A week or two back, an email was sent to Rep. Austin Scott, who represents Georgia's 8th District in Congress.
The letter you can read here, but finally we got a response.
This is the entirity of the response which came in a 18kb html email (yes, a nasty html-formatted email) *shudder*
It was so bad, that when it was forwarded on, it was flagged as spam by gmail.
January 4, 2012
Dear Withheld,
H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011 and subsequently referred to the House Judiciary Committee. If enacted into law, it would authorize the Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or facilitating copyright infringement. This issue has generated significant support and opposition in recent weeks. Because of this, I am following its progress in the Judiciary Committee closely. While I am not a member of the Judiciary Committee, I look forward to the Committee's findings on this legislation and I will be sure to keep your views in mind should H.R. 3261 be scheduled for a vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to do so in the future. It's an honor to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Georgia.
Sincerely,
Austin Scott
Amazing, all that, and nothing of substance was said. The original email contained more details of the bill, than the response, and the response was all about information ABOUT the bill. Worse, it even got parts wrong. There isn't 'significant' support, there's a few companies and trade associations supporting it, but even those who should know best about the industry situation (artists, software companies etc) are against it. A 'grass roots' effort to drum up support flopped. Perhaps that's why the list of supporters includes people who DON'T support it (and never have), and has shrunk as other companies pull their support.
The one thing that's clear is that there is STRONG opposition to SOPA/PIPA. Over 100,000 have asked for their names to be read out as part of a fillibuster by Sen. Wyden against PIPA. More and more companies are coming out against it.
And while Rep. Scott might be looking forward to the Committee's findings, I think the only think they'll be finding is how much fatter their campaign bank accounts are (or what jobs they're going to get when they're not re-elected). If they were actually interested in the truth, they'd not have had only ONE hearing, with 5 supporters (getting close to half the total supporting companies) and only Google appearing for the hundreds of thousands in opposition. Or maybe they wouldn't be trying to legislate based on sheer ignorance, and making out that stupidity is something to be admired.
Frankly, I think it's a foregone conclusion, it's going to pass the committee, because a bill THIS BAD would have been killed by now if it wasn't going to pass due to a sudden outbreak of honesty, integrity or common sense.
*update*
Just so you know HOW bad this email was, I'll include the html portion below.
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<head ><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" ><title>New Page 3</title ></head> <body> <div align="center"> <table border="2" width="775" bordercolorlight="#151D29" cellspacing="0" bordercolordark="#000000" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td ><div align="center" ><table border="0" width="750" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" ><tr ><td align="left" ><IMG src="http://austinscott.house.gov/images/stories/enews_banner.jpg" width="750"> </TD>
</tr ></table ></div> <div align="center" ><table border="0" width="750" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" ><tr ><td width="750" align="left"> <p align="left"> <p class="Normal-P" style="text-align:center;" ><span class="Normal-H">January 4, 2012</span> </P> <p class="Normal-P" style="text-align:center;" ><span class="Normal-H"> </span> </P>
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><span class="Normal-H">Dear ***********,</span>
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><span class="Normal-H"> </span>
