Halt PROTECT IP Cloture Vote, Senate Republicans Urge Reid
Senate Republican intellectual property hawks want to keep the PROTECT IP Act from moving on to a cloture vote, they told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Friday. Bowing to pressure from not only critics but also a proposed compromise from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., over the PROTECT IP Act’s provisions, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, also said Friday he was dropping DNS blocking provisions from the House companion Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Smith’s reversal came just hours after his office declined to even recognize Leahy’s offer to strip DNS blocking from PROTECT IP (WID Jan 13 p1).
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"For both substantive and procedural reasons,” consideration of PROTECT IP “is moving too quickly and this [cloture] step may be premature,” Republican senators told Reid in a letter. It was signed by reliable supporters of strong IP provisions and enforcement: Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, John Cornyn of Texas, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. When Senate Judiciary approved the bill last May, “there was a commitment to resolve” substantive issues that had been raised before floor consideration, but that hasn’t happened, they said.
Constituents and other stakeholders have warned that PROTECT IP could have unintended consequences affecting cybersecurity, “damaging the integrity of the Internet,” increasing litigation and “dilution of First Amendment rights,” the letter said. The Senate first needs to hear from the Obama administration and relevant agencies in light of the bill’s cybersecurity implications, and should only proceed “in an informed, deliberative and responsible manner.” PROTECT IP should also get “full and fair consideration” on the Senate floor, with no limits on debate or amendments, the letter said: The Republican senators want a “firm commitment” they can offer amendments “without the filling of the amendment tree” and that cloture won’t be “prematurely filed.” The “amendment tree” refers to the right of the majority leader to choose which amendments get filed. The letter urged that the bill not be taken up for consideration on Jan. 24 as scheduled. Leahy said late Friday his colleagues should vote for cloture Jan. 24, which is “a vote to begin an open date on how to address this issue.”
House Judiciary Chairman Smith agreed to remove a DNS blocking provision from SOPA, he said in a statement Friday. “After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision,” he said. The decision marks a major reversal for Smith, whose office Friday morning declined to comment on Leahy’s offer to remove a similar provision from PROTECT IP.
The removed provision authorized the attorney general to take action to “prevent resolution” of a domain name’s Internet protocol address used by a site that offers “infringing activities.” But cybersecurity experts have said the provision could undermine and interfere with the deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC), an Internet security system that encourages successful resolution of IP addresses (WID Dec 27 p1).
In December House Judiciary postponed the SOPA markup after considering less than half of the proposed amendments to the bill in two marathon markup sessions (WID Dec 19 p1). Committee staff said Smith “hoped to resume [the markup] at the earliest possible date when Congress is back in session,” but would not confirm an exact date.
"This is a great step forward for Internet security,” former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Stewart Baker told us Friday. “The Chairman deserves great credit for listening to the security-minded critics of the bill and for acting to address their concerns.” Baker, now a partner at Steptoe & Johnson, has said that despite the legislation’s goal of blocking foreign infringing sites, easily accessible browser plugins will still make it relatively simple for users to access blocked sites.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., also called the reversal “a step forward” but said Smith’s concession was “insufficient to cure the major defects in the bill that threaten the Internet.” Lofgren, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has been an outspoken opponent of SOPA and PROTECT IP for provisions that she said could have severe implications on First Amendment rights among other concerns.
Critics of the House and Senate IP bills gave faint praise to Leahy and Smith for their proposed changes. Leahy recognized “one of the issues” the Consumer Electronics Association has raised about PROTECT IP, but the group is still wary of the bill’s imposed liability on search engines, a “private right of action,” and the “broad definition” of what constitutes an infringing site, CEA said. It asked the committee to hold a hearing on the bill and for the inclusion of various stakeholders in rewriting the bill. The proposal to remove DNS blocking provisions “validates the criticisms” from opponents like Public Knowledge, the group’s deputy legal director Sherwin Siy said. But “the bills are still overbroad in their reach,” with PROTECT IP in particular allowing court orders against anyone providing a “directory, index, reference, pointer or hypertext link” to infringing content, he said.