F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA"

Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA" at F2C:Freedom to Connect 2012, Washington DC on May 21 2012.

http://freedom-to-connect.net/

AARON SWARTZ: So, for me, it all started with
a phone call. It was September—not last

year, but the year before that, September
2010. And I got a phone call from my friend

Peter. "Aaron," he said, "there’s an amazing
bill that you have to take a look at." "What

is it?" I said. "It’s called COICA, the
Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeiting

Act." "But, Peter," I said, "I don’t care
about copyright law. Maybe you’re right.

Maybe Hollywood is right. But either way,
what’s the big deal? I’m not going to

waste my life fighting over a little issue
like copyright. Healthcare, financial reform—those

are the issues that I work on, not something
obscure like copyright law." I could hear

Peter grumbling in the background. "Look,
I don’t have time to argue with you," he

said, "but it doesn’t matter for right now,
because this isn’t a bill about copyright."

"It’s not?" "No," he said. "It’s a bill
about the freedom to connect." Now I was listening.

Peter explained what you’ve all probably
long since learned, that this bill would let

the government devise a list of websites that
Americans weren’t allowed to visit. On the

next day, I came up with lots of ways to try
to explain this to people. I said it was a

great firewall of America. I said it was an
Internet black list. I said it was online

censorship. But I think it’s worth taking
a step back, putting aside all the rhetoric

and just thinking for a moment about how radical
this bill really was. Sure, there are lots

of times when the government makes rules about
speech. If you slander a private figure, if

you buy a television ad that lies to people,
if you have a wild party that plays booming

music all night, in all these cases, the government
can come stop you. But this was something

radically different. It wasn’t the government
went to people and asked them to take down

particular material that was illegal; it shut
down whole websites. Essentially, it stopped

Americans from communicating entirely with
certain groups. There’s nothing really like

it in U.S. law. If you play loud music all
night, the government doesn’t slap you with

an order requiring you be mute for the next
couple weeks. They don’t say nobody can

make any more noise inside your house. There’s
a specific complaint, which they ask you to

specifically remedy, and then your life goes
on.

The closest example I could find was a case
where the government was at war with an adult

bookstore. The place kept selling pornography;
the government kept getting the porn declared

illegal. And then, frustrated, they decided
to shut the whole bookstore down. But even

that was eventually declared unconstitutional,
a violation of the First Amendment.

So, you might say, surely COICA would get
declared unconstitutional, as well. But I

knew that the Supreme Court had a blind spot
around the First Amendment, more than anything

else, more than slander or libel, more than
pornography, more even than child pornography.

Their blind spot was copyright. When it came
to copyright, it was like the part of the

justices’ brains shut off, and they just
totally forgot about the First Amendment.

You got the sense that, deep down, they didn’t
even think the First Amendment applied when

copyright was at issue, which means that if
you did want to censor the Internet, if you

wanted to come up with some way that the government
could shut down access to particular websites,

this bill might be the only way to do it.
If it was about pornography, it probably would

get overturned by courts, just like the adult
bookstore case. But if you claimed it was

about copyright, it might just sneak through.

And that was especially terrifying, because,
as you know, because copyright is everywhere.

If you want to shut down WikiLeaks, it’s
a bit of a stretch to claim that you’re

doing it because they have too much pornography,
but it’s not hard at all to claim that WikiLeaks

is violating copyright, because everything
is copyrighted. This speech, you know, the

thing I’m giving right now, these words
are copyrighted. And it’s so easy to accidentally

copy something, so easy, in fact, that the
leading Republican supporter of COICA, Orrin

Hatch, had illegally copied a bunch of code
into his own Senate website. So if even Orrin

Hatch’s Senate website was found to be violating
copyright law, what’s the chance that they

wouldn’t find something they could pin on
any of us?

There’s a battle going on right now, a battle
to define everything that happens on the Internet

in terms of traditional things that the law
understands. Is sharing a video on BitTorrent

like shoplifting from a movie store? Or is
it like loaning a videotape to a friend? Is

reloading a webpage over and over again like
a peaceful virtual sit-in or a violent smashing

of shop windows? Is the freedom to connect
like freedom of speech or like the freedom

to murder?

This bill would be a huge, potentially permanent,
loss. If we lost the ability to communicate

with each other over the Internet, it would
be a change to the Bill of Rights. The freedoms

guaranteed in our Constitution, the freedoms
our country had been built on, would be suddenly

deleted. New technology, instead of bringing
us greater freedom, would have snuffed out

fundamental rights we had always taken for
granted. And I realized that day, talking

to Peter, that I couldn’t let that happen.