</P> <p class="Normal-P" ><span class="Normal-H">H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011 and subsequently referred to the House Judiciary Committee. If enacted into law, it would authorize the Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or facilitating copyright infringement. This issue has generated significant support and opposition in recent weeks. Because of this, I am following its progress in the Judiciary Committee closely. While I am not a member of the Judiciary Committee, I look forward to the Committee's findings on this legislation and I will be sure to keep your views in mind should H.R. 3261 be scheduled for a vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.</span> </P> <p class="normal-p-P" ><span class="normal-p-H" ><span style="font-size:12pt;" ></span> </span> </P> <p class="normal-p-P" ><span class="normal-p-H" ><span style="font-size:12pt;" ></span ><span class="normal-h1-h1-H" style="font-size:12pt;">Thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to do so in the future. It's an honor to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Georgia.</span ></span>
</P> <p class="Normal-P" ><span class="Normal-H"> </span> </P> <p class="Normal-P" ><span class="Normal-H" ><span style="font-weight:bold;" ></span> </span> </P> <br ><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" Face=Times New Roman>Sincerely,<br> <br ><IMG src="http://austinscott.house.gov/images/stories/Austin_Scott_Sig.JPG"<br>
<br> Austin Scott<br> <br ><A href="https://iqs3.solutions.lmit.com/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=GA08AS&crop=14253.7395454.7062060.9172519&redirect=http%3a%2f%2ftwitter.com%2fAustinScottGA08" ><IMG src="http://austinscott.house.gov/images/sqtwitter.jpg" border=0 ></A > <A href="https://iqs3.solutions.lmit.com/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=GA08AS&crop=14253.7395454.7062060.9172519&redirect=http%3a%2f%2fwww.facebook.com%2fRepAustinScott" ><IMG src="http://austinscott.house.gov/images/sqfacebook.jpg" border=0 ></A >
<A href="https://iqs3.solutions.lmit.com/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=GA08AS&crop=14253.7395454.7062060.9172519&redirect=http%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fRepAustinScott" ><IMG src="http://austinscott.house.gov/images/sqyoutube.jpg" border=0 ></A > <br ></TD> </tr ></table ></div> <br> <div align="center" ><table border="0" width="750" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" ><tr> <td align="center" ><CENTER ><B ><I ><FONT face=Calibri>P.S. To stay up-to-date on this and other important issues from the Eight District and Washington, please sign up for my e-newsletter at-- <A href="https://iqs3.solutions.lmit.com/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=GA08AS&crop=14253.7395454.7062060.9172519&redirect=https%3a%2f%2fforms.house.gov%2faustinscott%2fwebforms%2fenews-form.html"> E-News Updates.</A ></FONT ></CENTER>
</TD> </tr ></table ></div> <div align="center" ><table border="0" width="700" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" ><tr> <td align="center"> <I ><FONT face=Calibri>P.S. Please do not reply to this email. The mailbox is unattended. <br> To share your thoughts with Congressman Scott please go to--<A href="https://iqs3.solutions.lmit.com/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=GA08AS&crop=14253.7395454.7062060.9172519&redirect=https%3a%2f%2fforms.house.gov%2faustinscott%2fwebforms%2fzipauthen_contact.shtml"> Email Me.</A ></FONT>
</TD> </tr ></table ></div> <br ><DIV align=center ><TABLE id=table5 border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="750" ><TBODY ><TR ><TD bgColor=#00005C height=35 colSpan=3 align="center" width="750" ><P align=center ><B ><FONT color=#ffffff face="Trebuchet MS">Contact Information</FONT ></B> </P ></TD>
</TR ><TR ><TD vAlign=top width=350 align=middle ><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt" color=#000000 face=Verdana ><B>Washington DC Office</B ><BR>516 Cannon HOB<BR>Washington, DC 20515<BR>Phone: (202) 225-6531<BR>Fax: (202) 225-3013 </FONT ></TD> <TD vAlign=top width=350 align=middle ><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt" color=#000000 face=Verdana ><B>Tifton GA Office</B ><BR>127-B N. Central Ave.<BR>Tifton, GA 31794<BR>Phone: (229) 396-5175<BR>Fax: 229-396-5179
</FONT ></TD> <TD vAlign=top width=350 align=middle ><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt" color=#000000 face=Verdana ><B>Warner Robins GA Office</B ><BR>230 Margie Dr. Suite 500<BR>Warner Robins, GA 31088<BR>Phone: (478) 971-1776<BR>Fax: 478-971-1778 </FONT ></TD> </TR ></TBODY ></TABLE ></div ></TD> </tr> </table ></div>
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MD Congressman Andy Harris is sending out identical -- verbatim -- responses to the one you received from Austin Scott. Looks like the US House of Representatives employs a BS form-letter response service....
ReplyDeleteThere any chance you can forward this to me? email's up int he contact's section
ReplyDeleteThere any chance you can forward this to me? email address is up in the contact page.
ReplyDeleteThanks.