Crafting and passing legislation in this country is messy business indeed. And that’s when lawmakers are familiar with the subject. When it comes to grappling with high tech issues, politicians seem to venture blindly into the realm of the absurd.
Attendees at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas were given a prime example of this in a panel discussion yesterday optimistically titled “Congress Talks Tech Policy.” A more appropriate title might have been, “Not a Food Fight, But We’re Real Close.”
The panel featured moderator Tucker Carlson, conservative commentator for Fox News and Editor of The Daily Caller, and five Republican members of Congress. Apparently, show credentials for Democratic members must have gotten lost in the mail.
To CES’s credit, the five representatives on yesterday’s panel were no lightweights. They included Rep. Darrell Issa, the powerful Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Cliff Stearns who is leading the investigation into the Solyndra fiasco, and Reps. Marsha Blackburn, Lee Terry and John Shimkus.
The one hour discussion was dominated by the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This proposed legislation would expand the charter of federal law enforcement and copyright holders to patrol the Internet and catch violators of intellectual property law.
Almost immediately, a debate ignited between Blackburn and Issa over whether enforcement of SOPA should rest with the Dept. of Justice and federal courts versus the ITC (International Trade Commission) which Issa prefers. Missing over much of the hour-long discussion was why this legislation is needed at all. Google, Facebook, Zynga, Yahoo and Twitter have all expressed strong opposition.
“John Conyers (a SOPA co-sponsor) should be ashamed of himself with the way they prepared this bill,” said Issa. “Google was ordered to show up for a hearing and was humiliated.”
Issa went on to call Blackburn “flat wrong” on the constitutionality of SOPA and expressed concern that his colleagues who signed on to support the bill may not have known what they were doing. “Dan Lungren (Congressional representative from California) had no idea how really dangerous this bill was for national security,” said Issa.
Carlson gamely tried to move the discussion to other topics, including a proposal by some countries to shift control and oversight of the Internet to the United Nations. Rep. Stearns quickly dismissed the notion of such a move. “It’s not true,” said Stearns flatly.
Lost in all the debate over SOPA during yesterday’s discussion was an intriguing question posed by Rep. Terry: “Is the 1992 Cable Act still meaningful in 2012?” No one else seemed interested in answering. It’s easy to assume that if something as basic as online piracy can tie Congress in knots, taking up a revision to the Cable Act, which organized the cable TV system as we know it today, is right up there with eliminating the national debt and achieving world peace.
As the session ended, Rep. Shimkus closed his remarks by declaring to the CES audience, “Y’all innovate faster than we can regulate.” Given what we saw on display yesterday, maybe that’s not so bad.
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