Capitol Hill - Last Friday, during the Vote-O-Rama on the Senate’s FY 2014
Budget Resolution, the Senate voted to approve an amendment
offered by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) regarding the online sales tax issue. Sen. Durbin announced “75 U.S. Senators
showed their support for the Marketplace
Fairness Act of 2013,” and characterized the amendment as “an amendment
summarizing the bill.” Many news reports
seemed to accept this portrayal implicitly, some even stating that the
amendment “mirrors” the Marketplace Fairness Act, or that it was a “vote to
include Marketplace Fairness.”
However, as we stated
earlier this week, the Durbin amendment does not a Marketplace Fairness Act
make.
Internet freedom is
certainly a human rights imperative, but it is also an economic one. Last week, Congresswoman Zoe
Lofgren introduced legislation to combat trade barriers that threaten the
global open Internet. Along with
other Congressional representatives from California, Reps Eshoo, Honda and
Matsui, Lofgren proposes to create a Task Force on the Global Internet that
identifies, prioritizes and develops responses to policies and practices of any
government or international governing body that deny fair market access to
online goods and services or that threaten the technical operation, security
and free flow of global Internet communications.
Throughout its 40-year history, CCIA has aligned itself with
sensible IP and technology policy efforts and has also taken broader stands on
things like human rights and free expression. Often, a case arises that
commingles these interests.
