SOPA, PIPA, and Kill Switch Bill: Are They Back? Harry Reid to Push for Cyber Security
Late last night Anonymous tweeted that the Senate was trying to sneak in SOPA under a new name, writing: "Le sigh. US Senate Really wants to go another round with the Internet?"
The hacktivist group linked to an RT story detailing Sen. Harry Reid's still secretive plans to float an internet security bill.
Though mass protest -- including a voluntary "blackout" of the web -- prompted Congress to throw out SOPA and PIPA in January, reports suggest that Reid might try to work intellectual property clauses into a new cyber-security bill.
A lot of details about Reid's plans are unconfirmed, but sources have told reporters that the measure would be similar to the Kill Switch bill -- which would grant the president the power to shut down the internet in the event of an emergency.
The wildly unpopular Kill Switch legislation didn't survive the Senate in 2011.
A House bill, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act of 2011 or PrECISE Act -- would also give the the government control over large portions of the interet in the event of a cyber attack. But Reid supposedly does not think it's heavy-handed enough.
(Barack Obama has been pushing for this kind of legislation since at least October.)
Meanwhile, in the rest of the anti-IP world, activists have continued fighting against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which they claim has the potential to deal a death blow to a free web.
Follow Victoria Bekiempis @vicbekiempis.
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