H.R. 1981 Is A Turd Wrapped In Cotton Candy

Ever since the giant internet-wide SOPA protests that went down last Wednesday, people have been celebrating the death of both SOPA and PIPA. During SOPA author Lamar Smith did say that he won’t bring the bill up in committee until “wider agreement on a solution” is reached, the bill is just a zombie requiring a headshot at this hour. In the same fashion, PIPA isn’t 100% dead, nevertheless Harry Reid did postpone action on the bill “in light of recent events.”

Even if we can’t call SOPA and PIPA totally dead, we might be able to safely say that they’re in the main dead. And we can say with confidence that the internet protests had a big impact in those decisions. In all seriousness, just look at how congressional support for the legislation shifted in just one day.

A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of anyway one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information in accordance with subsection(2) of this section.

Requires a provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service to retain for meanwhile 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account unless that address is transmitted by radio communication. Bars any cause of action against a provider for retaining records as required. Makes a good faith reliance on the requirement to retain records a complete defense to a civil action. Expresses the sense of Congress that such records should be stored securely to protect customer privacy and prevent breaches of the records.

One last thing about H.R. 1981 – it’s sponsored by Lamar Smith, who seems hell bent on destroying the internet.

The internet community has shown us anything last week

But if the internet community has shown us anything last week, it’s that buzzing about a topic on social media and bringing attention to something with coordinated protest can as a matter of fact sway the opinions of those in power. Spread the word, sign a petition, call your congressperson. If you want somewhere to start, here’s a list of the 39 cosponsors of the bill.