Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is a Democratic

torch-bearer. He is a stalwart

progressive, a reliable vote for an economic agenda aimed at helping people. But at the recent Netroots Nation, it

was what he didn't talk about that was more important.

On Saturday night (June 9) in Providence in his home state,

Whitehouse was literally a torch-bearer.

After the close of the Netroots Nation conference there, Whitehouse took

part in an evening performance of Waterfire, a combination of performance art

with pagan ritual that involves setting fire to wood set in baskets in the

middle of the Providence River to the accompaniment of solemn music with

attendants dressed in black riding in black boats. The centerpiece of the event is Waterplace Park in downtown

Providence, and it was there that the lead boat circled, with Whitehouse in the

bow, holding aloft a flaming torch.

Whitehouse had spent considerable time at the conference

this year, as he did a year ago, speaking from the big stage but also chatting

with conference attendees and with reporters and bloggers, even showing up on a

Sunday morning to greet Netroots attendees who did some community cleanup the day

after the convention ended.

The crowd, generally of the progressive mind-set, likes him,

but are stumped when asked this:

Did you know that Senator Whitehouse, a member of the Judiciary

Committee, supported the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity

and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (aka PIPA), the Senate copyright bill

last year?

A sample of responses to that question: "I didn't know that." "Really?" "I'm surprised." It was, to be sure, the one topic he

didn't bring up voluntarily in discussion in the middle of the crowd of people

who more than likely helped to kill the copyright bills (PIPA and its evil

House cousin, the Stop Online Piracy Act, aka SOPA.)

In an interview, Whitehouse was forthrightly unapologetic

about taking a stand that flies in the face of the Netroots Nation crowd. His priority is to protect

American jobs and support American industry. He said he is worried about the "audio techs and key

grips" and others who can't sell their works if those works are pirated. Whitehouse said his big worry are the

"foreign criminals" who are selling U.S.-made products: "I still have a problem of

criminals in China or Estonia making millions from stolen goods."

Whitehouse said he recognizes now one of the flaws in PIPA

-- the proposed requirement that search engines and Internet Service Providers

direct Web users away from supposed "pirate" sites, basically rewriting the Domain

Name Service (DNS), the phone book of the Internet, an integral part of the

Internet plumbing deleting the objectionable sites. Whitehouse said the bill shouldn't have interfered with the

fundamental operations of the Internet.

Fooling with the DNS system was the "third rail" of the debate, Whitehouse said. He

expected that flaw would be fixed on the Senate floor, had the bill come up for

debate. But, he said the House

version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was "so bad"

and the reaction from the public so intense that the Senate leadership chose

not to bring the bill to the floor.

That fierce reaction left "a big residue" in

Congress, and led to SOPA becoming a verb among the legislative community. To be SOPA'd is to be hit with an

intense public reaction and Senators don't want to be hit with it again.

Whitehouse's solution is pretty much the standard in

Washington. He said that Google,

Facebook and Wikipedia need to "work something out" with the music

and art industries.

Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, also put in a lot of

time at Netroots Nation, talking to conference-goers and meeting with Maryland

residents. He was a co-sponsor of PIPA, but was one of the first to drop off

last January when pressure against the bill was mounting. He said he was

responding to concerns of Marylanders (a push from the Maryland Juice political

blog also helped).

Cardin also told us, as did Whitehouse, that "something

needs to be done" to curb the "piracy." He didn't like the PIPA bill "as written."

So from the standpoint of Whitehouse and Cardin, mainstream

Democrats, we are at a standoff.

Something has to be done, but we aren't sure what, and we don't want to

call down the wrath of Internet activists again. A standoff in this instance is good because the ghosts of

SOPA and PIPA continue to haunt Capitol Hill. Emissaries from Senate and the House are quietly going

around Washington asking tech companies what it would take to "fix"

the legislation next year. The

entertainment industries never give up.

The world view from Whitehouse and Cardin contrasts sharply

with those of two other legislators, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Darrell

Issa (R-CA), two of the heroes of the SOPA/PIPA fight who helped to scuttle the

bills. Wyden has the longer

history in protecting an open Internet, but Issa stood up at a crucial time

this winter against the SOPA bill.

The two spoke at the opening session of the Personal

Democracy Forum (PDF) 2012 conference in New York on June 11. They lauded the citizen activism that brought down the

copyright enforcement bills, with Wyden heaping praise on the elimination of

the "middlemen" -- the lobbyists, reporters, pollsters, etc.

Both legislators said they wanted an Internet/Digital Bill of

Rights. Issa said he wants a right

to "free, uncensored Internet," an open unobstructed Internet." He wanted to "get neutrality right,"

an admirable goal, although he doesn't support the Federal Communications

Commission rules, saying the agency didn't have the authority to proceed. (The matter is in court, and it's likely the FCC will lose.)

And yet, and yet, and yet. There are enormous doses of unreality that invade the

Whitehouse (as opposed to the White House) view of the world, as there are with

the view of Issa and Wyden.

If Whitehouse thinks that the only problem with PIPA was

that it tinkered with the internals of the Internet, he was sadly

mistaken. That was only one

problem. On a Netroots panel,

Steven DeMaura of the conservative Americans for Job Security, said it was the

ability of companies to bring their own law suits that energized his

group. There are many provisions

to which conservatives, progressives, pro-Internet activists of all sorts,

objected.

While Whitehouse and Cardin want to do "something"

on piracy, it's not the sit-down with organizations and companies that will

solve the issue. Even if Wikipedia or Reddit or Tumblr were admitted

to the club, saying that a small group can work out the problem in isolation

won't cut it. A wider, public discussion should take place, starting with an honest assessment of the problem. Whitehouse and Cardin still accept the supposed "harms" of piracy from the entertainment industry -- figures which no one else has been able to replicate or justify.

Neither mentioned anything about the entertainment

industries trying harder to solve their problems by allowing more consumer

access to content. Limiting access to movies or TV shows, or even making it

impossible to see programs or movies online because of arbitrary release dates

hurts the content business. Making some content subject to data caps and other content exempt hurts consumers.

Failing to recognize research that contradicts the old, unproven saws (accepted by government without confirming evidence) about potential losses from piracy and loss of jobs. While entertainment leaders are great at talking about their studies "proving" losses from piracy, they ignore other research showing that downloaders also buy the most music and other content.

From the Wyden/Issa viewpoint, an Internet Bill of Rights is a fine idea. Issa has proposed

some language for one such Bill of Rights, which he said would cover SOPA and

PIPA under the right to an "unobstructed Internet." (Issa in the past has voted for

bills to toughen copyright enforcement, including the Pro-IP Act that increased government

seizure forfeiture authority, which is what the government uses to justify seizing Internet domains.)

Another Bill of Rights-like effort is on Reddit. Others are starting to draft their own

versions. Public Knowledge has an Internet Blueprint. These are all worthwhile endeavors. Even if they remain as intangible principles, there is some public value in having them debated and accepted. As Wyden said at PDF, such a document could be used as a benchmark against which legislation could be measured and he thought perhaps half of the Congress could support it given enough time. That seems optimistic.

The question will be whether such a Bill of Rights to protect Internet users would prohibit the abuses proposed in PIPA and SOPA. The conflict between those values will be a debate worth having, and it will be interesting to see where Congressional Netroots boosters come down when the conflict comes up again next year. Then the Netroots will know who their real friends are.