Last night’s CNN debate in South Carolina found all four remaining GOP candidates in harmony on one issue at least. They all feel that SOPA is overreaching and needs to be rethought.
Newt Gingrich answered the SOPA question first, saying, “I favor freedom.” He said that there are already tools and avenues of recourse in place to allow copyright holders to sue and stop piracy domestically. Gingrich continued:
“The idea that we’re going to preemptively have the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations’ economic interests strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do.”
Mitt Romney chimed in:
“I think he got it just about right… The law as written is far too intrusive, far too expansive, far too threatening to freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet. It would have a potentially depressing impact on one of the fastest growing industries in America, which is the Internet and all those industries connected to it.”
Ron Paul pointed out that the others were late to the party:
“I was the first Republican to sign on with a host of Democrats to oppose this law… The Republicans, unfortunately, have been on the wrong side of this issue.”
Rick Santorum, while agreeing with everyone else that SOPA goes too far, did have a personal axe to grind.
“The Internet is not a free zone where anybody can do anything they want to do and trample the rights of other people… The idea that ‘anything goes’ on the Internet, where did that come from? Where in America does it say that ‘anything goes’?”
Of course, Rick Santorum has been embroiled in his own personal fight with Google and difficulties on the Internet.