Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

"He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University's College of Law in 1968,[19] where by his own description he found it to be "the biggest bore in the world" and pulled many all-nighters to get by.[15][20] During his first year there, he was accused of having plagiarized 5 of 15 pages of a law review article. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F, which was subsequently dropped from his record.[20] He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.[19]"

TomOfTTB• 15 years ago

Biden was knocked out of contention for the Democratic Nomination in 1988 because he copied a speech delivered by British Politician a year earlier (and even went so far as to fudge his own familly history a bit to make the copied lines work)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign...

kmfrk• 15 years ago

Biden plagiarized a speech in an earlier campaign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_presidential_campaign....

funkah2• 15 years ago

I'm sorry, are you trying to say that this administration is doing too little to protect intellectual property? If you're saying the IP issues are being left to someone who doesn't respect IP, that is the only conclusion I can draw.

Natsu2• 15 years ago

I believe he's accusing them of hypocrisy.

zackzackzack2• 15 years ago

Basis for an effective counterargument: A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times. A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of political candidates, especially those running for higher offices.

Not a particularly strong argument, but I don't think a strong case will win this fight. Many different people from many walks of life need to be angry about SOPA before Obama could walk away from the bill easily with "The people don't want this." Nerds on the internet probably won't convince him alone.

pasbesoin3• 15 years ago

Obama's not running his last campaign. That's done and over with. It's as simple as that.

zackzackzack2• 15 years ago

Who will vote for him then? I am honestly curious. My impression was that young voters (users of the internet) were the key to Obama's success last time. Are the other republican candidates so weak that Obama can just scoop up a bunch of their voters?

functionoid3• 15 years ago

Yep second that.

Last election he ran on transparency, change and hope.

And as three years went by there was no transparency in billions of dollars (TARP) given to big corporations. Change? yeah sure, for worse. And he does not talk about hope any more, since millions of Americans does no have job and economy is not even getting better.

In this campaign he is all about class warfare, soak the rich taxes. Do we even count him as leader who divides people of the country every day in his speeches?

Make me fool once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

caseysoftware• 15 years ago

A better phrasing would be:

"A potential new argument against SOPA would be that it limits the campaigning power of challengers of sitting political candidates, especially those running for higher offices."

This gives incumbents yet another way to defend their seat. If an incumbent has any authority over any agency that decides, submits, enforces, or challenges these requests, would it be misused?

We like to think not.. but I think we've seen otherwise.

nl5• 15 years ago

A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times.

On what basis? The was the controversy over the ownership of the Obama Hope image, but apart from that I' not aware of anything that would have violated SOPA.

Enlighten me, please.

pasbesoin3• 15 years ago

As I've said before, just look at what Joe Biden's been up to.

This post is on the mark. "The Internet's" problem is that it doesn't have anything to hold over Obama's head. Yet.

jballanc2• 15 years ago

There are some interesting points here, but the article misses one very, very important constituency (from the President's point of view, at least): the intelligence community. If the law remains as is and outlaws Tor, Obama will have the head of every intelligence agency in his office telling him to veto the bill or put the nation at risk.

If the law is amended to allow Tor (as was attempted) and then passes, then how long before Tor becomes a household name?

kabdib• 15 years ago

Is Tor really that important?

jballanc2• 15 years ago

The project was originally started by the Office of Naval Research. Really, it's the perfect vehicle for electronic espionage: hide your tracks as an intelligence agent on an anonymity network primarily occupied by ordinary citizens.

More details here: https://www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en#military

flueedo• 15 years ago

I think not only Tor, but many other encryption/anonymizing tools will face risk of being outlawed. I can imagine many situations in which the work of intelligence agencies will become more difficult.

Along with that a conundrum will be created, since such tools are used by Chinese citizens to bypass their governmental firewalls, by people in the middle east to bypass similar types of blockages among others, etc.

nl5• 15 years ago

Tor just isn't that important.

