COICA(S.3804) - Civil society letter to Senator Leahy

[Konstantinos Komaitis]

Dear friends,

I am not sure whether you are aware of the recent attempt by the United States Government to enact legislation that seeks to combat copyright infringement and the illegal sale of counterfeit goods. Although this is very plausible, the way this new Bill suggests to do that is highly problematic, especially in relation to the protection of free speech and, more importantly, the potential impact that this legislation will have upon the global Internet.

Although there was hope that the Bill will not go through because of the various voices expressing serious concerns over it, it appears that now the Bill is due for markup and passage from the Senate Judiciary Committee later this week (the 19th).  So with all due speed, I think that it would be a great idea for us, a home of global civil society, to express our concerns by sending out a letter.

I have drafted a letter, which so far has myself, Robin and Milton as signatories, and I am sending it to you for your consideration and hopefully support. If you are unfamiliar with the Bill, I am attaching the Manager's amended version. I would also urge you to read Brenden Kuebris blog on COICA (http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2010/10/6/4648186.html), my posts (http://www.komaitis.org/1/post/2010/09/impressed-no-not-really-my-views-on-the-new-online-infringement-and-counterfeits-act.html and http://www.komaitis.org/1/post/2010/10/combating-online-infringement-and-counterfeits-act-coica-continued-part-two.html) David Post's letter (http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/COICALetter.pdf) and also the letter from the Centre of Technology and Democracy (http://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/Leahy_bill_memo.pdf) .

Unfortunately, this letter has to go out as soon as possible and I understand that there might be time issues involved here. So, I would like to make the following suggestion for those of you who wish to sign this letter: i) a 24 hour emergency signature and ii) a deadline until Thursday. The idea is for me to send the letter tomorrow with the 24 hour signatures and resend it on Wednesday or Thursday with the additional signatures.

When adding your names, please use the template that can be found at the very end of the letter.

Again apologies for the short deadlines with this and I hope that we as civil society will show our support against this Bill.

With many thanks

KK

Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,

Law Lecturer,
Director of Postgraduate Instructional Courses
Director of LLM Information Technology and Telecommunications Law
University of Strathclyde,
The Law School,
Graham Hills building,
50 George Street, Glasgow G1 1BA
UK
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
http://www.routledgemedia.com/books/The-Current-State-of-Domain-Name-Regulation-isbn9780415477765
Selected publications: http://hq.ssrn.com/submissions/MyPapers.cfm?partid=501038
Website: www.komaitis.org

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