request that “rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here?” This suggestion, along with the announcement of an online Q&A with Administration officials, signifies that the White House is looking for some kind of alternatives to those currently before Congress.
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