Met with Nancy Pelosi on SOPA - went well

[Dorothy K. Gordon]

Dear Alex, We need a one-pager African position on it with emphasis on e-commerce. Does it exist or are you writing it? Thanks

Dorothy K. Gordon
Director-General
Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT
Mobile: 233 244 311 348
  BB  : 233 265005712
Direct Line: 233 302 683579
Website: www.aiti-kace.com.gh


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Gakuru" <gakuru at GMAIL.COM>
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Sent: Friday, 13 January, 2012 12:38:48 PM GMT +00:00 Casablanca / Monrovia
Subject: Re: Met with Nancy Pelosi on SOPA - went well

Happy to have provoked an African online journalist based in Somalia
to speak out against SOPA/PIPA:
http://nyakairu.me/why-sopa-will-be-a-tragedy-for-africa/

He adds a new twist to threats ahead re: comments  left at blog posts
that include malicious links to force the shutdown of such sites. I'd
never considered it. The fear would be sufficient to compel all
bloggers to block accepting readers comments.

On 1/13/12, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca> wrote:
> The issues involved are highly complex, I agree with Jorge that the best
> solution is to get rid of all SOPA/PIPA-like bills of law which are
> usually written by politicians' staff at the request of business lobbies
> who themselves seem not to understand all implications.
>
> I strongly recommend the several articles on the technicalities (by
> Vixie and others, besides the experts' manifesto signed by Crocker et
> alia) which you can easily find in the CircleID portal.
>
> fraternal regards
>
> --c.a.
>
> On 01/13/2012 02:01 AM, Jorge Amodio wrote:
>>> Just wondering if some one of you will come up with the same idea I'm
>>> thinking of. And - I do think that we should put something reasonable on
>>> the
>>> table. And I think that the problem can be solved and we can solve it -
>>> before they solve it for us.
>>
>> A substantial amount of smart people have been working for ages around
>> the globe to reduce piracy and overall crime in meatspace, assuming
>> that a complex problem can be  solved just by legislation and not a
>> paradigm and business model change will be a bad start.
>>
>> SOPA's approach is like trying to reduce crime in meatspace by
>> removing the street names from street signs.
>>
>> IMHO there is no simple solution and for sure can't be done just by
>> legislation and law enforcement, much less when the process is biased
>> with campaign contributions.
>>
>> -J
>>
>