US Lawmakers are backpedaling on the Stop Online Piracy Act now being considered by the House of Representatives. The bill's sponsors are, however, refusing to withdraw the measure, which is aimed at sites like Wikileaks, although they will hold it in committee until after the holidays.
According to CNET's FAQ on SOPA, authored by Declan McCullagh:
Some critics have charged that [the bill] could blacklist the next YouTube, Wikipedia, or WikiLeaks. Especially in the case of WikiLeaks, which has posted internal documents not only from governments but also copyrighted documents from U.S. companies and has threatened to post more, it's hard to see how it would not qualify for blacklisting.
Laurence Tribe, a high-profile Harvard law professor and author of a treatise titled American Constitutional Law, has argued that SOPA is unconstitutional because, if enacted, "an entire Web site containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement."