Internet search giant Google, an opponent of the legislation, was pitted alone against five supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) at the three-and-a-half hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
The bill has received the backing of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America, the Business Software Alliance, the US Chamber of Commerce and others.
But it has come under fire from digital rights groups and Internet heavyweights such as Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo!, as well as Google, who say it raises censorship concerns and threatens the very architecture of the Web.
The bill would give the US authorities more tools to crack down on foreign “rogue” websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.“If you can cut off their financial ties they won’t have a reason to be in business anymore,” Oyama said. “If you look at WikiLeaks that is how they’ve been taken out, by cutting off the money.”
As for the bill in its current form, “there is a tremendous concern in the technology community about some of the remedies being proposed and some of the unintended consequences they would have,” she said.
“Casting the net too broadly threatens collateral damage to legitimate businesses and activities online, while letting the rogues wriggle free,” Oyama said.
Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California whose congressional district includes San Jose, home to many leading high-tech companies, expressed displeasure with the composition of the panel and the bill.
“We’ve got six witnesses here,” Lofgren said. “Five are in favor and only one against and that troubles me.
“The point is that search engines are not capable of censoring the entire World Wide Web. We need to go after the people who are committing crimes in a way that would work. This bill would not do that.”
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