It was a comparatively minor project from a minor agency where it is no longer developed.

Not only that, but Tor is too closely associated with the seedier sides of the internet for any elected politician to stand up for it specifically.

Thinking that the President will override a bill because of a minor thing like Tor is grasping at straws.

scythe• 15 years ago

Well, he wouldn't ever publicly say he's vetoing it to protect Tor -- that would be political suicide, due to all of the CP thereon -- but he might still veto it for that reason, and claim another, cf. Iraq War.

RexRollman3• 15 years ago

I wish you were right but I really don't think Tor would stop the bill. I personally expect that SOPA will eventually pass and then portions of it will get struck down as unconstitutional.

uxp• 15 years ago

> and then portions of it will get struck down as unconstitutional.

This is still a problem. How long has it been since the PATRIOT Act was signed into law (Oct 26, 2001) and how many of it's 325 amendments and 9 additions have been repealed due to judicial decisions noting that they are against the rights granted to US citizens under the constitution or bill of rights?

vectorpush2• 15 years ago

leading into what may be a difficult election year, and dependent on money from Hollywood and unions (the big Democratic funders), this is an easy call.

There is no way that Obama hasn't taken the temperature on SOPA by now. Obama's most vocal liberal base will transform into an internet hate machine to rival the likes of the tea party if SOPA is signed. There is also the Ron Paul crew capturing more and more Democratic voters by the day, a signature on SOPA would be an incredible windfall for them in terms of people who would refuse to vote for Obama out of pure anger.

I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day.

jberryman• 15 years ago

> I don't underestimate the influence of these interests in Washington, but SOPA is really unpopular right now and getting more so by the day.

I think it's really unpopular on HN and on websites with "tech" in the name, but is the general electorate even aware of the issue? I don't see much about SOPA in the MSM (admittedly the last several months have had a lot of news-worthy events).

Natsu2• 15 years ago

The news still seems largely contained to the tech circles, though the GoDaddy story managed to get a lot of press.

vectorpush2• 15 years ago

but is the general electorate even aware of the issue?

I would argue that the tech media is pretty hip these days and not as far removed from the general electorate as you might think, but only time will tell.

RyanMcGreal• 15 years ago

Purely anecdotal, but I have had a number of totally non-technical friends and acquaintances come up to me lately to express concerns about SOPA/PIPA and what it might mean for the internet, the critical importance of which even non-technical people clearly understand.

epscylonb• 15 years ago

I think the argument against SOPA has yet to break out of the tech echo chamber.

To be honest I think SOPA is inevitable, most people won't be able to grasp the level of injustice involved until it is enforced.

anamax• 15 years ago

> Obama's most vocal liberal base will transform into an internet hate machine to rival the likes of the tea party if SOPA is signed.

Unless they're willing to vote for his opponent, and they're not, that doesn't matter.

Politicians are only interested in things that affect votes. Signing SOPA will not lose Obama a single state. However, signing it will give him money to win states.

The Repubs are the ones who are playing this one dumb. They should oppose SOPA and all "protect Hollywood/MPAA" measures because those measures give money to folks who contribute to Dems.

DillonF• 15 years ago

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the issues that are so very important to them are probably just not that important to the president (if he even knows about them at all.) He has a whole world full of things to worry about and only 365 days a year. When something so important to you such as SOPA arrives on his desk, he probably is forced to paint with very broad strokes. Should I be strong on IP, weak on IP? Does my party support it? The specific long term effects that so many of us fear probably don't even cross his mind.

ramblerman• 15 years ago

Give him a "Freedom Of Speech Defender" award. I'm sure it will be as effective as the premature peace prize.

I still believe wholeheartedly that he is a good man, with good intentions. But he lacked the conviction and courage to be a "leader". Instead he focused on reelections from the start. You're the president of the United stated of America ffs! You can get away with a lot more than you think, look at your predecessors.

Would Obama Veto SOPA? Extremely Doubtful

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