A congressman has suggested a new proposal should come into fruition in order to temporarily stop the federal government from producing bills and regulations related to the internet.
Recent attempts to regulate the open web in the form of SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA have all been shelved after its failure to be passed in Congress. U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, who was one of the strong supporters against the former two bills, released a draft of the proposed bill in question, titled the "Internet American Moratorium Act 2012", to Project Madison, a crowdsourcing platform.
The bill, if it did pass, it would "create a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet." The Internet American Moratorium Act 2012 discussion draft states:
SEC. 3. It is resolved in the House of Representatives and Senate that they shall not pass any new legislation for a period of 2 years from the date of enactment of this Act that would require individuals or corporations engaged in activities on the Internet to meet additional requirements or activities. After 90 days of passage of this Act no Department or Agency of the United States shall publish new rules or regulations, or finalize or otherwise enforce or give lawful effect to draft rules or regulations affecting the Internet until a period of at least 2 years from the enactment of this legislation has elapsed.
Following the proposed bill being posted to Project Madison, Issa linked the draft bill on Reddit. He said on the aggregation site: "Together, we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet."
"After SOPA and PIPA (the Senate's similar Protect Intellectual Property Act), it became very clear that we needed a cooling-off period to figure out a better way to create policy that impacts Internet users, job creators and all Americans," an unnnamed spokesman for Issa told CNN.
A recent bill, if passed, would have given the feds unprecedented, warantless access to American users' email accounts, as well as other private data such as Google Docs files and Twitter direct messages. Following an uproar, the congressman amended the bill for the second time and reverted it back to serve its original purpose of protecting privacy.