But it was going to happen. The bill, COICA,
was introduced on September 20th, 2010, a

Monday, and in the press release heralding
the introduction of this bill, way at the

bottom, it was scheduled for a vote on September
23rd, just three days later. And while, of

course, there had to be a vote—you can’t
pass a bill without a vote—the results of

that vote were already a foregone conclusion,
because if you looked at the introduction

of the law, it wasn’t just introduced by
one rogue eccentric member of Congress; it

was introduced by the chair of the Judiciary
Committee and co-sponsored by nearly all the

other members, Republicans and Democrats.
So, yes, there’d be a vote, but it wouldn’t

be much of a surprise, because nearly everyone
who was voting had signed their name to the

bill before it was even introduced.

Now, I can’t stress how unusual this is.
This is emphatically not how Congress works.

I’m not talking about how Congress should
work, the way you see on Schoolhouse Rock.

I mean, this is not the way Congress actually
works. I mean, I think we all know Congress

is a dead zone of deadlock and dysfunction.
There are months of debates and horse trading

and hearings and stall tactics. I mean, you
know, first you’re supposed to announce

that you’re going to hold hearings on a
problem, and then days of experts talking

about the issue, and then you propose a possible
solution, you bring the experts back for their

thoughts on that, and then other members have
different solutions, and they propose those,

and you spend of bunch of time debating, and
there’s a bunch of trading, they get members

over to your cause. And finally, you spend
hours talking one on one with the different

people in the debate, try and come back with
some sort of compromise, which you hash out

in endless backroom meetings. And then, when
that’s all done, you take that, and you

go through it line by line in public to see
if anyone has any objections or wants to make

any changes. And then you have the vote. It’s
a painful, arduous process. You don’t just

introduce a bill on Monday and then pass it
unanimously a couple days later. That just

doesn’t happen in Congress.

But this time, it was going to happen. And
it wasn’t because there were no disagreements

on the issue. There are always disagreements.
Some senators thought the bill was much too

weak and needed to be stronger: As it was
introduced, the bill only allowed the government

to shut down websites, and these senators,
they wanted any company in the world to have

the power to get a website shut down. Other
senators thought it was a drop too strong.

But somehow, in the kind of thing you never
see in Washington, they had all managed to

put their personal differences aside to come
together and support one bill they were persuaded

they could all live with: a bill that would
censor the Internet. And when I saw this,

I realized: Whoever was behind this was good.

Now, the typical way you make good things
happen in Washington is you find a bunch of

wealthy companies who agree with you. Social
Security didn’t get passed because some

brave politicians decided their good conscience
couldn’t possibly let old people die starving

in the streets. I mean, are you kidding me?
Social Security got passed because John D.

Rockefeller was sick of having to take money
out of his profits to pay for his workers’

pension funds. Why do that, when you can just
let the government take money from the workers?

Now, my point is not that Social Security
is a bad thing—I think it’s fantastic.

It’s just that the way you get the government
to do fantastic things is you find a big company

willing to back them. The problem is, of course,
that big companies aren’t really huge fans

of civil liberties. You know, it’s not that
they’re against them; it’s just there’s

not much money in it.

Now, if you’ve been reading the press, you
probably didn’t hear this part of the story.

As Hollywood has been telling it, the great,
good copyright bill they were pushing was

stopped by the evil Internet companies who
make millions of dollars off of copyright

infringement. But it just—it really wasn’t
true. I mean, I was in there, in the meetings

with the Internet companies—actually probably
all here today. And, you know, if all their

profits depended on copyright infringement,
they would have put a lot more money into

changing copyright law. The fact is, the big
Internet companies, they would do just fine

if this bill passed. I mean, they wouldn’t
be thrilled about it, but I doubt they would

even have a noticeable dip in their stock
price. So they were against it, but they were

against it, like the rest of us, on grounds
primarily of principle. And principle doesn’t

have a lot of money in the budget to spend
on lobbyists. So they were practical about

it. "Look," they said, "this bill is going
to pass. In fact, it’s probably going to

pass unanimously. As much as we try, this
is not a train we’re going to be able to

stop. So, we’re not going to support it—we
couldn’t support it. But in opposition,

let’s just try and make it better." So that
was the strategy: lobby to make the bill better.

They had lists of changes that would make
the bill less obnoxious or less expensive

for them, or whatever. But the fact remained
at the end of the day, it was going to be

a bill that was going to censor the Internet,
and there was nothing we could do to stop

it.

So I did what you always do when you’re
a little guy facing a terrible future with

long odds and little hope of success: I started
an online petition. I called all my friends,

and we stayed up all night setting up a website
for this new group, Demand Progress, with

an online petition opposing this noxious bill,
and I sent it to a few friends. Now, I’ve

done a few online petitions before. I’ve
worked at some of the biggest groups in the

world that do online petitions. I’ve written
a ton of them and read even more. But I’ve

never seen anything like this. Starting from
literally nothing, we went to 10,000 signers,

then 100,000 signers, and then 200,000 signers
and 300,000 signers, in just a couple of weeks.

And it wasn’t just signing a name. We asked
those people to call Congress, to call urgently.

There was a vote coming up this week, in just
a couple days, and we had to stop it. And

at the same time, we told the press about
it, about this incredible online petition

that was taking off. And we met with the staff
of members of Congress and pleaded with them

to withdraw their support for the bill. I
mean, it was amazing. It was huge. The power

of the Internet rose up in force against this
bill. And then it passed unanimously.

Now, to be fair, several of the members gave
nice speeches before casting their vote, and

in their speeches they said their office had
been overwhelmed with comments about the First

Amendment concerns behind this bill, comments
that had them very worried, so worried, in

fact, they weren’t sure that they still
supported the bill. But even though they didn’t

support it, they were going to vote for it
anyway, they said, because they needed to

keep the process moving, and they were sure
any problems that were had with it could be

fixed later. So, I’m going to ask you, does
this sound like Washington, D.C., to you?

Since when do members of Congress vote for
things that they oppose just to keep the process

moving? I mean, whoever was behind this was
good.

And then, suddenly, the process stopped. Senator
Ron Wyden, the Democrat from Oregon, put a

hold on the bill. Giving a speech in which
he called it a nuclear bunker-buster bomb

aimed at the Internet, he announced he would
not allow it to pass without changes. And

as you may know, a single senator can’t
actually stop a bill by themselves, but they

can delay it. By objecting to a bill, they
can demand Congress spend a bunch of time

debating it before getting it passed. And
Senator Wyden did. He bought us time—a lot

of time, as it turned out. His delay held
all the way through the end of that session

of Congress, so that when the bill came back,
it had to start all over again. And since

they were starting all over again, they figured,
why not give it a new name? And that’s when

it began being called PIPA, and eventually
SOPA.

So there was probably a year or two of delay
there. And in retrospect, we used that time

to lay the groundwork for what came later.
But that’s not what it felt like at the

time. At the time, it felt like we were going
around telling people that these bills were

awful, and in return, they told us that they
thought we were crazy. I mean, we were kids

wandering around waving our arms about how
the government was going to censor the Internet.

It does sound a little crazy. You can ask
Larry tomorrow. I was constantly telling him

what was going on, trying to get him involved,
and I’m pretty sure he just thought I was

exaggerating. Even I began to doubt myself.
It was a rough period. But when the bill came

back and started moving again, suddenly all
the work we had done started coming together.

All the folks we talked to about it suddenly
began getting really involved and getting

others involved. Everything started snowballing.
It happened so fast.

I remember there was one week where I was
having dinner with a friend in the technology

industry, and he asked what I worked on, and
I told him about this bill. And he said, "Wow!

You need to tell people about that." And I
just groaned. And then, just a few weeks later,

I remember I was chatting with this cute girl
on the subway, and she wasn’t in technology

at all, but when she heard that I was, she
turned to me very seriously and said, "You

know, we have to stop 'SOAP.'" So, progress,
right?

But, you know, I think that story illustrates
what happened during those couple weeks, because

the reason we won wasn’t because I was working
on it or Reddit was working on it or Google

was working on it or Tumblr or any other particular
person. It was because there was this enormous

mental shift in our industry. Everyone was
thinking of ways they could help, often really

clever, ingenious ways. People made videos.
They made infographics. They started PACs.

They designed ads. They bought billboards.
They wrote news stories. They held meetings.

Everybody saw it as their responsibility to
help. I remember at one point during this

period I held a meeting with a bunch of startups
in New York, trying to encourage everyone

to get involved, and I felt a bit like I was
hosting one of these Clinton Global Initiative

meetings, where I got to turn to every startup
in the—every startup founder in the room

and be like, "What are you going to do? And
what are you going to do?" And everyone was

trying to one-up each other.

If there was one day the shift crystallized,
I think it was the day of the hearings on

SOPA in the House, the day we got that phrase,
"It’s no longer OK not to understand how

the Internet works." There was just something
about watching those clueless members of Congress

debate the bill, watching them insist they
could regulate the Internet and a bunch of

nerds couldn’t possibly stop them. They
really brought it home for people that this

was happening, that Congress was going to
break the Internet, and it just didn’t care.

I remember when this moment first hit me.
I was at an event, and I was talking, and

I got introduced to a U.S. senator, one of
the strongest proponents of the original COICA

bill, in fact. And I asked him why, despite
being such a progressive, despite giving a

speech in favor of civil liberties, why he
was supporting a bill that would censor the

Internet. And, you know, that typical politician
smile he had suddenly faded from his face,

and his eyes started burning this fiery red.
And he started shouting at me, said, "Those

people on the Internet, they think they can
get away with anything! They think they can

just put anything up there, and there’s
nothing we can do to stop them! They put up

everything! They put up our nuclear missiles,
and they just laugh at us! Well, we’re going

to show them! There’s got to be laws on
the Internet! It’s got to be under control!"

Now, as far as I know, nobody has ever put
up the U.S.'s nuclear missiles on the Internet.

I mean, it's not something I’ve heard about.
But that’s sort of the point. He wasn’t

having a rational concern, right? It was this
irrational fear that things were out of control.

Here was this man, a United States senator,
and those people on the Internet, they were

just mocking him. They had to be brought under
control. Things had to be under control. And

I think that was the attitude of Congress.
And just as seeing that fire in that senator’s

eyes scared me, I think those hearings scared
a lot of people. They saw this wasn’t the

attitude of a thoughtful government trying
to resolve trade-offs in order to best represent

its citizens. This was more like the attitude
of a tyrant. And so the citizens fought back.

The wheels came off the bus pretty quickly
after that hearing. First the Republican senators

pulled out, and then the White House issued
a statement opposing the bill, and then the

Democrats, left all alone out there, announced
they were putting the bill on hold so they

could have a few further discussions before
the official vote. And that was when, as hard

as it was for me to believe, after all this,
we had won. The thing that everyone said was

impossible, that some of the biggest companies
in the world had written off as kind of a

pipe dream, had happened. We did it. We won.

And then we started rubbing it in. You all
know what happened next. Wikipedia went black.

Reddit went black. Craigslist went black.
The phone lines on Capitol Hill flat-out melted.

Members of Congress started rushing to issue
statements retracting their support for the

bill that they were promoting just a couple
days ago. And it was just ridiculous. I mean,

there’s a chart from the time that captures
it pretty well. It says something like "January

14th" on one side and has this big, long list
of names supporting the bill, and then just

a few lonely people opposing it; and on the
other side, it says "January 15th," and now

it’s totally reversed—everyone is opposing
it, just a few lonely names still hanging

on in support.

I mean, this really was unprecedented. Don’t
take my word for it, but ask former Senator

Chris Dodd, now the chief lobbyist for Hollywood.
He admitted, after he lost, that he had masterminded

the whole evil plan. And he told The New York
Times he had never seen anything like it during

his many years in Congress. And everyone I’ve
spoken to agrees. The people rose up, and

they caused a sea change in Washington—not
the press, which refused to cover the story—just

coincidentally, their parent companies all
happened to be lobbying for the bill; not

the politicians, who were pretty much unanimously
in favor of it; and not the companies, who

had all but given up trying to stop it and
decided it was inevitable. It was really stopped

by the people, the people themselves. They
killed the bill dead, so dead that when members

of Congress propose something now that even
touches the Internet, they have to give a

long speech beforehand about how it is definitely
not like SOPA; so dead that when you ask congressional

staffers about it, they groan and shake their
heads like it’s all a bad dream they’re

trying really hard to forget; so dead that
it’s kind of hard to believe this story,

hard to remember how close it all came to
actually passing, hard to remember how this

could have gone any other way. But it wasn’t
a dream or a nightmare; it was all very real.

And it will happen again. Sure, it will have
yet another name, and maybe a different excuse,

and probably do its damage in a different
way. But make no mistake: The enemies of the

freedom to connect have not disappeared. The
fire in those politicians’ eyes hasn’t

been put out. There are a lot of people, a
lot of powerful people, who want to clamp

down on the Internet. And to be honest, there
aren’t a whole lot who have a vested interest

in protecting it from all of that. Even some
of the biggest companies, some of the biggest

Internet companies, to put it frankly, would
benefit from a world in which their little

competitors could get censored. We can’t
let that happen.

Now, I’ve told this as a personal story,
partly because I think big stories like this

one are just more interesting at human scale.
The director J.D. Walsh says good stories

should be like the poster for Transformers.
There’s a huge evil robot on the left side

of the poster and a huge, big army on the
right side of the poster. And in the middle,

at the bottom, there’s just a small family
trapped in the middle. Big stories need human

stakes. But mostly, it’s a personal story,
because I didn’t have time to research any

of the other part of it. But that’s kind
of the point. We won this fight because everyone

made themselves the hero of their own story.
Everyone took it as their job to save this

crucial freedom. They threw themselves into
it. They did whatever they could think of

to do. They didn’t stop to ask anyone for
permission. You remember how Hacker News readers

spontaneously organized this boycott of GoDaddy
over their support of SOPA? Nobody told them

they could do that. A few people even thought
it was a bad idea. It didn’t matter. The

senators were right: The Internet really is
out of control. But if we forget that, if

we let Hollywood rewrite the story so it was
just big company Google who stopped the bill,

if we let them persuade us we didn’t actually
make a difference, if we start seeing it as

someone else’s responsibility to do this
work and it’s our job just to go home and

pop some popcorn and curl up on the couch
to watch Transformers, well, then next time

they might just win. Let’s not let that
happen.