I think one of the reasons flawed legislation like "Protect IP" comes into the picture is because the "Internet" community does not have a technical ruling body like the AMA (American Medical Association). The Congress trying to legislated IP packets is a ridiculous idea. But their trying to legislate medical procedures is an equally ridiculous idea (well, except for the anti-abortion zealots), and for that we have the AMA to thank for. They step in and tell the politicians: stay away from our business; we know what we are doing.
So maybe an association like AMA (American Network Association?) would be beneficial here. Every practicing computer scientist/engineer can join in, and with their membership fees, they would make sure that asinine legislation doesn't see the light of the day.
The main reason the AMA and similar orgs exist is to make more money for the members. The functional result of those bodies is actually a lot like a white collar union.
Computer people would be smart to start something like that -- it would benefit them tremendously. But computer nerds have a slave mentality.
I don't know if they "should get to decide", but as the group tasked sort of "de facto" with implementing the technical controls which result from enforcement, I think you could argue that they should be more involved than being told "hey, we just legislated this, now make the internet comply."
I generally have a bug up my ass about the idea that those capable of doing $X with technology should be the ones to decide when/how we do $X. We don't, by way of example, leave the rules about deploying deadly force up to the best marksmen in the police; or, more reasonably, we don't leave air traffic flight paths entirely up to the air traffic controllers.
But that is generally the attitude we seem to favor with regards to the Internet. It's a sort of "might makes right" setup; "Oh yeah? You want to stop people from violating centuries-old copyright laws? Why don't you design and implement a scalable distributed directory system?" Whether you support copyright or don't (I do), this doesn't seem like a good process for determining policy.
Part of that is just 15+ years spent in software security. The notion seems to be "if it's hard to stop someone from doing $X with technology, we shouldn't make it illegal to do $X". Well, you'd be surprised what it's hard to stop people from doing.
I don't disagree. I think maybe it's partly just "nerd exceptionalism" (which seems to run rampant in discussions with technical people). I like the idea of policies/laws being created with advise from people actually knowledgeable in the effected area, but I don't think that's the same thing as saying that those policies/laws should be drafted by that same special interest.
I like the idea of financial people being advisors in policy-making regarding economics, but also cringe at the thought of them being the ones to draft the legislation.
I'm actually a pretty bad nerd, in that I don't get particularly riled up about issues like this. I also support copyright (self-serving as a working photographer, but also as someone who just doesn't see a problem with the arrangement of paying people who make things I enjoy, and not feeling entitled to disregard the way they want to make those things available).
I also think I'm a dinosaur, and that in another fifteen years, the entire makeup of content creation and distribution will have been gutted by a society that increasingly feels like it's their inalienable right to have access to whatever they want. I hope I'm wrong about that though.
So maybe an association like AMA (American Network Association?) would be beneficial here. Every practicing computer scientist/engineer can join in, and with their membership fees, they would make sure that asinine legislation doesn't see the light of the day.
Just thinking aloud here.