From CBS News: On the one hand, [Obama’s] administration has defended a free, open Internet as it watched repressive regimes fall in the Middle East with help from social media such as Twitter. It has also been a proponent of the concept of “net neutrality,” which prevents Internet service providers from slowing online traffic that comes from file-sharing sites known to trade in pirated content. On the other hand, Obama and other Democrats have gone to Hollywood dozens of times to raise campaign funds over the years.

Here’s a wonderful article by Lawrence Lessig from a while back on the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which prohibited congress from regulating independent campaign expenditures by corporations: Lawrence Lessig, Democracy after Citizens United This is linked off of rootstrikers.org, but I hadn’t read it in detail before. His core argument is great: in key places in their decisions, the justices made statements such as The appearance of influence or access .

I sent this message to Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Senator Diane Feinstein: Representative Pelosi / Senator Boxer / Senator Feinstein: I am writing to express my opposition to the anti-piracy legislation SOPA and PIPA. As a member of a private industrial research lab, my life and work depend critically on a free environment of information on the internet, and I believe this environment would be dangerously infringed by either of these bills.