With a vote on the measures looming, organizations like NY Tech Meetup—the organizers of today's protest—are moving at maximum Mbps and seem to be connecting with Congress; the bills are losing sponsors faster than MySpace is losing users.
"This is the geekiest, most rational protest in the history of New York City," joked Reddit Co-founder Alexis Ohanian of the hundreds of techies, geeks, and coders who gathered outside the midtown offices of Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer to protest the anti-internet piracy bills SOPA and PIPA. "This is the industry that is going to get the economy going again," continued Ohanian. Hands shot up throughout the crowd when he asked, "How many of you out there work for a company that is hiring right now?"
Antonia Abraham of the tech start-up Betaworks expressed her concern with the "potentially crippling" effect the controversial legislation could have on early stage companies. "We shouldn't let people who don't understand what we do legislate how we do it," she said.
Cindy Trinh, a Los Angeles native and recent graduate of Syracuse University College of Law, worried about damage the bills would inflict on her career path as well as her conscience. "I want to work in intellectual property and copyright law," Trinh told us. "These pieces of legislation limit jobs and freedom. Even the FCC said in an opinion that they want to keep the internet open and free. This bill stifles creativity and knowledge. I can't back that."
Michael Carrano, a 22-year-old computer science student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, expressed similar concerns, "Obviously this affects me," he said. "With the job market as it is, I went into tech because it's an industry that has continued to grow and innovate. These bills are so vague. Its scary."
