Sen. Wyden: Online piracy bills would ‘turn websites into web-cops’
Source: Raw Story
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) blasted anti-online piracy bills in the U.S. House and Senate, the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Privacy Act, during an appearance on C-SPAN’s The Communicators on Saturday.
Critics of the bills say they could destroy the fundamental structure of the Internet in the U.S, even while they claim to be aimed at foreign websites hosting infringing content. The legislation takes aim at the Internet’s domain naming system (DNS), which points domain names like www.google.com to numerical Internet protocol (IP) addresses.
“Both of them are essentially using a bunker-buster bomb when what you need is a laser beam,” Wyden said. “Look, there is no question that there are some bad actors out there. There are people who sell tainted Viagra or fake Rolexs or movies they don’t own, and as far as I’m concerned you ought to handcuff them. But these bills go way, way beyond that. And particularly, they do a tremendous amount of damage to the architecture of the Internet.”
“Basically what they do is turn websites into web-cops,” he added. “You’d have websites trying to monitor enormous amounts of data.”
Read more and watch the video at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/02/sen-wyden-online-piracy-bills-would-turn-websites-into-web-cops/