“Saturday marked a major victory for opponents of proposed anti-piracy legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which would target foreign-based websites violating U.S. copyrights.
House of Representatives bill SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA are designed to target foreign websites that make available, for example, free movies and music without the permission of the U.S. rights holders. Opponents of the bills, however, worry that they would grant the Department of Justice too much regulatory power. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has called the measures "draconian." Other Internet giants who oppose the bill include Facebook, eBay, Mozilla, Twitter, Huffington Post parent company Aol.
The White House on Saturday officially responded to two online petitions, "Stop the E-PARASITE Act" and "Veto the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information," urging the President to reject SOPA and PIPA.
The authors of the White House statement, Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff, said that the White House will not support legislation that disrupts the open standards of the Internet.”…cont…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/14/white-house-sopa-pipa_n_1206347.html