In an unexpected victory for those fighting against internet censorship, this past Friday the House Judiciary committee
adjourned without passing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). However, in an equally surprising move, over the weekend the Judiciary committee
scheduled a meeting on Wednesday to resume consideration of SOPA.
House committee members adjourned Friday without voting on SOPA and said they would reconsider the legislation in 2012. Over the weekend, however, House leadership announced that the chamber would be in session on Monday and Tuesday and possibly on Wednesday.
"The ... Stop Online Piracy Act markup will resume on Wednesday at 9am if the House is in session," a spokeswoman said today. "We do not have any additional information at this time."
This raised the possibility that SOPA would pass the Judiciary committee this week anyway.
Fortunately, this new hearing has now been cancelled. In addition to the tweet from Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) at the top of this post, the House Judiciary committee website has confirmed the cancellation:
This is a welcome development, as it means the committee will likely not resume consideration of SOPA until the final week of January, or even later. The Senate version of the bill, known as the Protect IP Act, is
scheduled for a vote on Jan. 24.
Keep taking action against these bills by sending emails to your senators and to your representative in the House. The Daily Kos community has sent over 50,000 emails so far.