Senator Marco Rubio has had a change of conscience. The legislation abomination known as PIPA, birthed in part from Rubio’s Floridian law-womb, just officially lost his support. Keep up the pressure, everyone.
Citing “legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the internet,” Rubio says “I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor.”
Good for you — we applaud Rubio’s back-pedalling. Usually we want our representatives to have a staunch backbone. But not when they’re wrong.
So how about it, Senator Reid?
Update: Reid is still in, but Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) — another PIPA co-sponsor — has just announced that he’s withdrawing his support. Keep ‘em coming, people.
Update 2: And another one bites the dust; Senator John Boozman (R-Ar.) will remove his name from the co-sponsors list and has pledged to vote against the bill in its current form. More of this. [Sen. Rubio on Facebook -- Thanks Ryan!]
Andrew
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 7:37 AMGood to see. Your constituents aren’t just media companies with dodgy figures.
chugs
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 9:12 AMi doubt the “people power” has anything to do with this.
This is a battle between old and new media publishing groups.
The Googles and other new wave companies vs the old fuddy duddies between AFACT and co. How much money has google and co spent on advocacy in Washington? What effect does this effort have on democracy?
If Giz would care to read the real subtext I would be very interested to see an article on this (and i might even turn off my adblock just to see it).
Maniacal
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 2:26 PMMaybe he has been caught in an uncompromising position with a prostitute/lover (male/female) and is being blackmailed by some hacktivist group….
Matt L
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 3:57 PMOnce it’s dropped, they’re right “In it’s current form”… They’re going to be looking into this lockdown as the answer for years to come.
Daz
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 1:07 AMThey realize they public has woken up and opposition is growing daily so they can’t get it through the front door, so now they are backtracking and will more than likely try to disguise it to sneak it through the back door so that the public can’t see.
Their Greed will be their undoing in the long run.