It’s Not Over: SOPA’s Chief Sponsor Isn’t Backing Down ~ Pare News

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Even though a co-sponsors of SOPA and PIPA pulled their support for the bills on Wednesday, SOPA’s lead backer says he’s not backing down and “expects to move forward” with the bill next month.

Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the House Judiciary Committee chairman, told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the bill has already accommodated objections by the opposition.

“It’s easy to engage in fear-mongering and it’s easy to raise straw men and red herrings, but if they read the bill they will be reassured,” Smith told the WSJ.

Smith also dismissed charges that the bill amounts to censorship.

“Obviously there’s no censorship in the bill and no one can indicate any censorship whatsoever. It’s not censorship to want to stop illegal activity,” Smith told the publication. “That’s all we do. We’re trying to impede illegal activity by foreign websites.”

Smith was apparently unmoved by a widespread Internet blackout on Wednesday protesting SOPA. Meanwhile, PIPA remains scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Jan. 24.

May 12: PIPA introduced

The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011), better known as PIPA was introduced into the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The act's goals were described by its sponsors as protecting intellectual property and punishing foreign sites who post copyrighted material. If a site was discovered doing so, the U.S. attorney general could order U.S. based Internet service providers, search engines, payment systems and advertising networks to suspend doing business with the website.

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