Obama Does Not Support SOPA

With election time just around the corner, the Obama Administration has rightfully come out against SOPA, effectively ending the bill’s tenure.

In a blog post released recently by the White House, the Obama administration has come out against SOPA, the controversial Internet censorship anti-piracy bill that, if passed, would have had the potential to break the internet as we know it. Three of Obama’s advisers, Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra and Howard Schmidt have expressed the viewpoint that the bill would harm legal business and hurt free speech.

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.

This is similar to sentiments shown by the tech community, lead by Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, as the bill could easily lead to legal use. While this effectively ends the life of SOPA, we should not forget about PIPA (Protect IP Act), its sister bill, which is still up for hearing and legislation.

Obama supporting the tech community on this issue not only makes sense logically, but will also likely bolster his chances for reelection, which seem high given the mish-mash of opposition he currently faces. If the support of the Obama administration continues throughout the rest of the legislative process, then this could easily turn into a platform which he can reinvigorate the young voter to his campaign.

Daniel Horowitz has worked as a film technician and teacher assistant at Sarah Lawrence College, despite having little technical knowledge. In fact, he previously did not know how work the copy machin ...read more